thestabiliser – Member
You wasted your time then.

Yeah, too busy studying 😆

Sadly my grandfather died as I was doing my A levels, fortunately from his library I got his paperback of the Pauper’s Cookbook which has his brilliant grouchy comments on how expensive the recipes are with 70’s costings next to them 🙂

Many of the girls were jealous at Uni in our shared kitchen as they burnt their baked beans on toast.

Left home at 19 (1970) and began to teach myself.

First meal was grilled cheese on toast.

Used “Philadelphia”. Room full of smoke and burnt bread coated in black rubber….

Big sister and mother both taught me to cook, I was cooking omlettes in an electric frying pan by 6, was “cooking” in a pub kitchen during the summer holidays at 16. I was responsible for cooking spag bol when we had that at home from 13. “Cooking” because the microwave and deep fat fryer were the main tools.

Never really used pre-made sauces, but not adverse to buying pizzas and a few other lazy things for the freezer.

Yes. My mum even taught us three boys to make bread (properly, not in a machine)
MrsM and I are currently teaching our kids how to cook.

And how to make it up using some basic principles.

It’s an important life skill. Sadly lacking in some parents, let alone their growing up kids.

Nobeerinthefridge – Member

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

I think you’ve misunderstood what looking down on people is…

I could cook basics – curries, chilli, spag bol, knew how to cook jacket potatos and knew that I needed protein, carbs and vegetable matter, but I wasn’t specifically taught by my parents, though my mum is a trained chef and I guess I absorbed a lot, plus I did cookery at school.

My two kids have been baking with MrsMC and grandmothers since they were tall enough to reach the worktop on a stool. Eldest was top of his year in cookery last year despite being a boring fussy eater, little one loves to get in the way involved at any opportunity.

So…… Stoner was all like…..

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

Testify Brother!

For what it’s worth, my Mum sat me and my two brothers one day when was about 12) and said that, as we were all bigger than her now (she’s only tiny) she would no longer be doing any of our washing, ironing cleaning or cooking (Other than dinner at 6 p.m every night)
We soon learned how to work the washing machine, the iron, the vacuum cleaner and the cooker.

verses – Member

Nobeerinthefridge – Member

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

I think you’ve misunderstood what looking down on people is…

Hence the smiley matey!

Canny be arsed arguing, enjoy yer dinners!

To me, the laughing smiley made it look like you were pleased with your own self-righteousness. Coupled with no smiley on your first post where you said basically the same thing meant it didn’t read like that.

Aaaaanyway, the main reason I responded was because I thought the quote in the linked page was amusingly relevant;

When it comes to baking, Beth is a purist-she looks down on anyone who uses a mix

I couldn’t even boil a potato when I left home. For the first couple of years I lived off ready made meals and takeaways until my health was in such a state that I decided to do something about it and learn.

Well I went to catering college… funnily enough there were some right numpties on the course who had no idea about food what so ever. We just don’t have a decent food culture in the UK.

Home economics and Mum taught me to cook.

Really don’t understand why home ec has been removed from schools. Strikes me as being a great life tool, even if it’s not technically academic.

We just don’t have a decent food culture in the UK.

I think it’s better than it used to be, but that really is just my opinion with little to back it up. 😉

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

Or have better things to do with their time.

My mum did teach me to bake, though.

My mum did teach me to bake, though.

Are you Paul Mollywood?

Both mum and dad loved to cook – so I learnt whilst I was growing up. I just absorbed it really. It was a great way to learn – so great that I’ve pinched it and it’s how our three are learning to do it.

It might sound soft but to me cooking for my family is something I do with love – so hopefully they will remember that when they cook. I know I do…

Yes, with both Mum & Dad. Mum was a professional cook and it was just something we as kids did with her, never though anything unusual about it.

Still can’t make chocolate cakes up to her standard though.

Dad is a talented amateur and when Mum was working nights we used to experiment lots, seeing what tasty concoctions we could create.

I still do that & which Mrs. Pinkster seems to appreciate the outcome (most of the time).

Had Home Economics classes that in theory taught me the basics but the only thing I can remember is how to chop an onion so I don’t cry. Which is more than I learnt in some other subjects tbf.

First thing was camp cooking badge with scouts (and camp cook instructor) so I learnt was basic hygiene and how to know when something was cooked, couple that with the knife and axe badge and I had the basics.

I was never going stave at Uni (so long as I could find something to burn 😉 ), but my mum gave me “The Student’s Cookbook” by Jenny Baker which is brilliant. The distilled wisdom of a 80 year old lady who liked to cook good food on the cheap.

Explained everything from meal planning (essential on a budget), not wasting food, what the different cuts of meat are best for (and how to/how long to cook) basic sauces, starters, winter grub, salads etc etc. I only recently gave it away to the FiL as he now has to cook for himself and he also thinks it’s brilliant. I keep meaning to buy another copy.

Nope I transitioned straight from my Mothers cooking to my wife’s (my missus is an exceptional cook)she has taught all four of our kids to cook very well, I can do eggs on toast if the wife is out.

I am quietly proud of my inability… i keep a small part of Northern cultural identity going, frankly I should get a grant.

Yes. I was taught a few base recipes and then expanded before I left home. We used to cook as a house at Uni because it is just so much cheaper and more convenient. Taught Teen1 before he left, despite his protestations. Teen2 loves cooking already. If you can cook at Uni you will never be without friends 😉

Also see ironing, sewing and cleaning. It is part of parenting, surely?

Yeah I got shown a couple of staples such as spag bol and jacket spuds.. my Nan showed me how to cook a good xmas dinner

That was waay before I left home though.. but I was babysitting my younger siblings, preparing all their meals and getting them ready for school and suchlike when I was 11 years old

I’m a **** excellent cook now by all accounts, although I’m experiencing a very strong fear today that my partner is about to leave me on account of me being completely unwilling to do daily housework

Also see ironing, sewing and cleaning. It is part of parenting, surely?

And the armed forces. 🙂 But yes, super useful.

…but the only thing I can remember is how to chop an onion so I don’t cry.

How on earth do you do that? 😯

Pimpmaster Jazz – Member

…but the only thing I can remember is how to chop an onion so I don’t cry.
How on earth do you do that?

Give it the Mrs to do.. 😉

How on earth do you do that?

Clothespeg on nose. Or bits of kitchen towel stuffed up there.

Mum has OCD, you’d be lucky to get near the kitchen door and being a man, you were automatically labelled inferior cook.

At Uni, I found I was a natural in the kitchen and experimented with French, Italian, Indian and Thai food.

Sometimes I learned from making mistakes but you get better at cooking as long as you find it fun and tasty.

Yes, though my older sister probably hampered my cooking development a bit as she was doing a roast dinner age 12 while my mum was out at work. i made myself beans on toast and fried egg sarnie for lunch when i was 10-11 but could make a chilli or roast a chicken no bother when i left home at 18.
it was my job to gut fish and draw/pluck game from about 11 onwards.

people are generally mollycoddled these days, i see this in friends children who cant function without wifi and wouldn’t know how to boil an egg.

By the time I went to uni, I’d spent 4 years of part-time jobs in an Italian restaurant and bakery across the road, plus my mum had shown me a bit at home.

I took it for granted as a life skill and was genuinely surprised when I watched my house mate break spaghetti so it would fit into the pan. I understand a great deal of people consider this acceptable anyway, so maybe it’s not that big a deal. My voyage of discovery with English cooking continued through uni and into my 20s.

Some from my Mum, some from my Grandma. Both were excellent cooks, but I wish I had learned some of the flash stuff from my Gran – I only found out after she died that she spent her youth cooking in the big stately homes and for Royalty!

May have been tricky to recreate the classics on a peat fired Rayburn in an Orcadian croft house mind….

How on earth do you do that?

The outdoor centre kitchen had swimming goggles, ideal when chopping onions for 100+….

Yes, picked it up from an early age (unlike my Dad who can only cook with precise instructions, in the same way I can only change the oil in a car with precise instructions – swings and roundabouts). In uni accommodation, my floor mates were eating roast dinners and shepherds pies while the others were on pot noodles. Weirdly the girls felt a bit put out by it.

I was cooking meals from ingredients (and Dolmio type stuff) for the family from my early teens. My dad and my grandma’s influence was part of it but also cubs, scouts, Duke of Edinburgh expeditions, friends who could cook all added up.

In my mid teens we would barbecue at our place or my friend’s farm with no adults present, just got on with it.

My first Christmas back from uni I did Christmas dinner for six.

Thinking back to my first year at uni though there were loads of people living off oven ready or packets of pourvit in stuff.

Seriously – no one was told how to do it?

It works (I’m only ever chopping 2-3 onions max mind, but can’t see how more would be a problem).

pull roots off but leave the root stump attached.

chop the pointy/leafy bit off.

Chop onion in half from top to bottom (through the root stump).

Peel the outer dried layers off and the first kinda moist/fresh/tough one that you wouldn’t really want to eat.

slice the onion from the bottom to the top, but not through the stump (so point of knife in near the stump and cut up to what was the pointy bit).

Do this at an angle to make cuts like a terry’s chocolate orange, although you can do straight but older onions will get a big flap wobbling about when you do the next stage.

Turn onion 90 degrees and either chop course or fine.

done.

I very much took it for granted until I was probably 30ish that I just knew how to, say, make pizzas from scratch or improvise a curry or fold egg whites into a cake or (slightly off topic) re-pot a plant without realising that my parents probably went out of their way to teach me those things and I never noticed.

My Dad taught me a lot about woodwork, DIY and electrical engineering without me really realising. Also, I found that when I got my first caravan as an adult I handled it on autopilot, including hitching up and even reversing, without ever having done it myself before.

I was taught to cook by both my parents, my father is good at the fancy stuff and my mother is good at the day to day stuff.

I cook all meals from scratch BUT I love MSG and salt. Add MSG to most meat dishes and like a good bit of seasoning. Don’t believe there is anything wrong with.

Speed is the only difference when chopping an onion.

I taught myself to cook. Still do.