I love cooking, but because my mom is too much of a bimbo and my dad too much of a “manly man” to ever step into the kitchen, I never had the chance to learn from them. I grew up on delivery, takeout, eating out, and the incredible food made by the amazing woman who cooks for our family. I became deeply interested in cooking at the start of my teenage years and taught myself through the internet, books, that same woman, and other relatives.
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I learnt at cooking school, because i was a chef at one stage. That was 2 decades ago, and I’ve lost most of those skills now.
Some from my parents, some from school, and some from trying shit :3
Overall the cooking classes I got in school were probably the biggest part of learning it lol
At first my dad showed me how to grill a chicken in our oven and how to make mashed potatoes from powder and open a can of sauerkraut. Our mom was in the hospital for several months and our dad had to work shift so he sometimes wasn’t at home and at about 13 it was ut to me to Make lunch for me and My 11 years old sister when we came home from school.
After mastering that I did a lot of trail and error. I still for the love of god can’t cook a rabbit, it’t always terrible dry and chewie.
But other things like beef, vegetable soup, chicken, barszcz etc. I am now cooking consistently as they should taste.
But the most fun I have cooking with stuff which randomly is in the refrigerator, sometimes it’s a miss, but most of the time I have a feeling what will work well together.
My mom allowed me to watch, so I understood the basics. But she also was a terrible cook, so I didn’t really git gud until I started watching Good Eats. The inclusion of the science was a huge help, since I am one of those people that benefits a lot from knowing why I am doing something and not just knowing that I need to do X. So I can follow recipes, but also can concoct my own things knowing what will work as a substitute and why, or what flavors go well together and such.
Trial and error. Lot’s of meals that I just… forced down. Learned what I did wrong and changed it. But well, I don’t really cook specific recipes, mostly I just boil things and know when to add stuff and what spices might go good with it, if any.
I’m happy other people had their parents to teach them but my parents mostly made stuff from boxes like hamburger helper and kraft dinner. Then they had all that free time to themselves to watch tv and get drunk.
Very much this. Watch a few chefs on TV / the internet and just trial and error. Cooking is a skill like anything else and you simply need to put in the time to get experienced.
I do highly recommend you own a wooden chopping board, a Mercer Culinary Chef’s Knife (or better), and a 1000 grit whet stone for sharpening. A sharp knife makes cooking easier and more enjoyable. And a wood board is kinder to a blade and is surprisingly more hygienic than alternatives.
If you don’t want to bother with home sharpening you can get your knives sharpened professionally. I recommend every year or so, but in my household it’s usually whenever all the knives slip onto a finger
I have a cheap, but really good bamboo cutting board from the dollar store and a tiny one from ikea that I use more often (because my kitchen is tinnnyyy). I also bought my knife from ikea a decade ago and I hone it before every use with an old steel I found in a thrift shop that was made in Sheffield. I say this because it seems to be better then any of the steels I bought new from any other store.
My wife and her mother taught me. I love to cook now, but my mother doesn’t like to cook and was too tired as a single mother to cook a lot, so when I lived alone I was totally incapable to cook.
Small steps. Some cookbooks talk through the basics. Lock in some staples and built from there. Eggs 3 ways, pasta sauce, simple desserts. I was surprised how simple and impressive a gelatine-based panna cotta is. Once i got some under my belt, i tried something more intricate - Lemon sabayon pine nut tart with honeyed mascarpone cream from the french laundry.
Funny how desserts are formulaic, so follow the recipe. Daily cooking is usually by ‘feel’.
Oh and always ask that amazing lady for advice.
I learned cooking from observing my father, but he never really taught me to cook. He loved cooking and I always remember himself saying, “the hardest part about cooking is figuring out what you want to cook.” Cooking is easy when you’re not afraid of making mistakes.
I use Youtube. I also learn from my grandma. She knows how to cook many dishes and I’m very impressed by her.
I learned in chapters.
- Teen/young adult years I just got the basics down, how to cut meat and veggies depending on their application and making meals I grew up with and knew well.
- Twenties, mostly cooking in restaurants learning new recipes and commiting the “correct way” to memory while learning foods from other cultures
- Thirties, breaking out of my comfort zone and just making food that sounds like it’d work together instead of making what middle-of-the-road restaurants taught me. Lots of YouTube videos absorbing general concepts.
The biggest things I’ve learned is that food needs twice as much fat/oil as I think it does and three times as much salt. When I have bits of veggies I’m not gonna cook, I freeze them in a bag until I have enough to make a stock—it’s free flavor. Also, spice and season everything; I used to season my main ingredients and then just plop unseasoned ingredients on top thinking it’s fine (for example, an egg scramble needs salt and pepper added to both the eggs and the sautéed veggies)
My mom was a drunk and would be unreliable for food and the stuff she made was often bad so if I wanted to eat I needed to figure something out. My first real cooking experience was trying to impress her with a nice meal and it worked. The monster liked me, and food was a great answer for making a bad situation better.
After that it has been… Whatever works. I talk to people about their tricks and try cuisine I might not otherwise like cause it is good to know. Get cookbooks and watch cooking shows sure but also exploring the concepts behind how and why. I chose to learn basics. Why something turns out the way it does from the way you cook it (poached, baked, broiled, fried) and then add to it and adjust.
Humans are great puzzle solvers and cooking is a personal puzzle for what tastes good and what you have to work with. Get the basics down and then be ok with mistakes.
Honestly… YouTube you can learn a bunch of things there if you want to.
By cooking.
In order to learn how to cook, you must first learn how to cook.
No, you’ll probably fuck up plenty starting out (I did), but that’s OK, just do your best to follow the steps and you’ll get the hang of it. Fucking up can be a valuable learning experience.
There’s lots of videos out there that can help, but if you know someone who can cook, that can be a big help!
Cook badly until one day you don’t.
I don’t think I have that much perseverance. I’m super grateful for cookbooks with easy-to-follow recipes - I’m pretty sure I would have starved under the fail-until-you-figure-it-out approach.
Absolutely nothing wrong with using cook books and recipes, especially when you’re starting out.
I worked in a group home in college, and part of the job was cooking. When I started, my cooking level was pretty much spaghetti and sauce from a jar. Fortunately for me, there was a set menu with recipes to follow.
I’ve learned quite a bit since then, but I’m still very much a “mechanical” cook. I’m good at following recipes, but I won’t typically be able to improvise a meal with whatever is on hand. I’ll take a look at what we have and start searching for likely-looking recipes.
