How did you learn to cook?

[imagine]

The thread that mentioned people going to the food banks not knowing how to cook things that they had available there made we wonder .

How did you learn to cook?

[jas]

Well let me see. My mom passed away just before I turned 18 and up till that point I really did not have any interest in learning how. I guess I thought there would always be time.

In the beginning most of it came from working in a plant with a lot of woman and would get ideas and tips from them. There were a bunch of us young woman there who were just starting out and didn't know much. Later things were learned from magazines and books. Most recently, about two years ago my dd 17 got hooked on the food network and got me into it also. Now I really like looking and cooking new things all the time.

So that's how for me. I wish I could say I learned from a little kid at my mom's side, but oh well I did learn a thing or two in the kitchen. I think my mom would be proud.

[The Muse]

I finally learned to cook when I went vegetarian. I took a bunch of veg cookbooks out of the library and started getting familar with the ingredients and techniques. I sometimes watch cooking videos on YouTube to learn techniques, or else I Google things I'm interested in like bread baking, risotto, etc.

Right now, I'm sort of learning how to cook all over again with Celsius and the metric system. But luckily I have a good knowledge base and techniques this time.

[imagine]

Let me see

We had a microwave since I was six.
I didn't learn to cook from my mother as a child.

Home Ec was mainly easy mix together recipes.
7th grade orange Julious (sugar, orange, concentrate milk, water mix in blender)
8th grade rice crispy treats
9th grade boxed pumpkin bread baked in a tin can (Home ec teacher said we might not always have pans to make in so we needed to learn to bake without them. But we still used a mix LOL) That teacher retired the next year.

Then I had a great advanced Home Ec teacher. She was shocked that how little us advance home Ec students knew so she tried to catch us up.
I learned how to fry hamburger, make a white sauce, make a cake from scratch, make a pie crust from scratch. I learned a lot. She also made us write out the recipe to keep for future use.

But most of my cooking learning was acquired as a married adult. My Husband taught me a lot about cooking. I learned you can make mashed potatoes from scratch (not a box), how to fry eggs, cook bacon, make oatmeal.
I learned how to make a pancakes and a long list of common things.

I also learned a lot from frugal message boards like this one, and from blogs, etc. We got Angel Food Boxes for a while they had lots of things I had never cooked before so learned to look recipes up on line.

Hubby says he learned from hanging out in the kitchen with his mom.

[nancycg56]

Self-taught

[pollypurebred39]

I learned watching my Mother and Grandmother cook. Helping them in the kitchen. My Mother never had any problems letting us girls cook. I remember being barely a head taller then the stove and frying a hamburger on the gas range I had to light.

After I moved out I discovered there was so much I didn't know. My recipes were basic despite cooking by my Grandmother amd Mother. But, I did have the basics which made it really easy to learn.( I taught my DS1's girlfriend make sugar cookies and discovered that she had VERY LITTTLE understanding of cooking terms or much else in cooking. While reading the recipe part that says to cream the sugar and shortening she became confused and asked if she was missing an ingredient? Was there a certain kind of cream she should be using? Now she is a brillant girl, but because of lack of instruction in her youth cooking terms escaped her. She also struggled with knowing where to place the cookie sheet in the oven, how closely to space them, what they looked like and felt like to the touch before they were ready to take out, how to get that dang flipper under the cookies to take them off the cookie sheet, and a cooling rack? Wow! I didn't know they had cooling racks. I never realized just how much I learned at my Grandmother and Mother's side. By the way, DS1's girlfriend's cookies came out just fine and she was a very eager student. I suspect she'll make a mighty fine cook one day! ) Further instruction came in the form of community cookbooks and an OLD Betty Crocker cookbook. Thus became my love for cooking and a ridiculous cookbook collection.

Later I learned even more skills and professional terms by watching a show on PBS. I watched this show everyday and began a small collection of restaurant cookbooks and some professional French cookbooks. My cooking skills have improved dramatically since my first grilled cheese, but it was a long process that began at my Mother's and Grandmother's side.

Great post Imagine!

[baxjul]

I taught myself. I always thought that I learned from my mom, but she didn't really cook that much, and what she did make wasn't that great.

[Molemommy]

I worked at a resteraunt when i was 17 (it was a small hometown type) and waitressed for awhile and the owner needed help one day in the kitchen and I helped I did not know squat about cooking so she ended up over time teaching me... I became the main cook and loved it.... Also whenever I have a question about something I call my gram... she is a exelent cook.

[Ali Lee]

from watching my mother, Home Ec in high school & the required Betty Crocker cookbook. Love that cookbook! My cookbook is 44yrs old-passed it on to my daughter.

[pat in east texas]

I had the good fortune to be a stay-at-home wife and mother when I was newly married. I had a lot of time to do a lot of reading and experimenting with recipes and cooking methods. And most cooking back in the '50's was still from scratch, so I learned a lot about ingredients and how to combine them.

[Mom2-3]

Trial and error! lol I love food and cooking!

I started watching Jeff Smith, the frugal gourmet, on PBS when I was younger. I learned there are things I will never try. and some things that seemed really yummy.

I still love to watch repeats of Jacques Pepin and Julia Child. I have some of their cookbooks and have tried a couple recipes.

The whole family in into food network now. It's really the only channel we watch.

[monkeywrangler71]

I'm still learning, and never really cooked much until I started staying home. Before that it was basically alternating spaghetti and McDonald's

My mother does not like to cook, but I have two or three dishes that I got from her, my grandmother taught me how to bake a few things. Beyond that, everything I know I learned from the internet.

We really struggled when I was first married. I had no clue how to make a lot of stuff, and there were many things I did not know were even possible to make from scratch. We had no income and I had no clue how to reduce our grocery bill.

[daughter of pearl]

I learned basic cooking and baking from watching my mom, and when my son was little, I could do basic meat and potatoes meals. Now that he is grown, I have learned through trial and error, the Food Network and friends and cook books, how to make things that combine flavours, how to use herbs and spices to get a blend of flavours, etc.

[2ndGenGranola]

Mom was not a "box" person and she made sure we learned to cook. I remember being about 15 and my brother's then wife (11 years older than me and more lazy than unlearned) was whining about how she could never cook Thanksgiving because it was too hard. That made my Mom mad and she turned Thanksgiving over to me that year - turkey and all!! Mom made a big deal about how I cooked everything by myself. LOL. Ticked SIL off royally. LOL.

[Ceashels]

Watched and helped my Mom in the kitchen, then got hooked on Good Eats.