How/When did you learn to cook?

[lailasmum]

My mum is a fairly dreadful cook, she never really taught me but I could do basic cooking to survive when I went off to university. My mum relies on food being burnt to know if it is cooked. I learnt to cook properly when I had kids because I want them to grow up on good home cooked food that they will actually like to eat. Its taken a few years to get reasonably good.

 

I don't always like cooking though, I get a bit bored day to day. I love cooking for big groups of people.

[Rivka]

My mother is an excellent home cook. She didn't make fancy gourmet food, and especially when we were kids she made a lot of meat-starch-veg meals where none of the food touched. But everything she cooked was delicious. I never understood why people made jokes about baked chicken being dry or gravy being lumpy, because my mother cooked plain food perfectly.

 

When I was very young - small enough to have to stand on a chair - she used to let me help her bake. That's when she taught me how to measure different ingredients and follow a recipe. By the time I was nine or so, I could make desserts on my own.

 

I became a vegetarian when I was 15. My mother said, "If you think I'm making two separate meals, you're crazy!" So I had to learn to cook FAST. I got a lot of cookbooks out of the library and tried to follow them. For the first year or so, most of the things I made weren't very good. Gradually, I learned how to pick a good recipe and how to cook savory foods, and by the time I left for college I was a pretty good cook.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

My mom was not a great cook. I like to eat. So, I just taught myself how to cook. I read lots of cookbooks, watched people whose food I enjoyed, and just experimented with things. Over time, I got the hang of it.

[Jenny in Florida]

I learned to "cook" some simple things when I was a kid.

 

I was an only child, and my mother worked from home and was often too busy or disinterested to cook. She was of the school of thought that opening cans and boxes was cooking. For school bake sales, we would stop at the market on the way to school to buy cupcakes. Thanksgiving dinner was canned yams, a small turkey, brown and serve rolls and instant mashed potatoes.

 

So, I grew up on macaroni and cheese and canned ravioli and ramen noodles, most of which I prepared for myself starting at about nine or 10, I think. I also learned about the wonderful things you can do with Bisquick.

 

Only when I moved out as an adult did I realize that the stuff I had been "cooking" all of those years was both expensive and not exactly nutritionally ideal. So, I started teaching myself.

 

I would just pick something I knew I liked to eat and then learn to make it.

 

My daughter has little to no interest in learning to cook. She did fend for herself much of the time when she was away at school, but it wasn't anything more complicated than microwaving instant oatmeal or using her rice cooker. My son, on the other hand, enjoys cooking and is quite helpful in the kitchen.

 

Because we're vegan, I've done a lot of experimenting and adapting recipes over the years. Both of my kids know they will get a copy of my cookbook when they move out on their own.

[Lady Florida.]

I learned to cook by working along side my mother from the time I was very young. It started out simple, like snapping the ends off green beans, and gradually moved up to full blown cooking. I don't think she did it that way to teach me. She was a single working mother, and needed help in the kitchen. In the early 60's there weren't a lot of convenience foods, and what there were was too expensive for a single mom. So, she put her kid to work in an age appropriate way, in order to get meals on the table faster.

 

One thing my mother didn't do was bake. That was probably because she didn't have time. As a working mother, she wasn't home long enough. Before I knew I was pregnant with ds, I suddenly felt the need to make Christmas cookies (I'd never made any cookies other than slice and bake before). I found some recipes, brought my then 8 year old niece over to help, and made cookies. To this day I think it was the (unknown at the time) pregnancy hormones that made me do it. However, it did give me the confidence to try other baked goods. I got a bread machine, and after getting proficient with it, I got up the nerve to try making bread by hand. I'm not sure if I would have done all of this if I didn't like cooking to begin with.

 

I love to cook. I love making old favorites, trying new dishes, and creating or adapting dishes to fit our family's needs and tastes. That doesn't mean I love cooking dinner every single night, but in general I enjoy cooking.

[elegantlion]

I hate cooking, I hate cooking, I hate cooking. I know how to cook a few specialties, but I still would rather never cook again in my life.

 

Part of it is I just don't care. I'll eat a granola bar and be happy. I cook because dh likes to eat. He's actually a better cook, he cooked in restaurants as a young adult. I humor him by cooking.

 

My son likes to cook and is pretty good at helping. Since he has started helping it's tolerable. However when dh is out of town I don't cook meals.

 

I think some of the dislike is historical. Mom can bake anything, but her meals were cheap (we were broke). I am the picky eater, my sense of smell and taste is distorted. I can't taste the difference in food. Dh can.

 

There is no joy in cooking for me. You make a mess, cook, eat for 15 minutes, then have to clean up. A lot of work when you could have had oatmeal and been full. :lol:

[Parrothead]

I started cooking in my early teens. Probably by the time I was 14 I was putting entire meals on the table. Granted mom and dad didn't much care for Hamburger Helper, but many other prepared foods were okay. Spaghetti sauce was always made from scratch though. And I can bake from scratch like anybody's dream.

 

So I was able to make the typical meat, potato/starch, and canned veg or a casserole before I graduated high school. That was probably how my first 10-15 years of cooking went. Then I started branching out. Eventually I left the boxes and cans behind. Now we eat mostly plants and mostly at home.

 

I love to cook. I hate to do chores. So while I love preparing and experimenting for dinner parties, I really despise cooking every day, day after day without reprieve.

[SweetMissMagnolia]

:D I guess I started when I was a early or pre-teen.....I was a latch-key kid after school and I guess I would cook dinner so it would be ready when everyone else got home.....I remember doing it in high school but not sure at what age it started.......I'm a little self taught and the rest I learned from watching sister--mamaw---

[chepyl]

Okay, really? Why on earth did he do that? Is it some kind of old folk tale? :)[/quote)

 

We received baking nails as a wedding present. We use them all the time. The potatoes do cook a little faster with the nails.

[elise1mds]

My mother was (is) not a great cook. She's not bad, but she's not great. I was VERY rarely allowed in the kitchen as a child, so I never learned how to cook. I have taught myself and adore cooking. My father (my parents are divorced, so take this with a grain of salt) says I exceeded my mother's ability long ago. DH agrees. I love to cook for my family but enjoy making things for large groups, too. I gripe and whine and carry on about having a house full of people at the holidays, but I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't have a menu to plan! (Mostly I gripe because I don't want to clean!!!)

[LauraGB]

My mom was busy and we often ate things like frozen pot pies, frozen pizzas, mac and cheese, etc, and she rarely cooked anything that didn't start from a box or a can. But at my grandmothers' houses, the house always smelled like food (both had large families) and the counters were always piled high with "real" ingredients. And the food they made, budget friendly as it was, was always amazing. But they were very "get out of my kitchen so I can work" types. So, I guess, when I was around 10 or so, I started wanting to cook at home, pouring over cookbooks and taught myself.

[JFSinIL]

When I was six my mom had back surgery - there exists a photo of the top of my head and my hands as I reach up onto the kitchen counter to make my pb&j...ok, actual cooking started when I was about 12...and it was my dad, not mom, who was the cook and taught me.

[YLVD]

My father is a great cook (worked in a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong), but he never could tolerate anyone in his kitchen so I never learned how to cook from him. Growing up, it was at least 3 dishes a meal - turned out in less than half an hour. His pork and stir fried vegetables are to die for. Good thing I don't live under his roof anymore or I'd be so fat.

 

Most of the cooking I do is not time-dependent. I can't stir-fry (which, for a Chinese, is important) to save my life - always overcooked. I do best with roasts, soups, crockpot, etc.

 

Do you see a trend here? Seems most of the posters with parents who were good cooks don't really like cooking or don't cook as well. I too hate cooking - just never seems right after a whole childhood eating delicious food.

 

Yes, it's interesting!! As I posted, my mom is a gourmet cook and then there is me that would rather scrub toilets than cook, and I just don't have the necessary knowledge.

 

Yet, my DD loves to cook and is already a skilled, untrained baker at age 15. She may end up pursuing a career in the culinary field, probably pastry chef. It is funny how different we are in that way.

[Virg]

My dad was an awesome cook! I guess has to do with being an obsessive engineer lol. My mom worked LONG hours so he usually cooked and I (I was the girl and so had to do women's work lol my brother worked outside) had to help. He prepared dinners that took at least a dozen ingredients and 2 hours to prepare. Everything had to be perfect. Everything always tasted awesome and was very gourmet.

 

I hate cooking! With a passion! Mind you, I do it every day and I know how to cook but I hate it. I think it is horribly boring and very unsatisfying. Go figure. :glare:

 

My dad is here visiting for a few months right now. Every night I start to cook he comes in the kitchen and literally takes the pan, spoon, etc out of my hand and says, "Now if you just do it this way....." UGH! Just do it yourself then! I didn't want to do it anyway!

 

Oh sorry, apparently I am having issues regarding this right now! :lol:

[Tammyla]

In 8th grade home ec course officially, but my dad is an awesome chef and my mom a pretty good cook. They both taught us as kids to help out in the kitchen.

[*Inna*]

My mom is a wonderful cook and I used to help her in the kitchen a lot.

But I'm more "follow the recipe until I'm comfortable with it" girl, and she's "a little bit of this, a pinch of that" girl, so there was a learning curve.

 

I remember hating her favorite phrase, "And you add ... until it looks right". :001_huh:

 

That's why I love Alton Brown - he gives you every little detail and explains why.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

My mum is a fairly dreadful cook, she never really taught me but I could do basic cooking to survive when I went off to university. My mum relies on food being burnt to know if it is cooked. I learnt to cook properly when I had kids because I want them to grow up on good home cooked food that they will actually like to eat. Its taken a few years to get reasonably good.

 

I don't always like cooking though, I get a bit bored day to day. I love cooking for big groups of people.

 

It's a standard joke around here that the smoke detector is the cooking timer you never have to set.

[6packofun]

I would sometimes watch my mom in the kitchen, and occasionally she'd "let me" help out, LOL. But the majority of my learning happened after my parents divorced because sometimes my brother and sister and I wanted more than lunch fixings ALL the time. :tongue_smilie: She didn't leave it all to me, but I'd ask her how to make a roast or something like that so we could have something different, or something that my grandma would make, and she'd show me or let me figure out one of her recipes.

[LMD]

My mum is quite a good cook, I remember her teaching me a few recipes as a teenager, I knew my way around our kitchen. But I wasn't a very good cook. My DH grew up in a european culture where love=food, he was a better cook than I when we first married. (I just figured out his late grand-mother's biscuit recipe last night, language barrier meant I never got it right before... *sniff* she'd be so proud of me!)

We bought a few recipe books and I just kept trying! Lol, many disasters, some tears (not from the diners, only from the chef who slaved for hours for it to be terrible!)

Only recently have I become more comfortable with experimenting, with not following recipes. After nearly 9 years of practicing, I guess I'm more confident now.

 

I'm teaching my children to cook already. I have grand ideas of assigning them days where they will cook the dinners... DD can already do eggs, pancakes etc. all by herself. She has her own recipe books and my mum usually cooks something with her on the weekends.

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

I watched my mom bake cookies growing up so I was pretty familiar with that. It's still one of my favorite things to make. :) I learned pretty much everything else about cooking after I got married. I just made recipes, watched dh/asked him questions, and even looked things up online that I didn't know. I'm always looking to learn more even though I feel pretty confident in the kitchen now. Eight years ago when we got married I could have made chicken patties, spaghetti/macaroni/soup from a box, and other simple boxed meals, plus cookies, of course. Making anything else was very intimidating and stressful for me. It just got to the point where I needed to learn to feed my family. And now most days I actually enjoy it...unless of course I have to listen to a houseful of screaming kids and have the baby/toddler pulling at my leg. Luckily, even though my kids have not grown up yet, those days are not all too often.

[Amber in SJ]

Both my mom & MIL were cooks of the packaged sort. If it doesn't come frozen, canned or boxed it is not happening. Luckily for me this meant when I started cooking my way through any cookbook I could get my hands on, Dh was so impressed you'd have thought I invented cooking.

 

20 years into the marriage I can cook almost anything Dh requests. He likes to tell people he isn't picky, but what that means is I cook food I know he will like.

 

When I am stressed I cook. When my grandma went into the hospital, I stayed up making carne asada burritos for the freezer. Six dozen of them. Dh has been known to come home to several dozen molasses cookies, a couple batches of cinnamon rolls and a pie or two. He looks at me with eyebrows raised and says, "Bad day?" If I don't want him to know I hand food out to the neighbors to hide the evidence. Last week I stuffed four pork roasts with pears, onions, garlic & cranberries. I had to give one away because my freezer was full. It isn't too weird to have a friend show up with pork, is it?

 

I love to cook. It makes me happy.

 

Amber in SJ

[Unicorn.]

I learned by watching and doing. I was cooking eggs and bacon at 3, and by 5 or 6 was coming up w/ my own recipes. They weren't always edible, but I liked to invent and play w/ ingredients. So I'm really no help...I just did it.

 

ETA: I also watched a lot of cooking shows growing up..like Julia and others!

Edited September 26, 2011 by Unicorn

[Unicorn.]

The Frugal Gourmet, I remember him well.

 

"I bid you peace."

 

He ended up in a little trouble if memory serves.

 

Bill

 

I remember him! I loved his show.

[Impish]

First let me say, I HATE COOKING!!!!!!!!

 

Second, I am very good at it according to many of my friends.

 

Third, it was not always this way. I refused to cook in high school, lived in the dorms and ate HORRIFIC cafeteria food in college, and then married a man who enjoyed good food growing up all hand crafted in the home kitchen by BOTH of his parents who quite gifted with food.

 

The first six months of marriage, he was virtually poisoned if I attempted anything beyond soups, sandwiches, and salads. You must understand, why bother to check something cooking on the stove when I have a perfectly lovely new Chopin piece sitting at the piano waiting for a good practice session? Thus, many burnt offerings and my first attempt at making gravy yielded a substance similar to masonry grout. I am not making this up - my husband put his serving on a paper plate for the dog, the dog sniffed it, looked up, and bolted.

 

I did eventually catch on and my father-in-law visited frequently during that time and taught me a lot. Well, when I took the time away from my music.

 

So, some 23 years later, I'm not too bad. But, oh boy...getting started nearly killed dh! :D

 

Faith - the former maker of chocolate donuts made with gourmet bitter chocolate and NO SUGAR, biscuits hard enough to be classified as lethal weapons, yeast bread so flat that it looked like a pita, homemade spaghetti sauce that scorched to the bottom of the pan so badly dh threw the pan away, brownies of dubious nature because I was out of butter and thought, "Meh, milk and corn oil...that ought to work", a roast beef cooked beyond recognition - Who knew that pot roast cooked at 450 degrees for four hrs. while writing a musical analysis of Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue would look like it had been at ground zero of a nuclear test site????? I was worried about serving raw meat!

:lol:

For me, I learned *some* very basic things at home, but my mom was a 'chase you out of the kitchen' cook.

 

I learned in a hurry when I was on my own at 16, although it was very, very, very basic, pkged crud.

 

As a single parent, I found cooking daunting. Very tight budget, scared to experiment b/c if I screwed it up, we were down a meal with no back up.

 

Gradually, I added to my knowlege. I'm no longer intimidated by it, and can read a recipe and figure out if its worth trying or not.

 

What I loathe, now, is having to cook gf. Blech.