When did you learn to cook?

[Orang Utan]

And what was the advice about which meat?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I learned to cook by osmosis, from watching my mum and my nan from the time I was old enough to ask "watcha doin'?" and "why you doin' that?".
The rest is just remembering what tastes/textures fo with other tastes/textures, and occasionally "throwing a curveball".

 

[Ms T]

I guess I started to learn while at university, especially in my third year when I went to live in Moscow for a year. I shared a room with some girls who were really into food and cooking and we were the only people to have a decent diet despite the fact that ingredients were pretty hard to come by (this was 1991, when Russia was really in the shit), and we had to use a pretty disgusting communal kitchen. Most of the other British students survived on MacDonalds and Pizza Hut (they would actually buy several Big Macs and eat them cold).

I'm a pretty good cook now, because I'm passionate about food and I can afford good quality ingredients. I'm still pretty thrifty though, and can knock up a decent meal for pennies.

I think my interest in food really started in my teens, when I started to visit France regularly. I lived there for six months when I was 18, and discovered hitherto unheard of things, like artichokes, anchovies, curry (!), Moroccan food and proper pizza. It was a revelation to me, having lived off home-cooked but pretty boring food at home (meat and two veg, chips, shepherd's pie etc).

 

[Ms T]

I can make a decent roast, but don't tend to very often as I find them a bit boring. My Mum taught me how to make fantastic Yorkshire pudding (but only after I asked her to ) but I didn't learn anything else from her, luckily. You could sole a shoe with her overcooked meat.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I learned basic meat and two veg type cooking at home. Helping by peeling the spuds leads on to cutting them up and putting them into the saucepan and timing the cooking.

When I left home to go to Poly (not uni) I shared a flat with a couple of guys one of whom was a good cook and I picked up ideas about meals based on rice and pasta. My mum bought me a set of paperback cookbooks that included 'Good Food on a Budget' by Georgina Horley. This became my cookery 'bible' because it was arranged by seasons and also contained tips on filleting fish and choosing meat etc. The other books included 'The Pauper's Cookbook' and 'Cooking in a bedsit'. There was another one but I have forgotten it.

It was a time of austerity rather like today. However I did have a student grant and making it last while enjoying my food was a priority for me. On the occasions when I used the college canteen I found it so dire that it made me work out what fresh food I could buy for the same money and cook it myself.

Nowadays I make up meals on the hoof. I rarely use a given recipe but combine things that I know will work together. I still have that Georgina Horley book going brown at the edges and if I forget the proportions for making mayonnaise or something I will reach for the book.

 

[scifisam]

I learnt when I left home, but pretty basic stuff. More sophisticated cooking, bizarrely, I learnt while working as a chef; I got hired for my language skills alone, and had to learn the cooking on the job. Recipe books have never appealed - old ones seem to be written in a different language, aimed at people living on a different planet (I had no idea what phrases like 'braise the lamb in a skillet' meant, and definitely had no skillet).

 

[sojourner]

I learned to cook by osmosis, from watching my mum and my nan from the time I was old enough to ask "watcha doin'?" and "why you doin' that?".

There's a bit in that Nigel Slater book, Toast, about how he wasn't allowed in the kitchen when food was being made (like me), and how he'd invent excuses to pass through the kitchen in order to pick up a bit at a time about how to make stuff, through observation alone

Great book that

 

[Kanda]

There's a bit in that Nigel Slater book, Toast, about how he wasn't allowed in the kitchen when food was being made (like me), and how he'd invent excuses to pass through the kitchen in order to pick up a bit at a time about how to make stuff, through observation alone

Great book that

Aye, what initiative

 

[sojourner]

Aye, what initiative

I'd have tried it but I just got hit round the head whenever I even got near the fucking door

She cooked great meals, from nowt, with barely any money - wouldn't you have wanted to pass that on to your kid??

 

[northernhord]

Mainly when I left home at 17, I turned veggie at 18 found out there was hardly any good veggie food about at the time so I learned how to cook things myself.

 

[Geri]

The first time I remember being taught was at school - we did scrambled eggs on toast, but the teacher took off marks as she said my toast was overdone. I was very aggrieved as I did it the way I liked it!

 

[Dan U]

i learnt to cook when i was at school and my mum was out at work in the holidays.

well i say cook, i didn't make a lot from scratch but i could make sausage and mash and stuff.

oh and i remember making pizza toast at school

 

[moose]

Little old lady at the end of the road got me interested when I was around 6 - I used to go round on Sunday mornings and we'd bake together and make interesting sandwiches. I used to go to my mate's house after school every day from a similar age, and got involved in her family's cooking - Southern Indian vegetarian food. Then when I flatly refused to eat meat at around 12, my mum refused to cook for me any more, so I kind of taught myself after that.

 

[friedaweed]

I fed my three younger siblings from the age of 12. Mum and dad worked like fook so as the eldest i voluntarily learned to cook for us four so my folks could just sort themselves out when they came in.

My mum still compliments me on how i decided to muck in as a youngster but tbh i just wanted to cook. I love cooking and have happily lived with a pretty hard working but shit cook partner for the last 12 years.

Me and Mrs Frieda are a match made in heaven as she likes to clean and in that dept. i am such a bloke

ETA my mum was a very bad cook so maybe that was what inspired me. She's much better now she has the time though

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

When I moved in with aqua

 

[Chz]

My mum's a rubbish cook, so I taught myself from a young age.

 

[CharlieAddict]

learnt to cook the basics through my mother.
and raised in the family take away.

went to uni - lucky as fuck cos i lived with a chef who was brought up in a french restaurant!

and my other flat mate was an eccentric and very rich druggie.
just spent his days off his head. relaxing and reading cook books.

those guys were awesome./

 

[Fedayn]

Learnt the basics as a kid at home, then joined the army as an apprentice chef. Left the army cos I cannae breathe properly and then finished of City & Guilds at college. Qualified chef now, don't work in the industry though.