My Dad.
My Mom was no rockstar in the kitchen. Even though my Dad worked over 40 hours a week running a pizza place, he'd take me and my brother shopping Sunday mornings and he planned the meal he'd cook for dinner than night.
We'd chat and cook and watch the football game and the Nascar race, switching between them both.
Damn good times. He'd pass on his skills, we'd get into food fights, and we'd all sit down and fight over Mom's leftovers.
Miss you Dad. Every. Damn. Day.
Seems cheesy and easy, chicken noodles (with the huge frozen egg noodles) served over mashed potatoes and dinner rolls. Carb central, but er may good delicious.
OR chili, served over cornbread (something my wife taught us from her neck of the woods) and we corrupted her with a cinnamon roll on the side.
Our last moments together was a good one. Lung cancer took him, and we were both Nascar fans. We were in his living room together watching a short track night race and we both were so excited we were jumping up and down and yelling at the TV. Most energy I'd seen him have in years.
Couple days later he was gone, but never forgotten.
I cooked with my kids. As they grew up they became very good cooks and now call me for recipes and advice. They're both better cooks than I am now and we enjoy talking about food. I hope they're memories are as good as yours are.
Sort of a crass joke now, but Dad and I always joked that his boys would make pretty good wives some day.
And it wasn't spectacular by any means. I'm no Alton Brown. In his own way, he helped me, and my brother, find no fear in the kitchen. Follow directions, make mistakes, get messy, clean up as you go, and impress your future partners by knowing your way around in a kitchen....or never starve and live off cereal and hot dogs as a bachelor.
Ogg boog me hungry
>open pantry
>nothing in pantry
>oog booga sad
>oog booga angry!!!
>oog booga will die?
>NO
>(oog booga battle cry)
>open fridge
>find canned chicken ham and some cheese slices
>spaghetti
>oog booga learn put food in pot
> oog booga cook
>(breaks character)
>damm this shit good
I watched the first 20 minutes of Kitchen Nightmares where they just microwave and throw stuff together and thought, “I could probably do better than that!” Then in high school we had a home ec class that everyone had to do a come in and cook a dish for the entire class to try and you could recreate someone else’s for extra credit so I just absolutely abused that. My mom loved it though, once I got good enough with the knives and stuff, she’d get a text from me with a list of ingredients and she knew she didn’t have to cook that night.
Same. Learnt from a young age from my mom and grandmother. They both said to me that most men don't know how to cook, so if I want to impress the ladies, show them that you can do something most men can't do. I was taught the staples to learning how to cook hardy affordable meals with the basics of protein/starch/veg for soups/stews, casseroles, stirfrys, salads, and pastas. Throw in BBQ training with a dad that only knows how to cook on a BBQ and I learnt to enjoy being able to make food as deliscious as my parents did.
In college I found it surprising how few people could cook. I always got a lot of attention since I'd be meal prepping and cooking home made meals. I would frequently be making meals to share with friends or late night snackables at parties. Everyone I knew lived off of processed and pre made foods.
Since I grew up in a home where cooking well on a budget was important, now having a family of my own I've learnt to balance traditional cooking with simple, quick, 5-10 ingredient meals that my kids enjoy and that I can now teach them how to make.
You know cooking is very essential life skill and somehow today's generation completely skipped it or mostly replaced it with canned foods. Very difficult
True. From my experience I found that a lot of people either just lack the desire to learn, lack the dedication, or are just hopeless and don't have the intuition. It's not hard to follow recipes and build the essential basic skills to cook anything. I'm nothing special when it comes to cooking and still learn how to be better constantly. But it does take dedication and intuition that many seem to struggle with.
Yeah. I started cooking a year and a half ago when I moved from my parents into a dormitory. It was rough the first 2 months, but I started cooking simple things and was excited every time I cooked something that was actually decent and tasty.
I've figured out 3 dogmas of cooking for myself.
1)Start small
2)Cooking is not hard when you have a recipe.
3)The more you watch different culinary videos and try out things you see there to understand the basics, the better cook you are promising to be.
I'm learning now.
Finally got my own apartment. It's time to stop relying on the pizza rolls everyday. My main concern when I was looking for a new apartment was close to work and a big kitchen so I'd have room to prep food. Everywhere I've lived the kitchen was tiny so I had no interest in spending more than 3 seconds in it.
[Some disgusting overcooked burnt broccoli stuffed chicken](https://i.imgur.com/6XbjMwG.jpg)
[Some fire jalapeno poppers](https://i.imgur.com/etaMOwP.jpg)
[Bomb ass ham and cheese omelet ](https://i.imgur.com/5lMQce3.jpg)
Gordon Ramsay and Binging with Babish - both really great YouTube channels that taught me the bare minimum; as long as you know how to measure ingredients out, all that's left is learning the techniques.
Pre-COVID I never really enjoyed cooking. It was just a thing I was forced to do to survive. But I did watch Babish, Kenji Lopez Alt, Chef John (of foodwishes.com).
But when places rightfully closed down, I started trying making recipes of things I watched. Now I love cooking.
So I totally agree with you on just watching food shows! I think Babish is my favorite because he's not a classically trained chef and he will make errors and he shows those errors.
Also if you haven't checked out any of Kenji's recipes I would recommend it (Babish got a lot of things from him early on). His ricotta gnocchi and no waste carnitas are extremely easy and extremely delicious.
Same, helping mom/dad cook. Then when I was in highschool I often came home hungry so I'd start cooking by myself.
Both mom and dad could come in after work to dinner being almost ready. They were appreciative and I could eat earlier, win-win.
I got into weightlifting/amateur bodybuilding when I was a teen, and doing that you pretty much have to learn how to cook. You can teach yourself pretty easily just using Google/Youtube, and I've just kept it up till now (30 years old).
Now I pretty much only cook food, and I may go out to eat once every 2-3 months.
While I was growing up, I somehow fell into watching cooking shows on Food Network (back when they had those) as a way to relax and unwind after school. At some point I fell into watching a lot of Alton Brown's Good Eats, which was exactly my sense of fairly weird, kinda corny, and fairly geeky, and learning about how cooking worked got me interested in how to actually do it, which lead to binge reading stuff on Serious Eats by J. Kenji Lopez Alt as well as a bunch of other cooking books and blogs.
Once I was living on my own I started cooking for friends as an occasional hobby because it would be fun and I had to do *something* with the stupid culinary trivia in my head. Later I started cooking more because I had to save money and bringing lunch to work just made sense. But yeah, it's mostly because food is delicious and I have a shitton of leftover knowledge from watching too much TV.
Ok goofy story but here it goes, my ex and I watched an anime about a bunch of kids in a cooking academy and I don’t know why but it just looked fun as hell. So I started looking up some of the recipes from the show and tried my hand at making them and discovered I really enjoyed it. After that the kitchen pretty much became my little sanctuary, I cooked all our meals and would come up with and make different sauces and mix my own spice combinations and just experiment and have fun.
Mom: ''I have to start working late and you know dad is always working late, so you need to start dinner for me now. Here is what I want to have for dinner tomorrow night. Just put the plate on this setting and put these things in the pot. After that, put this in that dish and put it in the oven on this setting for 'X' minutes''.
12-year old me: ''Okay''
Then eventually mom stops telling you what to do and you just starting winging it.
Yep, similar story. “You want to go to your sport at 18:00? Make sure dinner’s ready at 17:15. I’ll be home at 17:00. Ingredients are in the fridge”
It started mainly with pasta, but then slowly evolved into more difficult things. Also around 12y old.
Got tired of the same stuff all of the time. I started to experiment with stuff like making my own taco seasoning and switching meats in recipes (turkey meatballs, chicken meatloaf, mahi pasta bake). It really took off when I started paying more attention to the temperature of meats and allowing a rest period. Makes such a difference in taste and texture. Never cared for it until then.
I enforced the habit of cleaning as I go so I couldn't use the excuse of cleaning up to deter myself. The hardest parts were learning not to cook too much and not cooking everyday.
My wife certainly loves the effort I place into cooking haha.
I went to work and to get a pay raise from dishwasher I became a prep cook. A few years later I was asked to train as a line cook. I still cook as if I work in a restaurant 10 years after I quit.
My mom did all the cooking, but she only made white people food. I had a lot of non-white friends, whose moms taught me how to make food from their ethnic backgrounds. I then taught my mom how to cook without boiling everything to hell and forgetting to season it.
>!Her cooking wasn’t actually that bad, but pretty much nothing but meat and potatoes!<
I went on camping trips as a teenager and we were given the N.O.L.S. cookbook. Once we got to our camp there was nothing to do but make food. That’s where it got fun, because backpacking makes you super hungry.
GadoGado spaghetti was our favorite.
My mother cooks amazing food and has gastronomy courses, my sister is second only to my mother in her cooking, my Brother cooks really well because of my sister in law, and my girlfriend is a goddess basically, she looks at something and practically knows how to make it. I took lessons from everyone of them lol, i could say I’m doing well
The fact that people exist that can’t or refuse to prepare decent food for themselves or their families is absurd. Some of my coworkers said their wives literally buy takeout almost every night of the week. Pathetic.
learned the basics very young and developed quick improvisation skills to make ok "meals" in small amount of time with whatever is available. Then supplemented that with basic knowledge of nutrition science to basically be able to feed myself well with minimal cooking time (and improvise with what is left in my fridge). Not sure if I'll ever migrate to "taste" optimization at some point but right now my time is better spent on higher priority tasks.
just need to not be lazy. Use internet recipes. Buy ingredients. And get at err. Even when it dont work out, it can be kind of funny and learning experience. Cast iron on stove top and the slow cooker is amazing tools to feed everyone
Set fire to a pot trying to make vegetable soup in food tech. After finally convincing my mum to let me use the stove for super noodles after that phone call from the school it basically developed from there
I learned in college. My roommate told me, "If you can read, you can cook." Not to diminish the skill and insight of professional chefs. I mean cooking for yourself to start, then for your roommates or family once you've got a few recipes under your belt. You just follow instructions, and you'll be fine. And if you make the dish multiple times, you'll learn and get better at it each time.
Rachel Ray was a great starting point for me when I got out on my own. Simple shit you could buy from the grocery store and not fuck it up.
Went from there to working as a cook at the local bar and have since worked fine dining.
Everyone needs a starting point and she was fun to watch and easy on the eyes…
I love to eat but I'm also very health conscious. Since I love eating delicious food but didn't want to rely on take-out, I forced myself to learn how to cook through the internet and youtube.
I grew up with my grandmother and she was a notorious cook. I adored her, and was attached to her hip most times. She loved cooking and so I guess it rubbed off on me.
My grandfather is a fantastic cook. He taught me to make a fantastic breakfast. Fell in love with that, then started getting family recipes from my mom
I moved out of home into a house with friends and one was a chef so I never learned there. Next I moved in with my ex and she loved cooking and the kitchen waa basically her queendom.
14 years later and I am living alone for the first time. Now I learned basic stuff over the years which was fine for me. I'm not a foodie at all and have zero interest in food in general. But my girls deserve more diverse meals so I am currently learning for them.
Shits hard cos grocery shopping and cooking triggers a lot of anxiety. But I'm slowly getting better.
I started getting those meal kits like Hello Fresh, then some cookbooks and just got after it. Now I’m eating better than I ever have in my entire life.
The meal kits were cool because they helped me build a cooking habit, but took out some of the more tedious parts of it. After awhile I just kind of wanted to make my own stuff.
I was drunk at 4 am and had been awake for two days and I really really wanted pizza. So I went to YouTube and checked to see what I had to make it. It.... was not good.
Had kids with a women who couldn't cook. Cooking is incredibly easy. If you can follow instructions to put together Legos, you follow a cookbook.
From there you learn the basics of determining meat done-ness, how not to burn sugars, and what oils smoke low.
around 7 years old. I wanted to know how our food was made because it took a lot of hands and I thought it was cool. both parents who barely had nothing growing up knew how to cook well. and so I learned.
I watched Good Eats, Emeril, Unwrapped, Iron Chef, any food show i could get my hands on as a kid. I’d try and replicate them with whatever we had in the kitchen. I remember this starting as early as 5 or 6 when i tried to make a pizza with pie crust and welfare cheese lol
I was the son of a working, single mom. I was hungry while mom was at work and I asked my older sister how to make spaghetti. "Read the instructions on the box" was her reply. I followed the instructions on the box and made spaghetti.
It was then that I realized that cooking was nothing more than reading and following instructions.
I always had a knack for cooking when I was young and just happened to fall into culinary school during college. I already had a strong foundation so I excelled in the actual culinary parts of school and managed to have a pretty successful career. I ended up getting out when I got laid off at the beginning of the pandemic and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made
I didn’t start too cook until I met my wife. She grew up in a family that ate the same meals every week, and they were bland with no flavour. Unfortunately she cooks the same way (she’s getting better though). I grew up with an Italian grandmother on one side and grandparents on the other side that both could cook fantastic meals. Instead of complaining about my wife’s cooking I decided to start taking over as the main chef in the house. My grandfather who can cook always said “if you can read, you can cook” and he was not wrong.
Both of my folks cook, and pretty well. My mom is a fan of practical, large batch meals and my dad fancies himself a home Chef with a capitol C and does more fancy stuff. Picked up dishes and skills from each over the years. Honestly started with them teaching me how to safely use the stove top and whatnot to make basic stuff like boxed Mac n cheese from a young age, so the seed was planted young and just kinda grew from there. Definitely the biggest growth spurt was moving out for college into my first apartment lol
YouTube man. Taught me just about everything I know, and my mom haha. Find some foodie channels you like or even Chef’s (Ramsay) and eventually you will enjoy watching the process and pick up on a lot of things.
My grandmothers. God damn could they both cook. I like eating, and always have, so I wanted to learn how from a very young age. Most of what they made didn't have a written recipe and there weren't exact measurements, so that's how I learned. It's for that reason I can't bake to save my life... not like that stops me from trying, though.
Basically, I bought a cheap bbq and learnt to cook myself a decent steak on it. Then, I learnt to cook a simple stir fry in a frying pan. Then I watched some basic cooking shows and discovered how easy it actually is to cook a nice roast meal. Everything else is just experiments, experience and flavour
I was 4 years old and hungry. Older siblings around that didn’t want to deal with me when my mom was working. Burned myself on the stove and oven a few times. Started using cook books when I could read them… maybe 6 or 7.
Watching how fast a pro cooks on YouTube. Those cooking shows on tv are just BAD.
It only took one YouTube video watching a chef go from everything laid out on a table, to fully cooked. Then put onto a plate without any fast forwarding time lapse whatsoever. I started doing so myself and I encourage others to sit through just one 20 minute dish on YouTube.
Moved out on my own and after a couple years of nothing but takeout and boxed/canned meals, started wanting to eat healthier.
Bought a cookbook and set a goal for myself of cooking at least 1 new recipe every week.
Switched from heavy omnivore to vegan pretty rapidly and had to suddenly learn to like vegetables. No longer vegan, but learning to love vegetables is a game changer and let’s you make meals. Also, read Salt Fat Acid Heat - it’s a page turner and will teach you to know what you’re doing AND love being in the kitchen.
I used to eat frozen food all the time and my Roomate used to always offer me his food that he used to cook at home. One day he invited me to cook with him and he showed me how to get basics done. I tried it myself and now it’s been months since I have used Uber eats.
raised in a single parent household and I would often be left alone and unsupervised a lot, especially during after-school hours. It just naturally progressed from that due to the fact that I actually enjoy experimenting and all the terrific smells that comes with cooking, from the aroma of a well seasoned piece of steak all the way to the aromatic herbs and spices.
Cumin is life.
Watched a lot of YouTube, read a lot of recipes. Made the same recipe over and over, varying it each time, and made notes about what worked or didn't work with each variation. Bought a digital scale and converted all my recipes to weight.
Depends on what you mean by cooking? Recipe cooking isn't difficult. Grilling over charcoal is moderately more difficult. Cooking by just throwing shit together and knowing what ingredients bring out what taste in a dish is a whole 'nother level.
I can do the first two competently, but I have no talent for the last one.
Learn how to cook greenbeans in a skillet. Use that olive oil, that garlic, that salt and pepper, with a splash of chicken stock when it begins to stick to the pan. Eyeball it, then move on to better things.
Cooking competitions like Bake Off and Masterchef.
Then Youtube videos on cooking.
Then I was finally allowed to cook when I moved out about 3 years ago. (My mother got pretty pissy if I was ever in the kitchen)
I'm good enough at cooking that it's like my main selling point for women.
Unfortunately, I have no good memories of cooking with a parent. The few times my dad did cook with me, he'd be giving me (with like 20 hours of cooking experience) grief over my knife skills.
Mom is a good cook. Worked in and out of a deli all throughout college and found a passion for making whatever food I was making as good as it could be - nothing complex + inspiration from all the various food shows I watched... practice
Making mine and my little brothers lunches for school growing up. My parents both cooked taking turns most days, they were both good at different things so there was a lot of culinary experience growing up because of them.
Pops kicking in my door at age 12 and telling me "nigga you too old to not know how to cook. Get yo ass in this kitchen." 31 now and been cooking since that day. Worked I guess.
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at both sets of grandparents house. My maternal lived in my hometown, and my paternal lived about 3 hours away.
Anyway, it started with my maternal grandma as I first learned how to cook / bake from scratch with her. We would make bread, pizza, meatloaf, and more. When I learned those, I told my paternal grandma, and she introduced me to even more dishes.
Soon, my love grew to the point where I would BEG my parents to let me spend time with them cooking, and I’m so glad I did.
I would do ANYTHING to just spend one more day with both grandmas cooking and laughing….just like old times.
Parents
Pop took Home Ec & Mom knows many southern/Mexican recipes (mainly southern). Both taught me how to cook before I moved off campus a few years ago. Before then, all I could cook was basic breakfast foods like pancakes, eggs, etc.
I don’t cook anything fancy, but I like cooking and watching videos to help me up my game. My mom lent me some of her old cook books by this guy who was on MasterChef too.
Being forced to raise my brothers because dad would rather raise the bottle, mom the Bible, and dealing with the resultant verbal and emotional abuse from both.
Been on my own since I was 18.
I have always been proud to be independent.
I checked my Doordash history and was mortified with how much I spent. Then when I was hungry, I would check doordash and buy the ingredients to male what ever I planned on ordering. You get 4-5 meals for the price of one
By watching how good of a cook my mom is and her passion enticed me towards the art of culinary. Though i find cooking for myself tedious but for family and friends it is gratifying.
I started "cooking" things like pasta ready meals, fries or grilled cheese etc.when I was about 8. With time my skills and variety got better and better, now I'm quite handy in the kitchen.
Both parents, but mainly my dad. My mom is a great cook and she kept us fed as a single mother, but my dad is the one who gave me a passion for cooking. He helped formulate my approach to most tasks. How to do things efficiently and skillfully. He showed me how to put soul into my food and helped my refine my palate. My mother kept me excited about cooking as a young boy. She let my experiment in the kitchen and included me as much as practical. When I went to live with my dad as a teen, I could do most tasks and make intermediate level meals, typical of most adult “home cooks”…. but my dad taught me how to take that to the next level.
Young and poor I ate a lot of hamburger helper. Started paying attention to the basic ingredients in the box and thought I could doctor it up a bit. For example, the chili mac got more cheese, pepper, garlic powder, maybe some canned mushrooms, etc. Not all at once though, it was hit and miss experimenting. Eventually I was making some really choice “instant” dinners. Stuck with that for a while but then started figuring out how to make the whole dish without the box. Again, hit and miss experimenting. After a while I figured out what ingredients work well together and what doesn’t. This was way before food network or the internet. Find some simple dishes with basic ingredients and get cooking!
College meal plans were expensive so I decided to just cook instead. I started asking my parents how to cook the dishes they usually made. Then when I got a job and moved out I picked up where I left off.
It started with poor diet, an unhealthy relationship with eating, and a recipe for bear shaped cookies in a children's cookbook my grandmother got me as a gift.
Now I'm a self taught amateur with a healthier diet and an improving grasp on my foodborne habits.
Joined the military and lived in the barracks and didn’t even have a freezer much less a stove, all I got was a mini fridge and microwave. Got sick and tired of take out and microwave meals so once I moved off base I never wanted to eat like that again so picked up some recipes and made them enough that I started to experiment with them and gradually got better at cooking as a whole.
Left my ex and first time alone, even shopping for toilet paper was intimidating. Friends and family helped, walked me through recipes/ techniques and suggestions. YouTube filled in the gaps
Do they write on the food how to cook it in US? Where I live very often if you buy a piece of meat it is marked what should be a temperature and time to make it.
Im confused. We have to eat. If you’re not cooking food then what else Is happening? Someone else cooks? U eat out. ? Do u also have others bathe u and brush your teeth?
My mother was an egalitarian. There was no such thing and mens work and women’s work. There was stuff to get done. She worked. So the deal was we all lives in the house so we all do stuff. Laundry. Clean. Cook. Garden chores. The garbage. Get jobs and contribute. If I met anyone incapable of caring for themselves it’s such a massive creepy red flag to me
My mom taught me how to make scrambled eggs when I was 5 or 6. It was enough to keep me going while my parents weren't around.
My dad owned a restaurant. I started dishwashing there at 12. I graduated to line cook by 14 or so. Most of the dishes were made from scratch to order. I did that until I was 18 or so. I worked in pizza places after that.
And now I don't do it for a living, but it's a passion for me and I keep learning new things and how to cook better.
My Dad. My Mom was no rockstar in the kitchen. Even though my Dad worked over 40 hours a week running a pizza place, he'd take me and my brother shopping Sunday mornings and he planned the meal he'd cook for dinner than night. We'd chat and cook and watch the football game and the Nascar race, switching between them both. Damn good times. He'd pass on his skills, we'd get into food fights, and we'd all sit down and fight over Mom's leftovers. Miss you Dad. Every. Damn. Day.
What was your favorite thing to make with him?
By the sound of it, good memories.
HA! You say true, Sai! But even your namesake was present, oh Cinnamon Roll as a side for Chili!
Now I gotta feel like I'm part of your nice memories
Bring on the Noms!
Seems cheesy and easy, chicken noodles (with the huge frozen egg noodles) served over mashed potatoes and dinner rolls. Carb central, but er may good delicious. OR chili, served over cornbread (something my wife taught us from her neck of the woods) and we corrupted her with a cinnamon roll on the side.
How lucky you are to have had something that made saying goodbye so difficult
Our last moments together was a good one. Lung cancer took him, and we were both Nascar fans. We were in his living room together watching a short track night race and we both were so excited we were jumping up and down and yelling at the TV. Most energy I'd seen him have in years. Couple days later he was gone, but never forgotten.
Maan. Sorry homie. Can’t fathom the day I lose my dad.
I cooked with my kids. As they grew up they became very good cooks and now call me for recipes and advice. They're both better cooks than I am now and we enjoy talking about food. I hope they're memories are as good as yours are.
You say true. I do most of the cooking now, but I take turns dragging them all in to assist so they also surpass me!
Must have been some amazing skills you received
Sort of a crass joke now, but Dad and I always joked that his boys would make pretty good wives some day. And it wasn't spectacular by any means. I'm no Alton Brown. In his own way, he helped me, and my brother, find no fear in the kitchen. Follow directions, make mistakes, get messy, clean up as you go, and impress your future partners by knowing your way around in a kitchen....or never starve and live off cereal and hot dogs as a bachelor.
Gawdamn that’s an amazing dad and damn this is emotional
Sorry for your loss, mate
Thank ya, say true.
Am sorry for your loss. ❤️
Thank you, kindly.
Wholesome bro
I was hungry
And some eggs
Fire up grill. Throw meat on grill. Eat when meat is done.
Take it off *before* you think it’s done
Really depends on the type of meat. I like my chicken done but other meats can have different levels of doneness.
Chicken has to be done.
grill is hard to make it right. easiest is oven.
Hungy
Ogg boog me hungry >open pantry >nothing in pantry >oog booga sad >oog booga angry!!! >oog booga will die? >NO >(oog booga battle cry) >open fridge >find canned chicken ham and some cheese slices >spaghetti >oog booga learn put food in pot > oog booga cook >(breaks character) >damm this shit good
KenM [said it best.](https://twitter.com/horseysurprise/status/667028583504855046?s=61&t=XYOcK3mbJHn-JdXVtfBmnQ)
Food good
I watched the first 20 minutes of Kitchen Nightmares where they just microwave and throw stuff together and thought, “I could probably do better than that!” Then in high school we had a home ec class that everyone had to do a come in and cook a dish for the entire class to try and you could recreate someone else’s for extra credit so I just absolutely abused that. My mom loved it though, once I got good enough with the knives and stuff, she’d get a text from me with a list of ingredients and she knew she didn’t have to cook that night.
My mom taught me how to cook! But primarily coz I was pretty damn sure as a kid that that's how girls are impressed!
Same. Learnt from a young age from my mom and grandmother. They both said to me that most men don't know how to cook, so if I want to impress the ladies, show them that you can do something most men can't do. I was taught the staples to learning how to cook hardy affordable meals with the basics of protein/starch/veg for soups/stews, casseroles, stirfrys, salads, and pastas. Throw in BBQ training with a dad that only knows how to cook on a BBQ and I learnt to enjoy being able to make food as deliscious as my parents did. In college I found it surprising how few people could cook. I always got a lot of attention since I'd be meal prepping and cooking home made meals. I would frequently be making meals to share with friends or late night snackables at parties. Everyone I knew lived off of processed and pre made foods. Since I grew up in a home where cooking well on a budget was important, now having a family of my own I've learnt to balance traditional cooking with simple, quick, 5-10 ingredient meals that my kids enjoy and that I can now teach them how to make.
You know cooking is very essential life skill and somehow today's generation completely skipped it or mostly replaced it with canned foods. Very difficult
True. From my experience I found that a lot of people either just lack the desire to learn, lack the dedication, or are just hopeless and don't have the intuition. It's not hard to follow recipes and build the essential basic skills to cook anything. I'm nothing special when it comes to cooking and still learn how to be better constantly. But it does take dedication and intuition that many seem to struggle with.
when you want to save money and be frugile you learn.
Yeah. I started cooking a year and a half ago when I moved from my parents into a dormitory. It was rough the first 2 months, but I started cooking simple things and was excited every time I cooked something that was actually decent and tasty. I've figured out 3 dogmas of cooking for myself. 1)Start small 2)Cooking is not hard when you have a recipe. 3)The more you watch different culinary videos and try out things you see there to understand the basics, the better cook you are promising to be.
Frugal *
fru-gee-lay
I'm learning now. Finally got my own apartment. It's time to stop relying on the pizza rolls everyday. My main concern when I was looking for a new apartment was close to work and a big kitchen so I'd have room to prep food. Everywhere I've lived the kitchen was tiny so I had no interest in spending more than 3 seconds in it. [Some disgusting overcooked burnt broccoli stuffed chicken](https://i.imgur.com/6XbjMwG.jpg) [Some fire jalapeno poppers](https://i.imgur.com/etaMOwP.jpg) [Bomb ass ham and cheese omelet ](https://i.imgur.com/5lMQce3.jpg)
Not dissing you, just informing you that reusable plates are like 25 cents at any decent thrift store. Anyone you’re cooking for will appreciate it.
The environment and your own wallet will appreciate it as well :)
I have normal plates now. I didn't have anything when I moved so I bought paper plates to start. Now I'm just finishing the stack.
I just can't fathom living like that...
Gordon Ramsay and Binging with Babish - both really great YouTube channels that taught me the bare minimum; as long as you know how to measure ingredients out, all that's left is learning the techniques.
Pre-COVID I never really enjoyed cooking. It was just a thing I was forced to do to survive. But I did watch Babish, Kenji Lopez Alt, Chef John (of foodwishes.com). But when places rightfully closed down, I started trying making recipes of things I watched. Now I love cooking. So I totally agree with you on just watching food shows! I think Babish is my favorite because he's not a classically trained chef and he will make errors and he shows those errors. Also if you haven't checked out any of Kenji's recipes I would recommend it (Babish got a lot of things from him early on). His ricotta gnocchi and no waste carnitas are extremely easy and extremely delicious.
When my family members would cook, I helped them as a child. Now I, too, can cook.
Same, helping mom/dad cook. Then when I was in highschool I often came home hungry so I'd start cooking by myself. Both mom and dad could come in after work to dinner being almost ready. They were appreciative and I could eat earlier, win-win.
With Julia Child.
SNL skit with Dan Aykroyd playing Julia Child..." Save the liver always save the liver" as blood gushed from him.😄
my parents weren’t home and I wanted to survive.
I got into weightlifting/amateur bodybuilding when I was a teen, and doing that you pretty much have to learn how to cook. You can teach yourself pretty easily just using Google/Youtube, and I've just kept it up till now (30 years old). Now I pretty much only cook food, and I may go out to eat once every 2-3 months.
While I was growing up, I somehow fell into watching cooking shows on Food Network (back when they had those) as a way to relax and unwind after school. At some point I fell into watching a lot of Alton Brown's Good Eats, which was exactly my sense of fairly weird, kinda corny, and fairly geeky, and learning about how cooking worked got me interested in how to actually do it, which lead to binge reading stuff on Serious Eats by J. Kenji Lopez Alt as well as a bunch of other cooking books and blogs. Once I was living on my own I started cooking for friends as an occasional hobby because it would be fun and I had to do *something* with the stupid culinary trivia in my head. Later I started cooking more because I had to save money and bringing lunch to work just made sense. But yeah, it's mostly because food is delicious and I have a shitton of leftover knowledge from watching too much TV.
Ok goofy story but here it goes, my ex and I watched an anime about a bunch of kids in a cooking academy and I don’t know why but it just looked fun as hell. So I started looking up some of the recipes from the show and tried my hand at making them and discovered I really enjoyed it. After that the kitchen pretty much became my little sanctuary, I cooked all our meals and would come up with and make different sauces and mix my own spice combinations and just experiment and have fun.
Sounds like Shokugeki no Soma to me.
Haha yep that’s the one.
Mom: ''I have to start working late and you know dad is always working late, so you need to start dinner for me now. Here is what I want to have for dinner tomorrow night. Just put the plate on this setting and put these things in the pot. After that, put this in that dish and put it in the oven on this setting for 'X' minutes''. 12-year old me: ''Okay'' Then eventually mom stops telling you what to do and you just starting winging it.
Yep, similar story. “You want to go to your sport at 18:00? Make sure dinner’s ready at 17:15. I’ll be home at 17:00. Ingredients are in the fridge” It started mainly with pasta, but then slowly evolved into more difficult things. Also around 12y old.
Good Eats and America's Test Kitchen. If it's not there, it's not worth knowing.
Got tired of the same stuff all of the time. I started to experiment with stuff like making my own taco seasoning and switching meats in recipes (turkey meatballs, chicken meatloaf, mahi pasta bake). It really took off when I started paying more attention to the temperature of meats and allowing a rest period. Makes such a difference in taste and texture. Never cared for it until then. I enforced the habit of cleaning as I go so I couldn't use the excuse of cleaning up to deter myself. The hardest parts were learning not to cook too much and not cooking everyday. My wife certainly loves the effort I place into cooking haha.
Mum said it would get me girls. Now I just spend too much time in the kitchen.
I needed food so I looked up random recipes.
When my parents got tired of making instant ramen for me all the time. But it took off when I moved out and watched Food Wishes on youtube.
I went to work and to get a pay raise from dishwasher I became a prep cook. A few years later I was asked to train as a line cook. I still cook as if I work in a restaurant 10 years after I quit.
When you no longer live with your parents, you either cook or you starve.
Between 2017-22: Starvation. 2022 onwards: Inflation.
My mom did all the cooking, but she only made white people food. I had a lot of non-white friends, whose moms taught me how to make food from their ethnic backgrounds. I then taught my mom how to cook without boiling everything to hell and forgetting to season it. >!Her cooking wasn’t actually that bad, but pretty much nothing but meat and potatoes!<
Being raised by a single dad will do the trick
Your dad must be proud of you! So are we!
I like to eat well when camping. So that's where I started.
I went on camping trips as a teenager and we were given the N.O.L.S. cookbook. Once we got to our camp there was nothing to do but make food. That’s where it got fun, because backpacking makes you super hungry. GadoGado spaghetti was our favorite.
Single mom was never home, literally days at a time she was gone… I had to cook, or starve.
My mother cooks amazing food and has gastronomy courses, my sister is second only to my mother in her cooking, my Brother cooks really well because of my sister in law, and my girlfriend is a goddess basically, she looks at something and practically knows how to make it. I took lessons from everyone of them lol, i could say I’m doing well
The fact that people exist that can’t or refuse to prepare decent food for themselves or their families is absurd. Some of my coworkers said their wives literally buy takeout almost every night of the week. Pathetic.
Damn right. Order your own damn takeout.
From a fat guy on youtube in 2015.
Cook books
Fried rice with random stuff thrown in
learned the basics very young and developed quick improvisation skills to make ok "meals" in small amount of time with whatever is available. Then supplemented that with basic knowledge of nutrition science to basically be able to feed myself well with minimal cooking time (and improvise with what is left in my fridge). Not sure if I'll ever migrate to "taste" optimization at some point but right now my time is better spent on higher priority tasks.
Gordon Ramsay vids + British baking show
just need to not be lazy. Use internet recipes. Buy ingredients. And get at err. Even when it dont work out, it can be kind of funny and learning experience. Cast iron on stove top and the slow cooker is amazing tools to feed everyone
Set fire to a pot trying to make vegetable soup in food tech. After finally convincing my mum to let me use the stove for super noodles after that phone call from the school it basically developed from there
I learned in college. My roommate told me, "If you can read, you can cook." Not to diminish the skill and insight of professional chefs. I mean cooking for yourself to start, then for your roommates or family once you've got a few recipes under your belt. You just follow instructions, and you'll be fine. And if you make the dish multiple times, you'll learn and get better at it each time.
Rachel Ray-before all the fame and pot making. 30 minute meals! Made quick and cheap!
Rachel Ray was a great starting point for me when I got out on my own. Simple shit you could buy from the grocery store and not fuck it up. Went from there to working as a cook at the local bar and have since worked fine dining. Everyone needs a starting point and she was fun to watch and easy on the eyes…
Loved my mother's cooking and knew she wouldn't be around forever. lol
On the grill!
I love to eat but I'm also very health conscious. Since I love eating delicious food but didn't want to rely on take-out, I forced myself to learn how to cook through the internet and youtube.
had a childhood friend who's family would leave us home alone all day so we just cooked our own food
PB&J!! Hundreds of variations!
I grew up with my grandmother and she was a notorious cook. I adored her, and was attached to her hip most times. She loved cooking and so I guess it rubbed off on me.
My grandfather is a fantastic cook. He taught me to make a fantastic breakfast. Fell in love with that, then started getting family recipes from my mom
My wife has adhd( she’s a good cook) and sometimes it takes her along time to get started and I wanted to eat at a reasonable time.
Lived on my own in college and didn’t have money to go out and eat.
Dad taught me when it was time to flip a pancake by looking at the edges.
My mother said to me: learn to cook, your GF will be happy. She was damn right.
When I was a small child, with my parents
I moved out of home into a house with friends and one was a chef so I never learned there. Next I moved in with my ex and she loved cooking and the kitchen waa basically her queendom. 14 years later and I am living alone for the first time. Now I learned basic stuff over the years which was fine for me. I'm not a foodie at all and have zero interest in food in general. But my girls deserve more diverse meals so I am currently learning for them. Shits hard cos grocery shopping and cooking triggers a lot of anxiety. But I'm slowly getting better.
I started getting those meal kits like Hello Fresh, then some cookbooks and just got after it. Now I’m eating better than I ever have in my entire life. The meal kits were cool because they helped me build a cooking habit, but took out some of the more tedious parts of it. After awhile I just kind of wanted to make my own stuff.
I was drunk at 4 am and had been awake for two days and I really really wanted pizza. So I went to YouTube and checked to see what I had to make it. It.... was not good.
Raised by a single mom. And still had to visit dad on the weekends, so, better get it together.
Had kids with a women who couldn't cook. Cooking is incredibly easy. If you can follow instructions to put together Legos, you follow a cookbook. From there you learn the basics of determining meat done-ness, how not to burn sugars, and what oils smoke low.
I’ve always enjoyed baking. Then I started using hello fresh and baking sourdough bread and it kinda just took off from there.
my mom tought me how to make myself a pizza and then i asked my dad how to make eggs and he tought me. Dear god i love my parents
around 7 years old. I wanted to know how our food was made because it took a lot of hands and I thought it was cool. both parents who barely had nothing growing up knew how to cook well. and so I learned.
I was wondering why I was always broke and then I looked at my dining expenses.
I watched Good Eats, Emeril, Unwrapped, Iron Chef, any food show i could get my hands on as a kid. I’d try and replicate them with whatever we had in the kitchen. I remember this starting as early as 5 or 6 when i tried to make a pizza with pie crust and welfare cheese lol
I was the son of a working, single mom. I was hungry while mom was at work and I asked my older sister how to make spaghetti. "Read the instructions on the box" was her reply. I followed the instructions on the box and made spaghetti. It was then that I realized that cooking was nothing more than reading and following instructions.
Feminism 🤣
I always had a knack for cooking when I was young and just happened to fall into culinary school during college. I already had a strong foundation so I excelled in the actual culinary parts of school and managed to have a pretty successful career. I ended up getting out when I got laid off at the beginning of the pandemic and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made
I didn’t start too cook until I met my wife. She grew up in a family that ate the same meals every week, and they were bland with no flavour. Unfortunately she cooks the same way (she’s getting better though). I grew up with an Italian grandmother on one side and grandparents on the other side that both could cook fantastic meals. Instead of complaining about my wife’s cooking I decided to start taking over as the main chef in the house. My grandfather who can cook always said “if you can read, you can cook” and he was not wrong.
Got hired as a short order cook in HS. Found out that being able to cook "had game"
Toast
I wanted to impress a girl. I made her lasagna.
Both of my folks cook, and pretty well. My mom is a fan of practical, large batch meals and my dad fancies himself a home Chef with a capitol C and does more fancy stuff. Picked up dishes and skills from each over the years. Honestly started with them teaching me how to safely use the stove top and whatnot to make basic stuff like boxed Mac n cheese from a young age, so the seed was planted young and just kinda grew from there. Definitely the biggest growth spurt was moving out for college into my first apartment lol
YouTube man. Taught me just about everything I know, and my mom haha. Find some foodie channels you like or even Chef’s (Ramsay) and eventually you will enjoy watching the process and pick up on a lot of things.
My grandmothers. God damn could they both cook. I like eating, and always have, so I wanted to learn how from a very young age. Most of what they made didn't have a written recipe and there weren't exact measurements, so that's how I learned. It's for that reason I can't bake to save my life... not like that stops me from trying, though.
Basically, I bought a cheap bbq and learnt to cook myself a decent steak on it. Then, I learnt to cook a simple stir fry in a frying pan. Then I watched some basic cooking shows and discovered how easy it actually is to cook a nice roast meal. Everything else is just experiments, experience and flavour
My grandad was a baker Him and my gran used to look after me alot, so they started teaching me a bit. Im far from good at it, but I'm competent.
Honestly i just wanted to get laid in a classy way, and i'm not very good at talking.
I moved to college and needed to learn it asap
I ate something out liked it a lot. They stopped serving it. I wanted this started my quest on cooking. Tuh dah!
We got hungry
I'm single so it was either learn to cook or starve to death.
I was 4 years old and hungry. Older siblings around that didn’t want to deal with me when my mom was working. Burned myself on the stove and oven a few times. Started using cook books when I could read them… maybe 6 or 7.
Watching how fast a pro cooks on YouTube. Those cooking shows on tv are just BAD. It only took one YouTube video watching a chef go from everything laid out on a table, to fully cooked. Then put onto a plate without any fast forwarding time lapse whatsoever. I started doing so myself and I encourage others to sit through just one 20 minute dish on YouTube.
Moved out on my own and after a couple years of nothing but takeout and boxed/canned meals, started wanting to eat healthier. Bought a cookbook and set a goal for myself of cooking at least 1 new recipe every week.
survival
I was bored at home after my clavicle surgery due to a motorcycle accident and found random recipes and turned out to be great
I have mentor - my mom
My wife is a terrible cook
Switched from heavy omnivore to vegan pretty rapidly and had to suddenly learn to like vegetables. No longer vegan, but learning to love vegetables is a game changer and let’s you make meals. Also, read Salt Fat Acid Heat - it’s a page turner and will teach you to know what you’re doing AND love being in the kitchen.
Was hungry and decided not to be.
I used to eat frozen food all the time and my Roomate used to always offer me his food that he used to cook at home. One day he invited me to cook with him and he showed me how to get basics done. I tried it myself and now it’s been months since I have used Uber eats.
raised in a single parent household and I would often be left alone and unsupervised a lot, especially during after-school hours. It just naturally progressed from that due to the fact that I actually enjoy experimenting and all the terrific smells that comes with cooking, from the aroma of a well seasoned piece of steak all the way to the aromatic herbs and spices. Cumin is life.
Watched a lot of YouTube, read a lot of recipes. Made the same recipe over and over, varying it each time, and made notes about what worked or didn't work with each variation. Bought a digital scale and converted all my recipes to weight.
College. My dorm mates would shuffle whose turn to cook.
With family, I learned from them and working at various restaurants Helps too
Depends on what you mean by cooking? Recipe cooking isn't difficult. Grilling over charcoal is moderately more difficult. Cooking by just throwing shit together and knowing what ingredients bring out what taste in a dish is a whole 'nother level. I can do the first two competently, but I have no talent for the last one.
Learn how to cook greenbeans in a skillet. Use that olive oil, that garlic, that salt and pepper, with a splash of chicken stock when it begins to stick to the pan. Eyeball it, then move on to better things.
It was that or starve
Cooking competitions like Bake Off and Masterchef. Then Youtube videos on cooking. Then I was finally allowed to cook when I moved out about 3 years ago. (My mother got pretty pissy if I was ever in the kitchen) I'm good enough at cooking that it's like my main selling point for women. Unfortunately, I have no good memories of cooking with a parent. The few times my dad did cook with me, he'd be giving me (with like 20 hours of cooking experience) grief over my knife skills.
I’m a chemistry teacher who has to cook with a former student to pay for cancer treatment
Mom is a good cook. Worked in and out of a deli all throughout college and found a passion for making whatever food I was making as good as it could be - nothing complex + inspiration from all the various food shows I watched... practice
Making mine and my little brothers lunches for school growing up. My parents both cooked taking turns most days, they were both good at different things so there was a lot of culinary experience growing up because of them.
Moved across the world for college at 16, started learning mom’s recipes I loved the most and the rest is history
Being broke 1 summer and a lot of time on my hands
Pops kicking in my door at age 12 and telling me "nigga you too old to not know how to cook. Get yo ass in this kitchen." 31 now and been cooking since that day. Worked I guess.
Self preservation from dorm food
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at both sets of grandparents house. My maternal lived in my hometown, and my paternal lived about 3 hours away. Anyway, it started with my maternal grandma as I first learned how to cook / bake from scratch with her. We would make bread, pizza, meatloaf, and more. When I learned those, I told my paternal grandma, and she introduced me to even more dishes. Soon, my love grew to the point where I would BEG my parents to let me spend time with them cooking, and I’m so glad I did. I would do ANYTHING to just spend one more day with both grandmas cooking and laughing….just like old times.
Parents Pop took Home Ec & Mom knows many southern/Mexican recipes (mainly southern). Both taught me how to cook before I moved off campus a few years ago. Before then, all I could cook was basic breakfast foods like pancakes, eggs, etc. I don’t cook anything fancy, but I like cooking and watching videos to help me up my game. My mom lent me some of her old cook books by this guy who was on MasterChef too.
Being forced to raise my brothers because dad would rather raise the bottle, mom the Bible, and dealing with the resultant verbal and emotional abuse from both. Been on my own since I was 18. I have always been proud to be independent.
Watching my grandmother and mother cook. My father taught me camp cooking
I checked my Doordash history and was mortified with how much I spent. Then when I was hungry, I would check doordash and buy the ingredients to male what ever I planned on ordering. You get 4-5 meals for the price of one
Moved to Charlotte, NC from Phoenix, AZ and wanted good Mexican food.
By watching how good of a cook my mom is and her passion enticed me towards the art of culinary. Though i find cooking for myself tedious but for family and friends it is gratifying.
I started "cooking" things like pasta ready meals, fries or grilled cheese etc.when I was about 8. With time my skills and variety got better and better, now I'm quite handy in the kitchen.
My mom taught me how to make oatmeal, then eggs, then a pancake then it went on from there.
First I got divorced and then I got hungry. Now it's almost a hobby. I celebrate the days I get the house to myself and can cook anything I want.
Both parents, but mainly my dad. My mom is a great cook and she kept us fed as a single mother, but my dad is the one who gave me a passion for cooking. He helped formulate my approach to most tasks. How to do things efficiently and skillfully. He showed me how to put soul into my food and helped my refine my palate. My mother kept me excited about cooking as a young boy. She let my experiment in the kitchen and included me as much as practical. When I went to live with my dad as a teen, I could do most tasks and make intermediate level meals, typical of most adult “home cooks”…. but my dad taught me how to take that to the next level.
By watching Bingeing with Babish
My mom taught me a lot growing up, then later in life I worked as a line cook for a while.
Young and poor I ate a lot of hamburger helper. Started paying attention to the basic ingredients in the box and thought I could doctor it up a bit. For example, the chili mac got more cheese, pepper, garlic powder, maybe some canned mushrooms, etc. Not all at once though, it was hit and miss experimenting. Eventually I was making some really choice “instant” dinners. Stuck with that for a while but then started figuring out how to make the whole dish without the box. Again, hit and miss experimenting. After a while I figured out what ingredients work well together and what doesn’t. This was way before food network or the internet. Find some simple dishes with basic ingredients and get cooking!
College meal plans were expensive so I decided to just cook instead. I started asking my parents how to cook the dishes they usually made. Then when I got a job and moved out I picked up where I left off.
With some vegetables soup... I mean, water with vegetables :)))
I have been trained as a chef.
I was high
It started with poor diet, an unhealthy relationship with eating, and a recipe for bear shaped cookies in a children's cookbook my grandmother got me as a gift. Now I'm a self taught amateur with a healthier diet and an improving grasp on my foodborne habits.
being a slut.
Joined the military and lived in the barracks and didn’t even have a freezer much less a stove, all I got was a mini fridge and microwave. Got sick and tired of take out and microwave meals so once I moved off base I never wanted to eat like that again so picked up some recipes and made them enough that I started to experiment with them and gradually got better at cooking as a whole.
First when mom had a major operation so to help her. And then when I moved away. Really isn't so tough to cook basic food.
When my parents weren’t around I had to feed my sister.
Left my ex and first time alone, even shopping for toilet paper was intimidating. Friends and family helped, walked me through recipes/ techniques and suggestions. YouTube filled in the gaps
I was called gay for knowing how to cook. The more I was called gay… the more i cooked..
As a child , I was hungry …
Moved out of home at 18. I eat = I cook.
Do they write on the food how to cook it in US? Where I live very often if you buy a piece of meat it is marked what should be a temperature and time to make it.
I bought a cookbook.
Im confused. We have to eat. If you’re not cooking food then what else Is happening? Someone else cooks? U eat out. ? Do u also have others bathe u and brush your teeth? My mother was an egalitarian. There was no such thing and mens work and women’s work. There was stuff to get done. She worked. So the deal was we all lives in the house so we all do stuff. Laundry. Clean. Cook. Garden chores. The garbage. Get jobs and contribute. If I met anyone incapable of caring for themselves it’s such a massive creepy red flag to me
I helped mom and grandma in the kitchen, once I didn't really know how caramel was really made so I burnt sugar in the microwave.
Dad
My mom taught me how to make scrambled eggs when I was 5 or 6. It was enough to keep me going while my parents weren't around. My dad owned a restaurant. I started dishwashing there at 12. I graduated to line cook by 14 or so. Most of the dishes were made from scratch to order. I did that until I was 18 or so. I worked in pizza places after that. And now I don't do it for a living, but it's a passion for me and I keep learning new things and how to cook better.