Did a parent or grandparent teach you to cook before you left home?

Hearing stories at the weekend from my kids ,about people they have met at Uni that really struggle with any simple cooking. No one expects students to be rustling up a full 3 course haute cuisine spectacular,but some of these kids sounded like they didn’t have a clue and thought our two should be on masterchef 🙄
So,did you get sent out in to the world with much cooking skills?

Nope, nothing (Unless rice crispy cakes counts). Seemed pretty standard at the time judging by the number of super noodles and oven chips being eaten

Lots – always cooked with my mum. Just what we did.

Our daughter is the same (13), and can make a cracking loaf. She’s bleedin’ messy though, uses every utensil in the kitchen!

Yes.

yes. Mum taught me to cook.

I now cook everyday, proper meals, from scratch. Occasionally buy chinese sauces or indian spice mixes, but otherwise no pre-prepared stuff.

Rouxs and sauces, breads, pastry and pies*, lasagnes and macaroni cheeses stews/casseroles/roasts and fish. All from mum’s recipes. Stoners Jr are starting to learn the basics. IMO it’s the key to healthy eating: know what you’re eating by making it yourself.

* real pies without solid lumps of pastry around the base and sides I’ll have you know 😉

Not really tbh, but I soon realised after getting my own place that chicken ding dinners weren’t for me, so I started cooking myself.

I suppose you’re either a lazy bastard or you’re not really.

yes, my mum taught me to iron as well.

I’m lucky (?) enough to have gone to a couple of schools where Home Economics was actually a proper subject, cooking is easy and i can even sew and iron………. bloody useless at both.

Mum taught me to knit for some reason and my Dad taught me how to split any piece of wood by simply laying a tool on it.

A useful skill.

nope , learnt my self.

mother cooked with salt and the fryer….. i wasnt doing that – and to this day we still have never owned a deep fat fryer.

I picked a lot up off my mam, but learned a lot more just ‘experimenting’. I am trying to get the large boy to level beyond pot noodles and oven chips, but he doesnt exactly show willing 🙂

partly self taught with help from my mum. I think i realised that I would arrive in halls and have to cook; properly and cheaply. so started learning from ~ 16.

When i moved in there was a girl who cooked pasta, in a pan, no water, then was amazed it was still hard after 8 mins!

Yes, I loved the creativity, and lessons at school added some much needed discipline to working with utensils/clearing up to counter the bad habits I had.
On a similar note I was ‘encouraged’ to do all my own washing and ironing from the age of 13 (and still do) which was another really important skill that I (mildly) resented at the time, but was really glad I had when I went to university.

My parents never really taught me to cook. My mother ruled the kitchen and woe betide anyone who got in her way / made a mess etc.

although my dad did teach me to make an Egg Banjo, Dagwid Bumpsted style.

I learnt plenty at school though we I did a bit of Home Economics.

Other than that I taught myself once I left home. My kids get involved in the kitchen, though they are still very young at the moment, the will be taught plenty once older.

Mum was the head chef at a local hotel…

I had worked in a couple of kitchens by the time I got to uni, so I was a dab hand at making a pizza.

Not much else though…

I was useless at Art at school so opted to do Home Economics instead with a mate, class full of girls and us pair so it was superb and the theory side made me understand how useful carbs and proteins were as I was a roadie at same time.

All my kids help out in the kitchen now and understand the basics.

Not really. But I learnt lots at scouts and from long backpacking trips with mates from a young age. So more camp-craft style cooking that I later attempted to improve for indoors cooking.

My mum taught me a lot, but I developed a real interest when I first moved out as I realised just how impressed girls were if you could cook.

I started following recipes, loved it, worked in a professional kitchen for a while, and can’t imagine not being able to cook.

It should definitely be taught in schools along with other life skills, like changing a tyre, basic DIY etc.

learnt, taught myself before I left home. My parents went for a 2 week holiday when I was 14, my sister was 18 & working.
We had a freezer full of cheap burgers and some cash. It was the school holidays so by the end of week 1 I’d made
Burger Diane, curry, chilli etc… by the end of week 2 I’d made bread as well.

I’ve made sure the kids can cook some basics though.

I learnt to cook in my early teens because I was always out on my bike at mealtimes.
I learnt to wash in my early teens because chammy’s needed it much more back then.
I learnt to sew in my early teens to repair ripped shorts, gloves and sew up tubulars.
I learnt to iron in my early teens because girls

😀

Yup my mum taught me all about food from the market to the plate. She was Greek/Ukrainian who grew up in Egypt so my food is eclectic to say the least. Best thing was she taught me basic cooking techniques so I can do most recipes no problem.

I kinda taught myself – I ate better when I left home (it wasn’t that we ate that badly, but there were too many processed/fried foods). When I was at home I sometimes cooked for the whole family, my signature dish was chicken fried rice – I started cooking that when I was about 14.

I also used to clean the cooker – I’d drag it out and clean it all over as it used to drive me mad how dirty it used to get!

Ohh and when my girlfriend went to Uni, I went to her shared house before one Christmas (she shared with 5 other girls) and it was me that showed them how to cook the Christmas dinner they were doing 🙂

Nope, and my parents are pretty middle class!

Most meals at home tended to involve some sort of jar/sauce or be along the lines of meat + potato + 2 veg.

Taught myself by trial and error and occasional forays into cookbooks.

I also bought a deep fat fryer. It’s not healthy, but it makes damn tasty food.

IMO it’s the key to healthy eating: know what you’re eating by making it yourself.

Have a look at the Angry Chef blog, he makes a good defense on ‘processed food’. Taking the example of Dolmio sauce that was in the news last week, 7 teaspoons of sugar, 7 TEASPOONS!!!!! Think of the children! But actually 6 of those were ‘natural’ from the tomatoes, and the seventh was probably less than most ‘from scratch’ recipes have anyway. And the only ‘processing’ most of these foods go through, is chopping, blending and heating, otherwise known as cooking?

Which is healthier, oven chips, or home made? See, not always so clear cut.

Cooking is just like plenty of other hobbies, it’s maybe healthier for you, but it’s not the be all and end all of everyone else life. See also:

Cycling to work Vs driving
Brewing your own Beer Vs supermarket bought
Growing your own veg Vs supermarkets
Going Skiing Vs sitting on a beach

I like cooking, I also like brewing, I don’t then look down on people drinking bottles of Hobgoblin in the same way it’s slightly daft to look down on someone who uses Dolmio.

I don’t then look down on people drinking bottles of Hobgoblin

I do. Horrid stuff 🙂

Yes- my mam showed me how to nail* a bolognese or chilli together before I went to uni- two trick pony, me 😆 My OH does all the cooking now and it’s mostly cooked from fresh ingredients and from as scratch as possible (he used to be a chef and it’s a wonder I’m not the size of a house end 😀 )

* jar of sauce

Mum can’t cook, frankly she’s useless in the kitchen bless ‘er and my Dad doesn’t cook, other than at Xmas, it’s not much better but he tries.

My Grandmother taught me to cook, she was a Dinner Lady at a local school, but more than that she grew up in Cardiff Docks area in the 40’s and 50’s with people from all over the world, so she cooked Italian, Indian, Moroccan and Middle Eastern stuff, I didn’t really know it was unusual until years later.

Sadly I don’t really remember how to make much of it, and the names she gave to certain ingredients were a combination of their native names and local slang and it was never written down so it’s lost now, but I still enjoy cooking and do 90% of it at home. These days I tend to let Mrs Jay or the eldest pick something out of a cookbook, make it, if they like it enough I can usually simplify it a bit to make it a bit more ‘everyday’ and it might sit on our weekly menu for a couple of weeks at least.

Yes, but I learnt more from my 3 years on the road in India as a novice monk. I had to set up kitchen, shop and cook twice a day amongst other duties.
My wife is a brilliant cook, and seems my daughters are pretty good. Preparation and eating of healthy meals is the core of daily life here at home.

Aye and proper food, none of this foreign muck.

I don’t look down on someone who eats dolmio, I just think they are either lazy or a bit thick.

It tastes shit, it costs more, and it’s worse for you. Where’s the convenience in that?. 😆

Taught myself, it’s hardly rocket surgery. Start with pasta and sauce, boiled potatoes and work up from there…

dolmio sauce – since i weaned my self off salt only tastes of salt to me now.

All three of ours can cook a basic meal and bake a cake or two, aged 10,13 and 14.
I expect in the next year or two them to cook some proper meals for us all.

As soon as I got my first job I had to start cooking my own food as I was at work when everyone else ate so was perfectly fine when I flew the nest. The rest was taken care by this:

I learnt to wash in my early teens because chammy’s needed it much more back then.
I learnt to sew in my early teens to repair ripped shorts, gloves and sew up tubulars.
I learnt to iron in my early teens because girls

Had a mate who had been babied his whole life so arrived in uni halls not knowing how a toaster worked (his parents used the grill), spending a few days ill after never washing his mug out for a fortnight and who put washing up liquid in the dishwasher when he was at his girlfriend’s – bubbles flowing everywhere 😆

He’s now a teacher so heaven help the next few generations 😯

Nobeerinthefridge – Member

I don’t look down on someone who eats dolmio, I just think they are either lazy or a bit thick.

It tastes shit, it costs more, and it’s worse for you. Where’s the convenience in that?.

Convenience
k?n?vi?n??ns/
noun
noun: convenience

the state of being able to proceed with something without difficulty.

So there you have it, it’s fast, and easy or ‘Convenient’.

As for your other points:

Taste is subjective, I prefer Barilla myself, or Sainsbury’s own brand, but I don’t turn my nose up at Dolmio, I don’t think of myself as being thick or lazy.

Costs more? Does it? Compared to chopping fresh tomato’s? or using tins of chopped tomato? (you wouldn’t do that would you, nasty evil processed stuff) plus some fresh garlic, some herbs etc – I doubt there’s much in it.

Worse for you? Well that rather depends on your particular dietary needs and how you make it.

No, self taught after leaving home at 18 for Uni. Now love cooking.

I don’t look down on someone who eats dolmio, I just think they are either lazy or a bit thick.

It tastes shit, it costs more, and it’s worse for you. Where’s the convenience in that?

Totaling up the ingredients in my homemade tomato sauce (and I’ll use cheap tins to keep the cost down, so it’s not even fresh).

For 4 people

3 tins @ 35p each £1.05 (or double that for posh tomatoes, or double again for fresh ones)
Onions – about 30p worth (one big red one)
Herbs – about 10p of dried herbs (or about £1 of fresh basil)
Stock (assume from cubes, another 5p, going against the from scratch ethos, I really should have planned tonight’s spag bol last time we did a roast and made stock)
Sugar, salt (negligible cost)

Nice to haves: Anchovies, red wine, sun dried tomatoes, etc etc.

~£1.50 + anything you add to make it nice/yours.

Most of an afternoon simmering.

I’m not saying dolmio is good, but you’re never going to convince me that it’s cheaper to make your own, and it’s the same ingredients, cooked in the same way so it’s unlikely to be healthier to make your own either (17% of your RDA of salt excepted).

From the tesco website, 500g jar of dolmio, serves 4, £1
Ingredients

Tomatoes (76%), Tomato Paste (11%), Onions, Sugar, Cornflour, Lemon Juice, Salt, Sunflower Oil, Basil (0.3%), Garlic, Parsley, Herbs, Spices

I’ll still do an occasional jar of Dolmio (well, I prefer the Lloyd Grossman jars) when doing an italian but I really don’t like any Indian jars anymore – the closest I get to a ‘jar’ of Indian sauce now is the Mrs Shah’s powders with a tin of chopped tomatoes but I much prefer cooking all my curries (Indian, Thai and so on) from scratch.

However my wife doesn’t – sometimes we don’t eat until 10pm 🙂

Yup, Mum taught me to cook. Great fun fiddling with food, remember it well.

Once I surpassed her expectations she stopped handing out help/assistance and relied on me to help her…

At Uni we all seemed to be able to cook good solid healthy meals, mostly swished down with bottles of wine.
I enjoyed my Uni days, mostly because they were civilised.

You wasted your time then.

Ours were animal debauchery, but interspersed with modern british and traditional from me and mattty choochoo and bangladeshi cuisine from Izzy. And kebabs.

Dolmio – not keen. Lloyd G – keen, it’s better than plenty of restaurants I’ve been to.

My mum didn’t teach me to cook, but I worked it out myself. I’m clever like that* 🙂

It’s not recipes that you need to be taught, it’s how the processes work, how the ingredients work, how heat moves around, and how flavours work together. Except the last one is probably only possible by experimenting yourself.

I binned a lot of food when I was 19 or so. First day self catering, I thought ‘I like curry let’s try that’ (I had no idea about menu planning or anything, never had to choose before) so I bought a jar of sauce and some beef. Put beef in pan, it looked brown, tossed in sauce, it got warm, so I put it on the plate. Only thing was, the beef was stewing steak that I’d fried for about 5 mins, and the sauce had only been in for another few minutes. Forced enough down to take the edge off my hunger then chucked the rest.

* eventually