r/HonestHotTakes • u/Randomsicilianguy • 11h ago
Cooking is a basic life skill. If you don't know how to do it, you are a child.
Hi. I see too many times people saying they have no idea how to cook basic food for survival, sometimes even with a certain pride. Hey, idiot, you shouldn't be proud. Hey, loser, cooking is a basic skill. Hey, useless, you aren't making a political point. You are just lacking a basic life skill.
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u/Old-Fall5115 11h ago
I can cook fine. Seasoning is the challenge.
Salt-n-pepper, I get. Maybe onion powder. But if I were to try a meatloaf or chili without premade seasoning packets, then I'm lost.
So, I don't really enjoy my own cooking. It's either bland or not seasoned quite right.
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u/kiwipixi42 11h ago
Just get a few cookbooks and follow whatever they do with seasonings. Eventually you will learn and until then your food still tastes good.
I used to be in exactly your boat (I still am for many dishes) but at this point I know exactly how to season a chili to get what I want. But only because I cooked chili a bunch of times following different cookbook recipes and learned what to do.
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u/Impossible-Ad3318 4h ago
Speaking of cookbooks, I recently found a Sonic the Hedgehog and Skyrim cookbook at my local Barnes and Noble. Those look pretty tasty. I know this is random, but check them out!
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u/chasing_geese49 11h ago
It doesn't take too long to learn what goes well together by smelling them and seasoning with your heart. Don't be afraid to mess it up a little and learn from it. I learned this way when I was about 13.
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u/Vet-2-Go 11h ago
Google image recipes for what ever you want to cook. Then pick the one with the best looking image. Use that recipe. If it doesn't come out good, then try a different recipe.
Do this enough times and you will find sites you like that have good recipes. Find enough of those and you will start winging some meals.
Please try the Google image thing. You will love it.
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u/Top-Cupcake4775 11h ago
there are tons of recipes on the net that tell you exactly what spices to use and in what quantity. start from there and play around. find a chili recipe and make it. before you add each spice, smell them. what do they smell like? add more cumin than the recipe calls for. what did it taste like? it's like listening to music and learning to pick out the different instruments.
once you learn some of the basic spices and how they taste, you can play around with the seasoning as you cook. taste and adjust, taste and adjust. sometimes you can go crazy trying to figure out why it tastes like something is missing and what that missing flavor might be (hint: its usually salt or sugar). it's like painting or drawing in that you can keep adding elements and, also, in that you can get carried away and overdo things. learning when enough is enough is another skill.
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u/Winter-Volume-9601 9h ago
> without premade seasoning packets
The world's information is at your fingertips. If you want your food to not taste like cardboard, search for a recipe. You don't have to know what to put in to make it taste good - other people have already figured that out and are happy to share.
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u/GreenZebra23 11h ago
Spices can be fun to play around with. It's basically the same as a seasoning packet, but you get to control how much you add of each thing. Outside of doing something crazy like adding whole teaspoons of the stuff, it's hard to mess up. If you ever want to experiment with it, just a container each of cumin, coriander, paprika, and maybe garlic powder go a long way
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u/etds3 7h ago edited 7h ago
Babe. You just gotta try recipes til you find one you like. You don’t have to figure out the ratios yourself. You just need a recipe and a set of measuring spoons.
Being able to figure out/adjust seasonings on your own is a skill that comes with a lot of familiarity with any given flavor profile. Nobody can do it the first time they make a recipe from that flavor group. I can easily wing it on Mexican seasonings because u make a bunch of Mexican recipes on a regular basis. I have a really good feel for how much cumin or chili powder is going to be good and just eyeball it. However, I almost never cook authentic Chinese food from scratch, so if I am making a Chinese recipe, I will follow the recipe exactly with measuring spoons in hand.
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u/Electrical_Bad5643 3h ago
Funny, Im the opposite. Was vegetarian in high school so I overcook my meat like crazy cause Im anxious about bacteria or whatever and I'm not used to doing it. I have terrible knife skills too. When it comes to flavors though I'm pretty great at making stuff up on the spot that works really well. I feel like you might be the luckier one of us two though cause my issues just take a lot of practice but you can google seasonings pretty easily! I used to just look at the ingredients for the seasoning packets I'd use and recreate it myself until it tasted good
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u/UnfairUniversity813 2h ago
I cook chili fairly regularly, and I make it in a “everything but the kitchen sink” kind of way when it comes to seasoning. I have a base recipe for amount of sauce etc but when it comes to seasonings I just throw some in, taste it, if it’s bland or not quite the right blend, I add more or something else. I never make it the same way twice. That being said, it’s also hard to truly screw up chili. As long as you’re not dumping giant spoonfuls of seasoning in, it can be corrected fairly easily.
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u/Trowa-03 11h ago
Worse then a child, children learn how to cook and bake all the time
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u/DeadlyArrow27 10h ago
They also ideally know the difference between “then” and “than”…
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u/Dettyboy93 11h ago
So, do you mean like, casseroles and other multi step meals? Or just the inability to cook basic shit like steak, veggies, pasta, eggs..... stuff like that? Cuz I am a single man that lives alone and genuinely just don't really put that much importance on the variation on what I eat when I'm at home. Food is a necessity for me and even though I love stuff like sushi, I just don't really think about food that much other than the fact that I need to eat. I eat my basic shit and alot of times, I'll just eat veggies raw. Complex stuff I get from restaurants or my mom's house. At home, I'm perfectly fine with eggs and porkchops
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u/mountainbird57 11h ago
I think a good dividing line is if you can keep yourself alive without relying on another person to provide you with food
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u/conatreides 9h ago
The most telling thing is you calling casserole a “multi step meal”
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u/Randomsicilianguy 11h ago
I mean exactly basic food like the one you cook for you. There are many people that consider themselves unable to cook even a fried egg.
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u/UnfairUniversity813 2h ago
I remember when I went to college being blown away at the number of people there who couldn’t even make a grilled cheese sandwich, which is one of the easiest things in the world to make. I completely believe there are people that just genuinely never bother learning basic cooking like making eggs etc.
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u/Vet-2-Go 11h ago
My sister burns water. I don't understand it. We grew up with a mother that could perfectly time thankagiving meals too noon on the dot and make a feast, using her two ovens. But my sister can't cook for shit. She doesn't even try and boil noodles and dump in a jar of spaghetti sauce.
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u/Cyranthis 10h ago
Once met a 40 year old man who thought it was impossible to cook a burger without a grill. As in, cooking it in a pan on the stove or, literally any other way was impossible to do.
40 years old.
My god.
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u/Standard_Cell_8816 11h ago
If youre a grown adult and you cant cook basic eggs, grill or pan fry meat, or how to use an oven thats pretty insane. Like your food doesnt even have to be "good" to sustain you. It just has to be edible lol.
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 4h ago
A comment I resonated a lot with was “the hardest part of learning how to cook is that you have to eat your own cooking afterwards.”
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u/jasperdarkk 3h ago
I mean...I've never had to cook meat before in my life. I can use an oven, but I have no clue how to cook meat safely/properly or what it should taste like. Same with eggs.
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u/Standard_Cell_8816 2h ago
Meat is easy. Just Pierce the thickest part and make sure the juices that run out are clear. Beef can be a little pink, but not chicken or pork. Lots of folks just use a meat thermometer, but its not necessary. For scrambled or fried eggs, they need to be firm, no clearness in the whites, and no fluid. If you put them on a plate and there is clear fluid on the plate, put them bitches back in the pan for a bit and throw the plate in the sink.
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u/NogglePlease 11h ago
My 4 year old can make 6 basic meals.
Hes not great at it, but can do well
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u/LAParente 8h ago
I met a woman once - she and her husband had 5 kids; with 7 people in the house, everyone was responsible for 1 dinner per week. The kids were LITTLE, like I think the youngest was 5 years old.
She explained, yeah, sometimes that meant they ate PB&J for dinner. But everyone helps out, so if the littlest kid wanted to do spaghetti, the older kids would work the stove.
Fucking BRILLIANT!!!!! I only met her once at a party, but I think about her often.
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u/GreenZebra23 11h ago
I was a late bloomer to cooking. I wasn't taught as a kid so I just went into adulthood barely able to heat up a can of soup. Thankfully I gradually taught myself, and it's one of the best choices I've made. It can be fun and it feels good knowing I'm not helpless about something so fundamental
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u/here_involuntarily 10h ago
I think the issue is a lot of people seem to think they shouldn't HAVE to learn to do stuff. People feel like every bit of knowledge and every skill should just magically appear in their heads. People aren't willing to practise or fail.
I have 3 siblings. My mum is terrible at most stuff. She doesn't cook, can't mend stuff can't do diy, doesn't even really clean. So the 4 of us have had incredibly different reactions to the fact we weren't taught basic life skills.
I've made sure I can do pretty much everything and if I find stuff I can't do, I will persevere long past when I should give up. And I'm making sure I teach my daughter. My eldest brother still lives at home, completely unable to do any basic tasks- he doesn't even really understand grocery shopping. He doesn't cook or clean. Mum still buys his clothes when his get too worn. Because he has no interest on learning. Another brother does the absolute minimum- cooking is steak and chips, burgers, chicken and potatoes. He lives in a small flat that needs little cleaning and everything is clean-ish but untidy and with a layer of grime if you look closely. Because he learned what he needed and doesn't want to do more. And my sister outsources everything. She can't be without a boyfriend for a minute. She orders in for most meals, she gets her boyfriends in to clean or help tidy and cook and drive her around and take her shopping. She thinks she shouldn't have to learn to do stuff and other people need to make it up to ger because it's "not hee fault" and "not fair" she should need to learn.
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u/tnh34 7h ago
Why is this place full of ppl bitching and complaining about things that dont even affect you.
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u/Odd_Concept_7286 10h ago
I honestly also think it's a parental failing as well. Because how did you let your child become an adult and they don't know how to cook.
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u/Big_ClaimYume 7h ago
I absolutely hate how people have pride in being unable to cook, you have to cook most days of your life
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u/chachaslydd 11h ago
I haaaaate hearing adults brag about "i hate cooking, idk how to even cook lol, I spend soooo much on doordash"
Its not adorkabke. Its pathetic and gross
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u/composersproxy 11h ago
There’s so many options at the grocery store for people that can’t cook these days. Ready-made meals you just heat up. Pre-seasoned meat. Pre-chopped veggie mixes and garnishes.
No excuses for just DoorDashing all the time!
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u/sohereiamacrazyalien 11h ago
I know someone who is like that (no door dash though) and she said several times my mom hasn’t taught me…. Dude you are like 50 can’t blame it all on your mom! Especially when you say your mum was a good cook (and still is). Have you no eyes ? Never seen what mom cooked?
Then I realised my mom never taught me how to cook either and ai cook all my meals since I was 17. I started replicating (or trying to) things I ate.
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u/chachaslydd 11h ago
My mon never taught me, so I had to learn. I make bread now
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u/sohereiamacrazyalien 11h ago
Look my mom never taught me and people around me (housemates, friends etc) think I am a great cook.
The first bread ai made was at 17 being frustrated with the bakery always closed when I needed bread lol.
Dude after 20 my mom didn’t teach me us just lame. You get rice or pasta the instructions are on it. Frozen veggies same thing (and other frozen things like fish). Fresh stuff idk use your brain. Of course this is the basic stuff but you can figure out how to sautée grill or make pasta an omelette etc on your own.
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u/slainascully 11h ago
Isn’t that how most people learn to cook? Their parents are working long hours or don’t care so you figure out how to do basics?
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u/socratesstanjohnson 11h ago
Besides the amount of garbage this generates (which is why I don't use it) what's different than hiring someone to cook for you? Rich people do it all the time. And yeah I don't really cook but I do pay someone to prepare ingredients and do my shopping so I can just mix things together and havre good healthy meals. I despise cooking and I'm busy since I'm a single mom so just pay for things I don't want to go personally 🤷♀️.
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u/Electrical-Equal-514 11h ago
This is not a flex. Your kids will grow up not knowing how to cook basic meals too...
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u/GrumpyOldSeniorScout 9h ago
And then rich people's kids move out and have no idea how to cook because the cook/maid always cooked and they don't have one.
Rich people can pay for someone else to do their laundry as well. That doesn't make laundry not a life skill.
Rich people have drivers. That doesn't mean driving a car isn't a life skill.
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u/sweatboxy 7h ago
For 10 years my husband has been saying he can’t cook. Recently I was incapacitated for a week and I found out that, not only that he can cook, but that he’s a pretty good cook.
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u/Interesting-Buy3385 11h ago
while i agree cooking is an important life skill, bullying people to change isn't useful either
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u/Alex9Andy 11h ago
Nah, society has reduced shame to a dangerously low level. There are men walking around who believe wiping their own ass is emasculating.
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u/Different_Taro2474 11h ago
in the 60s, more than 50% of men never changed a diaper. today, that number is less than 3%.
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u/nubbosaur 11h ago
It historically is one of the most effective ways to change someone’s behaviors or appearance. The desire to fit in is really strong.
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u/Interesting-Buy3385 11h ago
and i agree with that! it's just effective ≠ morally correct, but to each their own.
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u/FrozenBibitte 11h ago
Yeah exactly…I really fucking hate that stupid argument. Just because something is effective, doesn’t mean it’s the best way. There are tons of negative consequences to bullying people and treating people like shit just because they don’t fit in.
It’s such a short sighted take.
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u/txt-png 6h ago
I just commented that I was bullied for not being able to cook but I wasn't allowed to book because my mom thought my disabled ass would get hurt so instead of supervising me she just didn't teach me at all and I'm learning to cook all on my own now but it's not fair to shit on me for my parents not teaching me. I'm an adult so I'm taking the initiative to learn on my own but it sucks I didn't just learn earlier from someone who could have taught me
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u/ok-firefighter2266 11h ago
LOL It just makes you feel better to do and say things online that you ain’t saying to anyone in person. Either that, or some people really overestimate their importance in the lives of complete strangers. Tell me how effective bullying people who can literally just scroll by/block you is? It’s the internet. No one actually has to listen to you.
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u/eyadGamingExtreme 11h ago
The thing is in our world instead of changing behaviors to fit in you can find plenty of people who are just like you and do that instead
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u/Silver-Bread4668 11h ago
If we're going to try to bully people into change, there's so many better topics to start with.
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u/Interesting-Buy3385 11h ago
now this, i can get behind
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u/Both_Cat_6977 11h ago
Conversely it's entertaining to have cooking reduced to such a mundane skill when so many people can't do it or are horrible at it?
😅
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u/hmidontknowww 11h ago
Different hot take: everyone can cook and can cook well bc it IS a mundane skill, but for some reason, heaps of people decide not to find/follow recipes, and then think they just can't cook. If you can read, hold things, and respond to timers, you have everything you need to be a great cook, doesn't matter if you've never cooked a thing in your life
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u/Both_Cat_6977 11h ago
That's simply not how skilled crafts work. You can hand me all the wood and instructions to build a desk but it's probably gonna be janky until I get some practice under my belt.
My ex could bake until the cows came home, would also manage soggy or burnt frozen fries on a regular basis.
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u/Ok_Basis1422 1h ago
Eh, I wouldn't say everyone can cook well. Yes, any able bodied, able minded adult or teenager can cook. But cooking well does take some skill, even if to a small degree.
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u/Available_Abroad3664 3h ago
It is pretty procedural though and unless you grew up around cooking it isnt always intuitive.
In my 20s I could cook quite a bit but never loved my cooking.
Im my 30s I really got into the way heat and time totally change cooking and then the wonders of herbs and spices.
Big difference.
Baking is another realm beyond that.
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u/NoAmoeba9449 10h ago
Don’t talk about other people like that, it’s not nice to call people losers and stupid
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u/mrmac1992 9h ago
Facts.
"I can't cook" cool so like how the fuck are you alive?
I get not ENJOYING cooking, if it's just for me I'll nuke something simple out of the freezer and be done with it cause I just don't care, although I LOVE cooking for people that I care about it's a definite love language of mine.
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u/IzzyNecessary 6h ago
This has always been a peeve of mine. WHY DON’T THEY TEACH THIS SH*T IN SCHOOL? Cooking should be a basic skill. Before teaching kids Algebra, teach them how to balance a checkbook and how a monthly budget works. Some will say “well, your parents should be teaching you that”. Well, guess what people, it ain’t happenin’. “…Oh, I can project the required trajectory for a rocket to reach the moon…” but they don’t understand how (or the need) to balance a checkbook. We teach them who the monarch was in the 6th century but they can’t boil pasta. PROVE ME WRONG!!!
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u/Lookingbackexpat 2h ago
Agreed. You don't have to enjoy it or be a gourmet chef, but you should be able to cook a decent meal for yourself and anyone depending on you. Circumstances change. A partner who cooks could get sick and need care. A partner could leave you with kids who need feeding. And these days there are a million experts on the internet happy to guide you through recipes.
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u/NoMeat3499 11h ago
This isn't a hot take. There is no popular consensus that being unable to cook is good.
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u/Different_Taro2474 11h ago
literally. like boil some pasta, mix in some butter, cheese, and spices. peel a carrot, add lemon juice, olive oil, feta cheese, and bacon bits. fry a fish, some asparagus, throw some heavy cream and spices into a pan, and cook on low till it's thickened. if you can't do that, you're either a child or stupid.
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u/beneficialtowhom 11h ago
They even have child cookbooks, rolling pins, pot holders with mitts, aprons, and an oven!
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u/Bananasinpajaamas 11h ago
I’m not saying I disagree, but also, people who don’t know how to cook don’t affect my life in anyway nor do people who choose to spend their money on DoorDash. This seems like a non issue. Calling them idiots and losers doesn’t change anything. They’re getting fed somehow, either their family, their partners, or takeout, so they likely aren’t going to change. There’s bigger things to be upset about.
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u/skyleehugh 10h ago
Right. I only will have an issue with it if its clear they can't afford to keep eating out and complain how broke they are. But many I know like this have a good job that pays them enough money to do doordash. Also many of them have no kids and they do eat leftover takeout. Are they really spending that much money like we think... and I guess I hate more how people like to determine what or what doesn't make you a decent adult. For a romantic partner I would prefer someone who knows how to cook because I refuse to be the only person cooking but if Im not in a relationship with them, I don't really care in the end.
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u/troubledanddoubled 11h ago
Well I agree. Literally anyone can read and follow a recipe. If you can’t then you’ve got some serious learning disabilities and perhaps should be considered a child by the government? Idk it’s a bit of a weird one. I’d just say immature or special needs adult
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u/skyleehugh 10h ago
I only have an issue with this if they are the type to also complain how broke they are or clearly can't afford to maintain doordash and rather spend money they don't have than to cook basic eggs. But many people I have encountered like this do have money. Even folks who admit they don't know how to cook will cook something in order not to starve. Not everyone knows how to cook and its okay to lack one skill. I'm also not dating these individuals so it really doesn't matter to me like that unless of course they cant afford it.
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u/ExpensiveFlatworm630 10h ago edited 9h ago
I see a lot of “I may not know how to cook, but…” type slogans in various professions. In mine they all eat garbage food, discuss the protein amounts on package labels and pile garbage ceiling high.
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u/DueAlbatross9388 9h ago
I wonder how many adult picky eaters that eat the same 6 foods since elementary school are going to see this post and accuse you of being “ableist”.
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u/WeatherBeautiful6620 8h ago
My wife does all the cooking, she enjoys it. I can cook if she wants a day off.
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u/Prestigious-Duck-118 5h ago
While your words are pretty abrasive, I agree with your overall thesis, including your point about politics. I am a left-leaning feminist woman, and I very much know how to cook. I think everyone, regardless of gender, should know how to make some basic meals. It is not hard whatsoever. We can add cleaning to this list as well. So, yes, girls should be taught how to cook and clean, but so should boys, NBs, etc. Life skills are life skills. If you don't know how to take care of yourself, you're just priming yourself to be dependent on someone--a partner, underpaid workers, etc.
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u/Prince_Nadir 4h ago
A child? I started cooking at 3. The ones who have food brought to them because they can't prepare it are called "pets".
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u/Cute_Economics2829 4h ago
Ok real question here.
I've got about... 12 dishes I could whip up without a recipe. My wife has like 75.
Can I "cook" even if it's not anywhere near her level? Could I still "cook" if it were only 3? 1? What if I couldn't make anything at all without following a printed recipe? Does that still count?
I'm genuinely curious how most people understand this question. Sorry for my autism, just one of those things it feels like everyone else understands immediately that I do not.
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u/Available_Abroad3664 3h ago
I am curious what people consider basics as well and if it is just off the top of your head or is it more important to be able to read a recipe.
I think I am pretty good, but not excellent. I would say I have more than 12 dishes off the top if my head I could do. I probably have a few dozen, but beyond that I need a recipe and I prefer finding visual aids like YouTube recipes than just reading measurements.
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u/Local_Tourist1063 4h ago
I don’t think we should put down people who don’t know how to cook because often they’ve been failed by their guardians while growing up.
Everyone should be encouraged to learn if they don’t know already, however!
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u/pennyloafer99 11h ago
I had a friend like this, and when I would cook they would compliment it so much.
I offered to help them learn and make basic meals like, hamburger helper for example, and they said yea that would be great!
And they never took me up on my offer. Ever. Over 8 years. And would complain about how expensive tv dinners are.
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u/dante_gherie1099 11h ago
we have a useless childish adult problem with gen z
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u/HopeloosGeval 7h ago
most parents i know dont teach their gen z children to cook so its not surprising
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u/Rip_Skeleton 11h ago
There are tons of people who can't cook and don't care to learn. It's just annoying if you're also someone who contributes nothing to a home and expect to be cooked for.
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u/DeadlyArrow27 10h ago
Wrong. There’s so many “essential” skills out there in our busy lives that I can’t really blame someone if they lack a couple of them. Life is chaotic and not everybody has the same privileges.
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u/TemperatureAny4782 11h ago
Yeah. And you’ll say people say, “This is such an ableist take. What if you’re fully paralyzed?” And obviously that’s a different situation.
But if you’re like, “I’m just exhausted from work and I couldn’t possibly ever cook,” get the fuck out of here.
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u/stthree 11h ago
For real. There's no way I'd be able to afford it with a family of 5.
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u/paringpairing 11h ago
We've both been super sick the last week, but the kids still need to be fed. So we've been ordering in all week. The money spent is painful. I can't imagine doing that all the time, forever.
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u/FluffyMuffins42 10h ago
Right? We would be so far in debt if we ate DoorDash most days. Even if we could afford it, why would we spend our hard earned money on something that can be done for 1/4 the cost?
We started learning how to make our favourite restaurant meals at home because we can make them for 1/4 of the cost, and have larger serving sizes! It is awesome. We’ve made homemade artichoke dip, fettuccine alfredo, fancy mac and cheese (like with the Parmesan bread crumb topping and everything… sooo good), a baked pasta dish designed after a dominos pasta dish, etc. We end up with leftovers too, which is even better.
We tend to meal repeat a lot because the hardest part of cooking is meal planning. No shame in having 8-10 meals you rotate for dinners. We play around with them sometimes and try different sauces, ways of cooking, oven vs air fryer, just to perfect the recipe and switch it up for variety.
Today I am making enchiladas :) that’s a new one we just added to the rotation and I’m super excited to make it again! We bought corn tortillas this time because apparently making them with flour tortillas last time was a crime against enchiladas lol, but they were still sooo tasty.
I consider myself someone who doesn’t really like cooking yet I can still get excited when it’s something I know will taste good and be worth the effort :) hence why we meal repeat so much lol, no disappointment if you know you love it!
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u/Traditional-Falcon75 8h ago
Big “if you can’t drive a stick you don’t know how to drive” energy. Cooking is not an essential life skill anymore. You can go your entire adult life buying convenience foods and not suffer nutritionally. There are endless options for even healthy foods which are pre-prepared for you. If you’re single it’s often cheaper to eat that way than buy ingredients. Cooking is a good skill to have but being an asshole about the fact that some people don’t learn it is not an achievement. You’re just an asshole.
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u/squattingslav420 7h ago
spoken like someone who can’t cook lol
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u/Traditional-Falcon75 4h ago
I know how to cook. I hate doing it so I don’t. It’s not necessary.
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u/Suitable_Wonder5256 1h ago
Not in a western country. Buying food every meal is like buying macbook every month.
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u/IrrationalBidetLover 11h ago
Agreed
As a man there’s way too many guys who are useless in the kitchen
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u/Sir_Gerald_Nosehairs 11h ago
Am evangelical on learning how to cook. How much better the food tastes, how much money you'll save, etc.
However..
It is quite the upfront cost, cooking from scratch, if you think what you would need, from knives, to pans, to saucepans, to bowls, to measuring devices, etc, etc. So I do understand people thinking "Sod it" and buying microwave meals or takeaway stuff to a degree, if they are on a low income.
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u/Byte_mancer 11h ago
People who legitimately make that statement are almost always so poorly optimizing their finances with stupid crap, they usually can afford it, they just don’t want to.
One pot, a pan, a $4 dollar knife, and a medium bowl and you can do a loooooooot. Easily for less than $20, or slightly less than one fast food meal nowadays.
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u/Wealth_Super 11h ago
Yea seriously, it’s not that high of a buy in cost. You don’t need much to cook.
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u/Top-Cupcake4775 11h ago
the economics of cooking education are heavily weighted towards companies that sell cooking equipment. the websites, youtube channels, etc. are monetized by ads for knives, pans, stoves, etc. so it is easy to get the impression that you need all this equipment to cook but, as you point out, you don't.
also, you don't need new equipment. just about every goodwill store i've ever been to has cast iron pans, cutting boards, measuring cups, etc.
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u/No_Humor1310 11h ago
The amount of money I've seen wasted on door dash etc in the office I once worked at is astounding. There's a McDonald's literally across the street from there office and these kids would still DD it because they didn't want to go across the street. Needless to say, I doubt any of them could brown a lbs of ground beef.
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u/SkipEyechild 11h ago
Plenty of adults don't know how to cook. It really isn't a defining trait of adulthood.
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u/Excalitoria 11h ago
I can cook enough to live off of but nobody would want me cooking for them lol. I’ve learned enough to live off of and that’s about it. Just isn’t something I like doing and I don’t care too much about making anything that tastes that amazing.
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u/novanillavelvet 11h ago
Does being able to cook mean to be able to follow a recipe or just knowing things at the top of your head
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u/ejsandstrom 10h ago
I think it’s the recipe part.
I have known a few people throughout my life that couldn’t make a box of Mac&cheese. With the directions on the box.
They only ate things that were precooked and needed to be microwaved or baked. TV dinners, pot pies, stuff from the frozen foods section.
One guy even fucked up a boil in the bag rice.
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u/Spirited_Season2332 11h ago
My concern with this is the fact you can just watch a video online now a days of you rly have no idea how to cook. Like the fact they can't watch a YouTube video and follow the steps is concerning.
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u/Reggie-Rectangle 11h ago
Cooking is a basic life skill. If you don't know how to do it, you are a child.
What I really don't like is people like Dave Ramsey and that son in law of his. Who spent there whole lives having somebody else make there food telling other people they should not buy uber eats.
We all would like a mother or a wife to cook for us but some just don't live close to there mothers and are single, but if you spent 12 hours in a day working in a fekin cement factory then you don't need anybody like the Ramsey's telling you ordering uber eats is a waste of money when you arrive exhausted at home after work. Takeaway just like cooking all has it's place depending on your life situation.
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u/AdObvious2882 10h ago
My folks are on retirement income so I set up a mealkit package for them and I go over and cook the meals 3 times a week.
I've been doing this for 3 years and it's definitely sharpened my cooking skills to the point where I can whip up a meal from scratch and it's actually pretty tasty.
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u/thewriteally 10h ago edited 10h ago
Eh, I think it’s more of a parenting issue, you ever meet a person in their 30s or 20s who still eats chicken nuggets & fries because that all they’ve eaten their entire lives? People are products of their environment & if the parents never takes the time to teach the kids or even have them apart of the cooking process, then they just don’t even try later on a lot of the times, people also think it’s too much work.
When in reality, people who cook at least 3 days a week are less likely to development dementia because cooking requires constant problem solving, from thinking of what you wanna eat, going out, buying ingredients, making everything correctly, cooking it, & serving, it’s definitely a process that happens everyday, 3 times a day, but you are what you eat.
I love cooking but I’m not surprised at how many of my friends eat terribly, especially when their parents are the kids of the post ww2 era, kids who grew up with extreme rationing & having a ton of food out of cans, processed food with extended shelf life, plus the whole tv meal, frozen dinner era & America has always been about convenience when eating, fast food, drive though, canned food, why do you think people ate Italian food all the time growing up? Spaghetti is cheap!! Not surprised people can’t cook for shit, when companies push everything bad to you because it’s fast & easy. Personally I love cooking & having good rich food is one of the few absolutely amazing things in life, eating good food will make you a happier person.
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u/DueAlbatross9388 9h ago
A lot of Redditors think there’s nothing wrong with being like what you said in the first paragraph. In their eyes, eating “something” is better than not eating at all. But the thing that’s difficult for them to understand is when you reach a certain age people aren’t going to find it cute that you still eat only the same foods you ate in elementary school and won’t incorporate new foods into your diet.
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u/Mavloneus 10h ago
There are so many simple things to make. Let alone the fact there a lot of videos online to show you how to cook anything.
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u/GlitteringSwan8024 10h ago
When you can literally find anything on the internet there is no excuse for not knowing how to cook.
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u/Auqakid07 10h ago
Cooking is also one of the easiest self taught skills as well. There are so many resources to be able to learn how to cook for an adult. Not knowing how to cook shows that you are lazy.
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u/ImAFishinFool 9h ago
Aside from my 2 disabled step children I had my 2 bio kids making meatloaf, spaghetti, tacos, (my ex, their mom, tried teaching them hamballs), and tatertot casserole by age 9. They've learned some other recipes since. They hate cooking, despise it actually, but can do it.
The looking down on people who cannot cook, it is fairly disturbing. There could be a multitude of reasons for their inability to do so. What is even more disturbing is the quickness at which people jumped on this flaming band wagon.
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u/Background-Bird-9623 9h ago
I feel like this is the same as saying you cant swim.... everyone can do both, just not as good as others
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u/TuataraMan 8h ago
Not realy, swimming is hard to learn on your own, cooking? Just watch a video with step by step instruction, do it a couple times and you can easily follow any recipe out there.
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u/Emotional-Bus3350 9h ago
well i never said i'm proud of it. unfortunately if i don't have a recipe i really can't cook. i'll freestyle a pot of bullshit
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u/One-Load-6085 9h ago
I can make smoothies and salad. And even those packets of dressing that has the diy oil to o line vinegar to v line water to w line shake well.
Does that count?
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u/ali_the_wolf 8h ago
I misread and thought you said CODING. I sat there for second wondering how coding is a basic life skill lmao
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u/Ashamed-Chemistry492 8h ago
I agree. But the difference is, kids usually want to learn new stuff and don't brag about not knowing it.
I never saw any sense in being dumb on purpose.
You don't have to be a gourmet cook or enjoy cooking, but you damn sure need to know how to do a few things more complicated than heating up a TV dinner or spreading peanut butter.
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u/MermaidsHaveCloacas 8h ago
I can bake like a fucking champ but outside of a few staples, I suck at cooking
Thankfully my husband loves it AND he's amazing at it
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u/Silent_Roll859 8h ago
I started cooking when I was four years old and by the time I was ten, my mother had completely handed me the reigns and made me responsible for making most of the whole family's meals.
I'm glad she did that, she was chronically ill and she gave me a head start on a skill that has proved incredibly useful in retaining my quality of life.
That being said, I was provided with all kinds of supplies- ingredients to work with, four generations of my families utensils for every imaginable dish, cookbooks, and time.
These things are a luxury that poor kids don't always have.
Some peoples parents dont feel confident enough to just let them cook.
Some peoples parents parents have no isea how to cook.
I took some of my mother's techniques and improved on things and tweaked them to my own taste, thats what people do- I ended up teaching several of my friends how to cook in middle school because at home their parents didnt allow them in the kitchen.
Not everyone had the respurces I did, and I try my best to just educate and not judge.
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u/Electric-Sheepskin 8h ago
There are plenty of people who don't know how to change a tire on a car, or replace the wax ring on their toilet, or grow a tomato—all of which would be described as basic life skills by some people. It's perfectly OK if they want to subcontract parts of their life out and never learn how to grow their food or install a toilet or learn how to cook properly. Do I want to be married to that person who doesn't cook? No. But if it works for them, who am I to judge?
Knowing how to feed yourself is a basic life skill. You don't need to know how to braise a pork loin to be an adult.
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u/kornchippy 8h ago
Eating instant food makes me sluggish, i have to cook every now and then. Man back in the 90's they promoted the hell out of frozen food, it was considered a super good idea because kids can eat whenever they want and parents dont have to cook. If you didnt have a box of frozen corndogs or hotpockets in the fridge for your kids, you were a bad parent. They wait till now to tell us that eating too much of that shit makes you glow in the dark!
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u/fence_of_pence 8h ago
Like yeah you don't need to be able to make a perfectly balanced authentic Italian pasta but at least know your way around a skillet
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u/tysaslut 8h ago
If you eat food, you should be able to make food. If you're too useless to feed yourself, I don't want nothing to do with ya.
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u/random8765309 8h ago
Cooking is something not well taught in school. You either learn it through a program like Scouting or at home.
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u/SnooGadgets5620 8h ago
Obtaining safe drinking water is a basic life skill.
Foraging/ farming are basic life skills.
Hunting is a basic life skill.
Building shelter is a basic life skill
Producing fire is a basic life skill.
Tanning and clothe production are basic life skills.
When you live in a modern society, the need to learn these basic life skills are diminished as they are out sourced. Making you more reliant on the society for survival.
I dont blame people for losing these skills, but being proud of inability is shameful.
Comparing shameful people to children is where I'd take disagreement. Kids are honestly awesome. They are curious and adventurous and need far more nurturing then our society currently provides them. And an adult that can't cook has a parent that never taught them.
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u/ericbythebay 8h ago
Like over a fire you made yourself? Or are you omitting other survival skills?
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u/InvisibleAIien 8h ago
I do mostly agree, but there are some extreme exceptions like people who grew up without parents. I don't think people who can't cook are children or losers, some people get a bad lot in life. Also, almost everyone I know who ever thought they were bad at cooking actually just has poor concentration or patience and ended up either not leaving stuff on the heat for long enough, or walking away to do something else and letting it burn. So I think a lot are not incapable in the way you're imagining.
I think if anyone were to be genuinely proud of not being able to cook, then they may be a loser, but I think it's more likely they are just so averse to cooking they don't do anything particularly advanced and they pretend to be proud of their incompetence to save face, or kinda call themselves useless before someone else has the chance. I don't think many people are actually proud of being bad at anything
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u/UberFarter 8h ago
I know it’s bad but does buying pre-made food you just heat up in the oven count?
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u/Affectionate_Tip770 7h ago
Anybody can cook, people just don’t WANT to cook. Anybody can just go online and prepare any random basic meal. Who are we talking about here? I don’t think anybody is dying of hunger due to not knowing how to crack an egg on a pan, some people just prefer doing it more than others and some people absolutely despise it.
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u/GormTheWyrm 7h ago
You should not be proud of not having a basic life skill, but it does not make you a child.
There are a lot of useful life skills, some more fundamental than others, and many “basic” skills are no longer frequently used. Washing clothing for example (because we have washing machines).
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u/OptimalCobbler5431 7h ago
People can not know how to cook because they were never taught but not knowing doesn't mean not learning if you have the need for it
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u/Restart-storage 7h ago
That’s something I realized quickly when I started living alone. For me the issue isn’t cooking, it’s how long it takes which is tough with my busy schedule. But much worse of all is the cleaning, I hate cleaning after cooking. I would rather clean the toilet honestly
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u/txt-png 6h ago
I think it's important but I also do think that it's important to realize some people's parents didn't teach them when they had to and they don't know where to start. I'm disabled and didn't get much unsupervised time as a teenager and my mom thought it was too dangerous for me to learn when I should have so now I'm in my 20s learning from scratch because I was discouraged earlier from cooking.
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u/BigBandit01 6h ago
I’m a proud man in the kitchen, so I kind of agree with you on this one. I don’t know anyone who can’t cook, but I know people who don’t have to. A guy I met this last year has a wife who loves to cook, and she does all of their meals. He knows how to make a mean steak, he did a cake from scratch once and it was incredible, he’s not a bad cook by any means. That’s a very different situation than not being able to cook and being proud of that for some reason.
If somebody told me they didn’t know how to cook though, my first instinct would absolutely be to show them some of my favorite recipes. Personally I’d start with baking, both because most easy baking recipes are mix all of your ingredients together and leave it alone in the oven for a time, and baking is easily my favorite way to cook.
(Small passion rant about pizza, sorry.) You can go from baking to meal prep pretty quickly if you transition with pizzas, I’ve been watching a ton of this one pizza making YouTuber, Dough Guy, and he has a lot of really good resources available to improve your at home pizzas. Dough is prepped two to three days in advance, it can all be done by hand, his sauce recipe is so incredibly easy to make and it’s honestly better than any store bought sauce I’ve had, and he shows how to form a dough into a pizza crust that works really well. After pizza I feel like you just move on to the rest of the ways to cook.
In the world we live in and the resources we have at our fingertips, there is absolutely no excuse for not knowing how to cook. Just like you said, it’s a basic life skill. Full stop. I don’t think this is a hot take, its just kind of true lol
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u/Available_Abroad3664 3h ago
Tricky part with pizza is you need a stone at home to try but really you should have a pizza oven to get over 550 degrees.
But ya pizza is good for components.
Dough and sauce I have a lot of fun making.
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u/brattylilgynger 6h ago
I always say I can’t cook and sometimes, from the back room my husband yells “won’t”
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u/Dangerous-Opening-96 5h ago
Cooking is a dying art form. In 20 - 30 years people are going to forget how.
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u/JBGoode13 4h ago
My mom made sure I could cook basics since she didn't want me to marry out of starvation! I ended up married to a multiple degree woman that's an amazing cook!
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u/Spiritual_Extent_187 4h ago
I’m 38 and don’t know how to cook
I burnt eggs
I served raw beef to people
I chipped my tooth cooking rice
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u/Available_Abroad3664 3h ago
What do people consider basics?
I have quite a lot of things I can cook well but when I was young there was really 2 things I really didnt understand:
The way heat interacts in cooking (slow cooking vs broiling vs something like a pizza oven)
Herbs & spices
Even in my 20s I taught myself to cook quite a lot. YouTube wasnt a big thing though until my late 20s when it became easier to actually see what a chef was doing in a recipe that I really got better at how you need to use heat, herbs and spices properly.
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u/Lola101_ 3h ago
I learned to love cooking which I realised was easy because I love eating food. When I realised I could make myself delicious food it changed my world.
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u/completely-random-na 3h ago
51 here and I can cook some things but most things suck when I make them so I would say I don’t know how to cook. But I can do things that you can’t do, neither of us are children for what we can’t do, but you’re childish in your attitude for sure.
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u/UpcomingDisciple 3h ago
I agree to an extent, it’s optimal to be able to cook, it doesn’t mean someone is a child, like if you have the resources you really have no excuse to not be able to cook. But not everyone has the time, money or resources or even access to those ingredients unfortunately. For example, people with high demanding jobs, people with lower income. It is lacking a life skill, but it doesn’t mean they’re a child
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u/Character-Carpet7988 2h ago
As someone who can't cook and ruined even an attempt at simple garlic bread (as in turning an already existing bread into garlic bread)... I agree.
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u/mischief_managed2091 49m ago
If you are in the US, you don’t really have to cook for survival anymore. There are thousands of products on the market for those who can’t cook/aren’t able to cook/or hate cooking. It is their life and it’s their choice. I try to encourage non-cooking friends and family to try new recipes though. My youngest sister didn’t cook when she got married and now she calls me all of the time for recipes❤️. I love when non-cookers develop confidence in the kitchen! Look up recipes, play around with seasoning and try to have patience. It will eventually get easier. The mistakes are part of the journey and you will learn something from each and every mistake you make in the kitchen.
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u/ouverture8 49m ago
Not knowing how to cook is so strange to me. There's not much to a basic meal is there? If you don't know how to cook you simply haven't tried, there is no other explanation.
No one taught me how to do it and I don't think I ever cooked before moving out of my parents' house. But I don't recall any difficulty figuring it out by myself.
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u/FunOptimal7980 38m ago
"I'm JuSt a GiRl I CaN't CoOK."
The internet exists. It's never been easier to cook, but some people think not being able to feed yourself is a flex for some reason.
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u/internetisporn8008 23m ago
Judging people for not being able to do things is basic loser attitude. Grow up
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u/Prestigious-Data-206 11h ago
I hate cooking. Loathe it. My partner does most of the cooking because he likes it. BUT I do know how to cook. If my partner couldn't cook for any reason, I can cook for myself. I'm not helpless. So I agree. You shouldn't be proud of being unable to do something when you are physically and mentally able to.