Why are British women such shit cooks??

[moondog]

I mix with a lot of different people.
Over the years, the women I know who can cook could be counted on one hand (and my mother and sister are two of those.)

Seriously, people haven't got a fucking clue about even the most basic stuff.On the rare occasion I am even invited to eat in someone else's house it is usually inedible slop.

And yet,the tv has nothing but cookery programmes on it,Gordon Ramsey is a househole name and the bookshops burst with glossy tomes that make the best seller list.

Seriously, any ideas???

nowt like a generalisation is there

if you work f/t, who can be arsed?

dh does the cooking in our house but if he didn't, we would have jacket potatoes and salad on the days I work

LAST thing I want to do is start chopping

and my friend works 50 hours a week and lives on M&S

her child is full of health

Moondog - are your British non-cooking friends very young, inexperienced and lacking in confidence maybe?

Or maybe they're just intimidated by your obvious cooking expertise and thus manage to burn lettuce in your high and mighty judgmental presence?!

ROFL at buring lettuce due to moondog's presence. That would be me.

oh i don't think being a good cook means catering without sweat, baking instead of buying etc etc.

Is n't that nigella lawson? Even nigella uses loads of short cuts. 1950s no more.

I thinkj it just means having a farily broad basic repertoire and being able to think of and cook meals every farkin night without using a load of ready made stuff.

I can't generalise about British women's terrible cooking skills since in my family all the women are amazing cooks .

However, I suspect that British women's lack of cooking skills has got to do with lack of time, not just now, but over the generations. In France, Italy, Spain, Morocco etc middle and upper middle class women have traditionally had (and still have) much more Help in the House, including Kitchen Help, and so there is more time to prepare food. And lower class women were traditionally (less now) the domestic servants doing the cooking.

ah anna, always an alternative perspective

Having more thoughts...

If I have people round for a meal here in Paris, I can get the butcher to prepare the meat ready for roasting in a way that I can't in England - ie I can take him my own stuffing and he'll bone and stuff a veal roast with it, and tie it up far more beautifully than I ever could. I think there are more skilled artisans in France that one can use to save time and produce better food at home.

pointydog - I'll take that as a compliment

I can cook.
Make from scratch, a lovely roast, any sauce, follow any recipe.
My mum can do a dinner party for 15 - soup, fish, beef wellington, baked alaska plus another desert choice - I have never tried to cater for that, but I suspect I could, with good planning.
Ds (3.10) can bake a cake and chop veg for the roast.
I think Moondog needs to find some decent friends and stop making sweeping generalisations.

I think many cookery skills have been lost in England because this was the first industrialized country in Europe. Therefore, while many English women in the XIX century were working outside the house, working class women in Italy (for isntance, as that's my country) were working inside the house and one of their jobs was to cook for the family.
Most of my English friends cook very well, I must say this.
But it is true that the prevalence of supermarkets and ready made food hasn't done much for the quality of the ingredients.

ok - certainly not meant to be the opposite of a compliment

(my vocab has disappeared tonight)

dont know i am Scottish and imo a fabby wee cook

I would say that I do know quite a few (British) friends who are good at cooking, and do care about what they eat, but for every one of those I probably know a couple who think a ready meal or some other processed food is perfectly good, and will live on those type of things most of the time.

Shit in the kitchen great in bed

I have to disagree - my bf is a brilliant cook,as is my mum and my aunt

I come from a family of fabulous cooks.

BB - I misread that as "I come from a family of fabulous crooks"

So did I VVV

Actually, I think it' s younger women that can't cook. Us over 40's were making pastry from scratch and stirring roux sauces from the age of 10. Forced to do 'Food & Nutriton' whilst the boys got to do fun stuff like woodwork

I can cook. And dh is terribly handy, having worked his way through university renovating houses - he can tackle just about anything DIY-wise: wiring, carpentry, knocking down walls, building new ones.

Aren't we just the perfect couple ?

My colleague and I were discussing this issue at lunchtime yesterday. He is a foodie and was lamenting the fact that amongst his friends (all 30 somethings with children) only one other couple did proper home cooked food most nights. The others live off ready meals, pasta and ham etc.

I'm in France and all the friends he was talking about are French.

I think that it is very much a generational thing in the west rather than specifically linked to British culture.

oh well, despite professing my great skills earlier on this thread, we had tea from the chippy tonight (I had to get a flu jab and the kids were starving)