Why can't British people cook, despite all the bloodty cookery programmes, magazines and cookbooks?

[moondog]

Yes, I know one or two MNers will come on all huffy about how fabulous they are at cooking but generally speaking we don't have a bloody clue do we?

I know hundreds of people from all different kinds of backgrounds and could count on one hand those who can put a decent meal together.
Why???

Oh, OK then, perhaps I should disclaim that by saying poor people in Northern climes.

Traditionally root veg and brassicas, with a bit of cheap meat.

Actually I think it is due to the rise in people leaving agricultural work in the Induistrial revolution, where there was nobody at home to cook, and the impoverished factory workers either bought fried food from a stand, or lived on bread and marge and copious amounts of tea. In contrast to this France, Italy et al still had a thriving peasant (not meant in a perjorative sense) class which usually had smallholdings, so ate better than their factory-bound english counterparts.

Yes, both my paternal grandparents grew up in argricultural homes - she as a peasant, he as the son of a rancher.

My maternal grandmother grew up in an orphanage run by nuns, where she was basically trained up to go into domestic service.

And my paternal grandfather's family ran a boarding house, where they grew loads of food on the house's lands and all had to help cook for the men who boarded there.

Ah tamales

We were all pressed into tamale-making service. She used an oval wash tub for the maize to make the dough, there were so many tamales to make!

Mmmm.

My dad's mother and her stacks of tortillas. YUM.

The woman cooked with lard or bacon grease, smoked a clay pipe, carried a flask of whisky in her apron pocket.

Bore 6 children at home, including one in her late 40s, survived a number of illnesses which killed thousands (including Spanish Flu and typhoid), dropped dead at the age of 93.

Gosh, I enjoy the journey more than the destination

Only started really loving cooking after I had the DCs though. Before then it was a bit of a chore. Now I feel that I am nurturing them.

After all, isn't a well-cooked meal for those you love a practical demonstration of your love?

I love cooking, it's one of my favourite things to do and am constantly trying new dishes.

I just started baking this summer as something to keep me busy when I was unwell, didn't bother before as I don't have a sweet tooth.

Very few of my friends cook further than spag bol from a jar though.

In fact my bonkers neighbours pay their Mum to cook for them, because they can't/don't want to/are scared of dirtying the cooker.

I don't get it myself, it's not difficult and you can put a good home cooked meal on the table without spending hours if you aren't that keen on it, or are time poor. A stir fry/pasta dish/salad doesn't take long.

I'm not averse to the odd fishfinger or frozen pizza or takeaway, but generally freezer meals for us are home made as I cook in batches.

And as much as I love cooking, I also love reading cook books when I have absolutely no intention of cooking anything in it.

I can count the number of cakes I have baked in my life (loathe baking), yet still read for pleasure Nigella Lawson cake recipes.

I left home unable to cook anything other than egg and chips type crap.

My gran discovered dolmio when I was about 15 - her spag bol was pasta cooked for about 40 mins, with some cold dolmio sploshed on top. Thanks, gran.

i used to be frightened of cooking, however learned by trial and disaster. It is very difficult when you start out if you have not grown up with the basics. Now, I instinctively know if a chop is cooked, if the pan is hot enough etc. But it takes a while to get there.

I love cooking now, really enjoy it and take pride in cooking something and serving it to my loved ones, however it was a long old slog with some unspeakably digsuting meals on the way!

I thought I hated baking Getorf until I got really stuck into it. I enjoy it now, but don't see it as essential the way I see cooking meals is and probably won't do as much when I start back at work next week

I rarely eat the things I bake but DD and her friends do and I love seeing her face when she comes home from school to a new treat I've baked.

I also read recipe books for pleasure and food blogs. I do use them too, but tend to go for the simpler recipes on a day to day basis.

tried making them with tin foil and my grandmother was horrified. May invest in some proper corn husks.....

expat how do you make your enchilada sauce?

i know people who can cook but don't due to time constraints etc
i can cook, fairly well, find the clearing up an utter bore and hate it.

like trying new recipes and new things.

big maker of soup in winter.

am good at roast meat.. can cook xmas lunch for 20 without breaking a sweat but sometimes just can't be arsed cooking again.

i'd be happy with bread and cheese or a pile of fruit and cheese instead of dinner most evenings

not averse to one freezer meal a week or so

fishfingers and oven chips really quite nice i find

I blame it on the lack of proper baskets.

I mean, in forrin countries you get one of those woven baskets and then you waft around a lovely outdoor market buying colourful fresh produce to make delicious meals with. Very often one is wearing a floppy-brimmed hat.

It's just not the same with a plastic basket that tilts alarmingly to one side, wearing a cagoule because it's bucketing down outside, elbowing aside the masses in Tesco to grab the last processed shepherd's pie.

i think being brought up around food and foodies makes a difference

my grandma was a fantastic cook. the day was wasted if she'd not been up and baked at least 4 cakes and a batch of cookies by 6 am.

cooked for huge swathes of people, without a worry. i often helped/watched her cook from an early age.. my mum also an excellent cook and she and my dad hosted loads of dinner parties , which we were drafted in to help at - slightly traumatic memories of pushing viccysoisse through a sieve at 10pm for some reason -

and you kind of absorb it by osmosis... and if you are brought up to love it and enjoy it, it does help

I have come to detest cooking unless I am cooking for another adult. There is nothing more depressing than placing down a lovingly sourced and prepared meal to have little noses turned up. "Yuk" they say. "I don't like red bits in my food" they say.

And then they will happily skip that meal and wait until the next one in order to not taste it.

But I'm human being, not a slave, I do not want to get up in the middle of the night to make things for people. No, not even if I love those people. They can have a biscuit and lump it!

I can cook, i know many people that can cook well from the cooking indursty.

Oh I don't get up in the middle of the night to cook, sod that, and I'm not a slave to it eother, hence having fishfingers in the freezer or batch cooked meals, and if you batch cook in a slow cooker, as I often do, there's very little effort involved.

Tomorrow I'm doing a couple of curries and sides to go with them, tonight we are having pasta and home made tomato sauce from the freezer.

Both decent home cooked meals, but one requires pretty much no effort!

I don't make enchiladas, ilove, because I detest cheese. :o

I love food and I love cooking. I work full time (nothing to do with cooking), but always cook from scratch. Quite often though it might be (my) bolognaise out of the freezer. Yesterday I was a bit manic and made jam (lots of apples and blackberries in garden), Irish soda bread, meatballs (friends for lunch) and blackberry and apple crumble (see above).

I know a lot of my friends think I am slightly bonkers, but I don't care. I enjoy it.

colditz - I think that is my problem with it too

I love cooking as does dh so we always have home cooked.

I really don't like jars of sauce etc. You can really taste the rubbish like modified corn starch (added to cover up for their not being many real tomatoes in it or whatever)

I'm struggling to think of many i know who can't cook at all, though i know some who lack confidance. But even most of them will employ jars and packets now and then.

I mean pancake mix in a packet that you add egg and milk to. So that's am expensive sachet of self raising you've got there then.

Imo companies are out to make money by flogging convenience shit food. People buy it under the often misguided belief that it is easier and in doing so undermine their own self confidence. Vicious cycle.

And that's the sad thing. If you don't grow up around cooking you don't pick it up.

Often people now seem to have no idea what things are actually ment to taste like, due to eating crap chicken, old carrots, round but flavourless tomatoes etc.

Agree with colditz. It's a complete chore when the first question you're asked when you get in from work is "What's for tea?", "Lovingly prepared food, darling", "Yuk!". And I'm not even particularly hungry at that point so it's all for someone else. Just fuel, albeit prepared from scratch (mostly)

I can cook (very serviceably, not flashly) and this is what puts me off:

stupid tiny galley kitchen with no room to spread out all the vegetables to chop, salad and salad bowl, etc - impossible to whip up nice things fast which means doing 10 things concurrently while your pasta / rice / spuds boil

Horrible little fridge with the door opening the wrong way where you have to crawl on the floor at a nasty angle to find out what is in there - takes away the fun of fridge-browsing and magical-mental-leftovers-recipe dreaming (and you can't pile all the stuff out on the side to think about it - see above)

Slightly fussy veggie DP who likes few things without chillis; non-veggie dd who is too little for very spicy things; too many incompatible tastes

Bored of the whole thing frankly, just want to eat egg on toast and go to bed

i think if you have time to go to your local greengrocer or market, and butchers/fishmongers etc you get better tasting food, often locally sourced/reared but it is more expensive and time consuming

i bought some figs, peaches, cherries, watercress & some vegetable juice and a couple of things including some cherry tomatoes. 3 bags of shopping - £27 !!! yes, it was super tasty and gorgeous and the peaches were a million times tastier than the £1 a punnet from the supermarket, but it is prohibitive in terms of tiem and cash

and people buy what is cheap, easily availabel and under one roof

and while you're under the supermarket roof - you've got all the time saving packets, jars , ready meals etc too

£1 for a frozen curry is more attractive a prospect to a tired commuter than buying chicken, veg, spices and cooking when you get in

and people are busier and don't want to spend half a day of their weekend batch cooking

it is a time thing for sure