So if you are a good cook, how did you learn?

[Kathyis12feethighandbites]

Am just curious nosy really.
Did you teach yourself or couldn't you have learnt without lessons?
Did you absorb it all through watching parents cook or did it take a conscious effort?

"It's easy to be a good cook. Only cook things that you are good at!"

Yes indeed. But part of the skill is to know what you're good at! And, for instance, not do some ridiculously overelaborate and risky dish for a dinner party unless you are confident you can pull it off.

Hetherine, that's a lovely story. As is Flower3554's!

My mum tught me basics.

I tweaked them because, for a fat bird, I am surprisingly particular about food.

I did lessons at school and I do think they were helpful. Prior to that, I watched my dad a lot at weekends in the kitchen - he was a really enthusiastic amateur who was very experimental. We had a funny childhood, foodwise, as he was away working all week so mum would cook faggots and instant mash and meals of that ilk, while dad would come back at weekends and put together cordon bleu dinner parties and make his own confit du canard

My grandma was a domestic science teacher and although I didn't see her very regularly we'd often talk about cooking.

I agree with most - once you've got the basics cracked, and sort of understand about ingredients, you're on your way. DH always seems very impressed when I'm starting a recipe, realise we don't have all the ingredients and start to improvise with what we do have. I guess it's a confidence thing (not saying I'm amazing or anything, especially as we're vegetarian so I have no concept about what to do with meat or fish!).

yes am also poor and greedy.

If I want to eat top quality meals rather than oven fodder, I have to make it myself because I can't afford to buy them. And I have to buy cheap cuts too, so have to learn to treat it right. I hate processed chicken, and oven fodder in general, so my family's idea of chicken and chips involves whole chicken legs and potatoes hacked up and baked in oil. Once they are used to it, they're fine.

A typical meal in this house is beef and barley stew, or roast chicken with vegetables, of steamed fish and peas etc. It'snot haRD, IT'S JUST A LITTLE TRICKIER THAN POURING SOMEING ONTO A TRAY AND EATING IT WHEN IT'S HOT

Didn't learn much at school tbh.
Same as most on here, my Mom, Dad and Grandmother are all good cooks and I can remember helping in the kitchen from a very early age. Was always encouraged to make food myself, follow recipes or just experiment from about age 10 or so.

Do the same now with my DS's. DH's family was the same and he loves to cook. He is also more patient than me with the boys when they all bake

I think it helps that we all LOVE food. And yes, it is far cheaper and tastier to make your own food.

My mum never cooked, and we were brought up on various combinations of things with chips, i.e. beans and chips, sausuage and chips etc etc.

When i bought my first house, I started cooking from scratch. All my own pasta sauces, white sauces, gravies etc. Once you know how to make a decent and appropriate sauce, how to cook meat properly, or put combinations of flavours together, then your a good cook.

This took me a lot of time and experimenting though, even just simply tweaking a recipe id used for ages, can a dish from quite nice to something delicious. An example would be using smoky bacon in carrot and swede mash instead of usual bacon made a lot of difference, so did using apricot jam in bread and butter pudding. Also, once you can cook most things, experimenting with a new dish very week, stops you lapsing into just sticking to the same things. I do have a lot of cookery books, but you cant beat delia for the basics. Gordon Ramsays recipes, although a bit fussy always turn out lovely too. I think an excitement about food and how a recipe is going to turn out is key too. Some people hate cooking, my mother is one of them, and i just cant understand it, i just absolutely love cooking.

Righto, off to cook cardamom and coconut rice now. Sorry, just had to show off

"If I want to eat top quality meals rather than oven fodder, I have to make it myself because I can't afford to buy them"

Yes there's a point at which you basically say to yourself 'If I want to eat properly the only option is to learn to cook it myself.'

trial and error.

I graduated from the Bung-It-In school of cookery.

I've come up with different receipes by chucking stuff together that sounds like it might work and forcing people to try it. If they vomit, I cross it off.

I'm fairly good these days. Yorkshire puds defeat me though

I realised when I was pregnant with dc1 that I was going to be someone's Mum and that I wanted to be the sort of Mum that knew how to cook a bit more than the 3 dishes I could manage well!

A lot of it was trial and error, a few cookery books and talking to MIL. Now I'm a good basic cook, can manage a lot more than 3 dishes! I'm getting to grips with pastry too I'm much better at baking though, really rather good at cake

Mostly cooking with my mum and dad as a child as they always cooked proper meals.
DH cannot cook a thing him and SIL were spoilt and waited on as children and then when they were teens and their dad died MIL cooked less and used more convenience food.
The result being neither can actually cook.

I am failry compitent and often can put things together from my own recipes.
One thing that I also seem to do that I have never really thought about is time well, I have friends who are good cooks food always delicious but fall apart at a big meal or feeding a lot of people due to timing and I think if you can get timings right then that is half the battle anyway.

Do other people set themselves little projects, like learning to cook the perfect roast or Victoria sponge? My projects for this maternity leave are game and puff pastry - I WILL learn to make puff pastry properly!

Heqet For good yorkies, you need plain flour, several eggs and a searingly hot preheated tray.

Lovely answers on here.

We were allowed to make what we wanted if the ingredients were in the house (nearest shop was 5 miles) and as long as we washed up afterwards.

My mother hated cooking. Dinner was always very late. Hunger taught us to cook.

My mother. We learnt to bake cakes, brownies etc from about age 10 and would do it every couple of weeks.

The rest - French cooking plus philosophy of best ingredients and not doing much to it. Simple beans with butter, or rare beef for example or coq au vin, tarte tartin, french onion soup a speciality etc (her mother was French, I always mention this so hope thread won't go french) .

She taught us to sew as well, nostalgic, I hope I have a dd to do the same.

My Mum couldn't cook (or couldn't be arsed)
We got frozen ready meals and lots of sandwiches for tea for roughly 15years. My Dad was a baker and once showed me how to make a trifle - thus endeth the lesson.

In home economics we learned to 'cook', amongst other things, a traffic light sandwich (that's a sandwich with grated carrots, tomatoes and cucumber on it, with small circles cut out of the bread - making it look like traffic lights helpful. Can't see me winning Come Dine With Me with that one !) and a cheese and pepperoni toastie.

When I was 11/12 I started sneaking into the living room after everyone had gone to bed and sat up late watching Keith Floyd and others on a cooking channel. Scribbling furiously away in my 'recipe book'

When I moved out of my parents and into my partner's I couldn't cook as i had never been allowed to try any of the recipes I had seen on telly.

My Partner knew how to make stews, soup and macaroni cheese that hadn't come out of a plastic dish that had been in the oven for 30mins.He was taught by his step mother and he taken on board all the tips she used herself.

I finally got to use recipes I had learned from the telly. I made roast chicken, yorkshire puddings, white sauce, a basic tomato sauce, eggs benedict, casseroles, cakes and biscuits etc etc. It was heaven.

Now when I want ot learn a new recipe, i look it up online. I do have recipe books up in the loft and will have to get them into the kitchen at some point.

I like to cook, but i think I love watching other folk cook more.

"When I was 11/12 I started sneaking into the living room after everyone had gone to bed and sat up late watching Keith Floyd and others on a cooking channel. Scribbling furiously away in my 'recipe book'"

Another brilliant story
ROFL @ traffic light sandwich.

I'm sure knowing how to construct a traffic light sandwich is a very good thing for One to have in One's repertoire

You could get a job at the cafe in Big Cook Little Cook for a start.

'You could get a job at the cafe in Big Cook Little Cook for a start.'

I have just realised my Life's Dream.

I would definitely be replacing Little Cook - he can't cook worth shit. He most certainly cannot have the time, dedication and technocal know-how to rustle up a simply devine Traffic Light Sandwich.

May have got a little carried away now.....

He's also too small to lift the bread.

My mum was a good cook, as was my grandmother. I cant remember them actually teaching me anything, but i sort of just knew from watching them iyswim.

I didnt really get into food until i was married and about 23 though. From then on i learnt from books, tv, foodie friends... butchers, farm shops etc....

I would say im pretty good.

Helps that i love it!

Not from mum, that's for sure (think grey stews done in pressure cooker, spaghetti-the long stuff- in a lump, mince stew with 4 year old curry powder...)

Home Economics lessons at school (what a bizarre title for it, nnow I look at it) and a determination not to be as bad as my mother.

And then I married a chef. I've cooked for chefs from Top London Restaurants (as they say) and have had nice compliments.

I've divorced the chef but kept the culinary repertoire.

I was rubbish at school - couldn't get the hang of the recipes we were taught in Domestic Science (Victoria Sponge discus anyone?).

When I got to university I got sick of only ever eatoing beans on toast or pasta with gunk (tinned toms and veg) so I bought Delia and learnt how to follow recipes.

From there, with lots of practice and using all different kinds of recipe books, I learnt what kind of things go together and now have no problems rustling something up from a series of random ingredients (a la the Masterchef invention test).

I was rubbish at school too. Have never forgotten the C minus I got for my fairy cakes
Actually they were yummy but I was marked down because I'd put too much sugar in and they ended up with crisp white tops instead of the colour they were meant to be. They were, in fact, better my way but the teacher was not convinced.

I'm an OK cook. I learned through being the eldest of four and having to cook dinner most weekday nights in term time. And absorbing stuff from watching my mother while resolving never to make liver and beetroot soup or bananas wrapped in bacon in a cheese sauce.