Who taught you to cook?

[StripyPixieSocks]

My Nana taught me, she was always baking at the weekends when I stayed... I remember cooking Scrambled Eggs for my Granddad while standing on a stool because I couldn't see over the cooker :)

[fifi folle]

I learned some from my mum but I guess I just picked it up!

Always liked making new things, sometimes use a recipe book and sometimes just try and see.

I've let my daughter help since she was really young, and she has been able to make a meal herself since she was about 12 (makes a mean chiken korma!) Now she can do all sorts of stuff from adding water to a pot noodle (lol!) to creating a weekend menu for my Guide unit when we're off on camp!


Susi

Wow, you just reminded me of having to make a meal and lay the table for a brownie badge at about 10/11! I think it was the Hostess badge? That was before they modernised the badges to include computer skills and such like!

[ina]

I learned the basics from helping my mum - but as she didn't have much time, it was me who was responsible for any "fancy" cooking from about the age of 10 (that was late 60s - so you can imagine what was fancy cooking back then - toasted ham, pineapple and cheese on toast was well exotic, particularly in Germany!)

I started reading cookery books (grew up in a book shop, and spent most of my spare time in the library...), and went to evening classes in cookery before I was officially old enough. No cookery at school - we weren't supposed to need that kind of skill, we were prepared for university...

[Susiwaa]

Wow, you just reminded me of having to make a meal and lay the table for a brownie badge at about 10/11! I think it was the Hostess badge? That was before they modernised the badges to include computer skills and such like!

Still got cooks and confectioner badges but with the added chocolate one (kids love that!)

Actually, sending kids to Brownies/Guides/Scouts/BBs etc is a good place for them to learn skills like cooking.

[Mrs Moustoir]

My late mum taught me all the basics, how to make stews, spag bol, curries, roast dinners, pastry and loads of puds too. I'm from a big family and my mum could always rustle up a meal for all comers. She was a feisty Scot from Fife and used to say.. " it's naw much, but you'll all get a taste" before serving up huge tasty meals for 12 people without any notice or breaking a sweat!

My MIL on the other hand was of the crispy pancake and crinkle chip persuasion. My OH didn't realise that gravy was actually meant to be a liquid before he came to our house! No kidding, you had to slice her lamb gravy.

[mrsflibble]

I think my basic skills were kind of osmosis. my family cook. it's what we do. someone's died? no bother I'll do a stew. someone getting married? get some chicken on! need to apologise? fine. do it with cake.

I always remember sitting in the kitchen as my mum cooked, my great gran taught me the benefits of saving veggies form the roast and having bubble and squeak...

I went to uni and could cook enough to keep myself alive, but not enough to impress so I started my cookbook collection. I think cooking is mostly common sense and experimentation to work out what YOU like.

Not baking though. Baking is science and you don't mess with the tried and tested methods.

Now Sophie is in the kitchen while I am, and she does the same at my mum's house.

[oldjerry]

a brownie badge at about 10/11! I think it was the Hostess badge?


Hells teeth, the brownies have gone down hill since I was a lad!!

[123sologne]

Cooking is my therapy.

I think we're a match made in heaven - eating's mine

I am not sure hubby will let me go that easily.....
His cooking is very good too, especially his stir fries and a few other dishes I need to have at least once a month

[Masco&Bongo]

No one taught me to cook... I taught myself!

My mum did cook, but it was (and still is) very basic stuff. She hates cooking and hates eating. For her, eating is something you have to do to survive and should be done as quickly as possible. She takes no pleasure in preparing, or eating food at all. We used to invite her out for meals, but gave up when she complained about what was on the menu, or the prices etc. She doesn't eat anything 'foreign' - she hates pasta and rice, and the most exotic thing she has eaten is sweet and sour chicken with chips. I'll always remember that she made us spag bol, which was the most un-Italian, tasteless meal ever. The pasta was boiled hard to within an inch of disintegrating completely and the minced beef just had a tin of tomatoes with it. If she wants to go out for a meal, she loves those £3.50 Carvery places *shudder*

Often, I'll ask her what she's eaten and she will have had either beans on toast or yorkshire puddings (from frozen) with gravy for her tea - all week! I've filled her freezer with soups and casseroles and all sorts, but they all have things she doesn't like in them - herbs/spices, beans, odd vegetables etc.

She did once say that she never saw any point in spending hours cooking, as it's gone in minutes - what a waste of time!

On the other hand, I was thrown out of Home Ec class for showing the teacher up (I made chocolate eclairs from scratch in an hour when I was 13) and I love cooking. Actually, I love eating, so to eat what I wanted, I had to learn to cook it :)

[Green Aura]

I found Domestic Science (as it was called when I was at school) a complete waste of time. I was already far in advance of anything they had us make.

But I still remember vividly the lesson when she taught us the economical way to wash up! It was brilliant - only one tiny squirt of washing up liquid did everything, right through to the pans. (Fortunately I have a dishwasher but I always use the same principles if I wash up elsewhere).

[Masco&Bongo]

I found Domestic Science (as it was called when I was at school) a complete waste of time. I was already far in advance of anything they had us make.

Same here.... I did want to take it at GCSE level, but the teacher refused to have me in her class because of 'Eclair-gate'

[Russian Doll]

i learnt at brownies and still have my hostess badge among others

also learnt the rest at school and recipe books

[spider8]

Watching and helping my mum cook was they way I learnt. Mum didn't do fancy stuff just good filling cheap meals (because we had to) and she worked full-time in bakeries over the years so we had wonderful pastries and cakes and savoury things...........that's why I've always been big! Unfortunately for myself and Mallimak, I haven't inherited her 'skill' with cooking and find it a chore, all that work then it's gone in 2 minutes and then left with the washing up .

[Ellendra]

I watched my parents when I was little, but I didn't really start learning to cook until I was 12. That was when I stubbornly decided that I was NOT going to eat foods I already knew I didn't like, and nobody was going to make me eat them!

My mother, who had wisely learned that pressuring a stubborn person only makes them dig in their heels more, informed me that I could eat whatever I liked, but that she was not going to prepare 2 different dinners, so if I didn't want what she was making I'd have to make my own.

I ate a lot of spaghetti O's that first few months, but by that same time next year, I was cooking fancy 3-course meals for the whole family, from scratch.

[julie_lanteri]

I learnt with my great grandma, my gran and my mum. recipes (well kinda, more like list of ingredients with mystery quantities :p ), techniques and memories that will last forever...
Now, I use books and internet (library, blogs and youtube)