Can bad cooks be taught to cook well? (semi-rant)

[hyperspaz]

@Inner Stickler:

I do know that part of my problem is I didn’t learn to cook at Mom’s elbow. My mom is a decent cook, but when I was growing up, she was a divorced mom trying to work full time and raise two kids. So fancy meals weren’t on the agenda. We ate stuff like Hamburger Helper, spaghetti with sauce from a jar, and tuna and noodle casserole.

My grandmother, on the other hand, was a fabulous cook. But my mom learned–or tried to–at her elbow, and Mom is just not the cook her mother was.

I’m going to check into the cookbooks though.

[Smapti]

Cooking is equal parts science and art.

Like science, success depends on having the right chemicals, in the right quantities, and combining them in the right way at the right time under the right conditions, and following the directions accurately should result in a consistent end result every time.

Like art, there are aspects of the process that can only be learned through experience and practice, because there are parts of the scientific process of cooking that can’t be accurately described through instruction - the only way you’re going to know how long to sauté raw garlic, for example, is by doing it enough times to recognize the smell and associate it with the taste of the finished product. You can know on an academic level how to clarify butter or how to thicken a stew, but only practice can teach you how to consistently do so.

[Leaffan]

Recipes are really the basic instructions. You need experience and you will encounter failures along the way. I suppose it’s like learning to do almost anything really.

Once you get all the basics down then following a recipe is extremely easy. I’m a fairly decent cook, but don’t ask me to bake anything from scratch. It would be a disaster. But of course if I kept at it I could master it eventually.

ETA: Yeah, what Smapti said.

[elbows]

First, you gotta stop saying, you can’t, that’s silly. Next, I’m thinking you probably had to practice to become a good singer or musician. Cooking is the same, don’t give up because it takes a couple of tries to get it right! More to the point, maybe you have an artists mind and just need to come at it a little differently is all. Because cooking, like music can be a very creative form of expression.

All you really need is some successes, something that was easy and came out beautifully. Nothing encourages like success. Doing something you didn’t think you could!

There’s a thread right now on easy dishes to make, choose one you haven’t tried before, and approach it in a very casual way. Remind yourself it’s from the dead easy group!

If you have a question, or an issue, whoever posted it is right here to lend a ear, or address your issue.

Don’t give up, or beat yourself up, just keep swinging!

[johnpost]

you could learn to cook edible, even nutritious.

to do it easily and maybe well then developing multitasking is needed. you need to remember steps and procedures.

having a sense of flavors in a food and flavors that can be added might be a talent similar to composing music.

[Stormcrow]

@Macca26

I think perhaps your problem is using recipes intended for a more advanced chef. I would try and find recipes that say - exactly a half teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon rosemary, one teaspoon basil, etc. That way you won’t have problems getting the taste right.

I was going to say this too - where are you getting your recipes? I use two websites primarily - epicurious.com and seriouseats.com, and neither ever has a non-direction like “cook till done” or “season to taste”. Serious Eats in particular is really good because it has lots of explanations of technique, and articles accompanying recipes explaining why they do what they do.

I think you probably need to focus more on mastering a few basic techniques and applying them rather than recipes per se. I’ll take some time every few weekends to try something out I’ve never tried before to see how it goes and expand my library of techniques, but there are still things that are fairly simple that i can’t do well - making fresh salsa is a good one. It shouldn’t be difficult, but every time I’ve tried I’ve failed. Somewhere there is a technique or trick that I’m missing on that one.

Idea: Post something that you’d like to cook, and perhaps the combined wisdom of the board can find you a good, simple recipe, and an explanation of the techniques you’d need to do it well.

[AlsoNamedBort]

Really, when someone says they’re a bad cook it really comes down to two things, proper seasoning and temperature control. Yes, there’s more things like not overhandling ground beef and so on, but until you get the first two down, you’re going nowhere.

For seasoning, really all you can do is find recipes that specifically say “add two teaspoons of oregano, one teaspoon of thyme”. Once you get the hang of that, then you can start handling spices on your own.

For temperature control, you need thermometers. I couldn’t make a roast anything for my life until I got a probe thermometer. Now it’s the easiest thing in the world. An oven thermometer is good too. A recipe might say “cook at 350” but it won’t do you any good if your oven runs hot and you’re actually cooking it at 375.

I’m going to second “I’m just here for the food” by Alton Brown as well.

[Smapti]

@dracoi

I’ll take fresh pasta as an example. The instructions for that are entirely “add enough flour” “knead until ready” “cook until done” and any measurements or times are just estimates.

The first three times I tried were total failures. Tough, chewy, nasty. But then I decided "I’m going to spend all night doing small batches until I get it right. Six more batches, I had it right.

From then on, I just ***know ***how to do it.

For me, it was chocolate chip cookies. It took me three or four or five times trying to make them, following the recipe as closely as I could, before I was able to get them to come out right without the chips melting and permeating the batter, or getting chocolate chip balls that refused to spread out during the baking process, or having the entire mess melt while baking and form a chocolate chip crust spread thinly across the entire surface of the baking sheet.

[Inner_Stickler]

@hyperspaz

I do know that part of my problem is I didn’t learn to cook at Mom’s elbow. My mom is a decent cook, but when I was growing up, she was a divorced mom trying to work full time and raise two kids. So fancy meals weren’t on the agenda. We ate stuff like Hamburger Helper, spaghetti with sauce from a jar, and tuna and noodle casserole.

So did I! Past performance is not indicative of future behavior. We’re not saying you should be able to whip up a shrimp etouffe or a crown roast of lamb after only a little practice, just don’t be scared of the grocery store.

[LSLGuy]

It’s a lot easier to learn with somebody else to help you. Trying to read a book, do that, and critique your own performance *with actionable steps for improvement *is very hard.

Also, it’s typical to foul up any reasonably complicated dish the first time. Pros will make smaller goofs than newbies, but they’ll also be aiming for a higher standard to begin with. So: Expect to need to make a new dish several times to get it going well. And plan to critique it afterwards, ideally with another eater, if not another cook. If this means you need to make marinara and meatballs 6 nights in a row to get good at it, so be it. And write down what you learn. Cookbooks are the one book I’ll take notes in; in fact I insist on taking notes in mine.

As you get better you’ll find yourself paying more attention to the gist of the recipe than the details, and doing more improv within the outline of the recipe. Which is probably just how you treat written sheet music when you sing too.

As to “season to taste”. … You know how music sounds right when the vocals and the various instrumentals are at the correct relative volumes. You can hear the drums, but they’re not drowning out the horns, strings, or singer. Cooking anything more complex than hot dogs is *exactly *like that; like running the mixing board in a sound production. Doneness, browned-ness, sauce consistency, spicing are all knobs you can twist to make the dish sing or not.

So for example: First eat some raw oregano to really taste what it tastes like all by itself. Fresh or dry doesn’t matter, just taste the type you’re going to use in the dish. Then try once to put in waay too much oregano; like 4x as much as the recipe says. Pay attention to how it now tastes mostly like Oregano!!, not like a balance of all the flavors. Next time put in no oregano and see if you can taste the “hole” where the oregano isn’t.

Now that you can recognize those two extremes you can put in the recommended amount next time then fine-tune from there until you have the amount that tastes best to you. That’s what “season to taste” means.

Yes, this all takes practice. But “practice” is really just a word that means “do something you enjoy while paying attention to the process and the results”. And since you get to eat the end product every time, practicing cooking includes its own reward.
One last point: Lots of newbies approach cooking with a rigid idea of “perfection or trash.” Nonsense. Or thinking it must taste exactly *this *way. Also nonsense. Go to any reasonable recipe website and search for, say “Chicken cacciatore” or “Irish stew”. Or even “marinade for grilled chicken”. You’ll find dozens of recipes for each dish. Each of which is different. And any one of which works fine. And each of which tastes different even if done by the very same pro.

Some have more meat; others less. Some have more spice; others less. Some include Bay leaves; others don’t. Some have lots of thick sauce; some are thinner, dryer, or both. Some include wine; others don’t.

But they’re all e.g. Chicken Cacciatore. And they all taste pretty damn good. Different from each other, but good nevertheless.

[Lightray]

@hyperspaz

Or, how about this? Do you good cooks know of a basic cookbook that has easy recipes that are clearly written and helpful, and turn out good?

Try some of the recipes here: Cooking For Engineers. They’re step-by-step, with pictures.

Also, books like Bittman’s How To Cook Everything that discuss the reasons why you’re doing all those things in a recipe. Cook’s Illustrated magazines are also good for this – get some of the regular monthly issues, not the “Best of” issues which tend to compress the articles and leave out the good explanations.

[Tom_Tildrum]

@Green_Bean

He actually boiled a steak! :eek:

…his corned beef is to die for.

There’s an epigram in there – something like “You can’t make corned beef without boiling some steaks.”

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

It depends on whether the bad cook is willing to learn, by which I mean willing to subordinate his ego to another person’s instruction. One of my brothers-in-law, for instance, is incorrigibly bad as a cook, because he won’t listen to anything anyone else says. Give him a recipe, and he will immediately try to change it it without mastering it first. If a recipe for cookies calls for a cup of shortening or for eight ounces of chocolate, for instance, he’ll change it to margarine or cocoa, insisting that they’re interchangeable, and when the results are not edible blame the recipe rather than his changes.

[Smapti]

@Tom_Tildrum

There’s an epigram in there – something like “You can’t make corned beef without boiling some steaks.”

Considering that the hip way of cooking steak these days is sous-vide, which more or less does consist of simmering them in hot water, the person in question may have been ahead of the time.

Or they may have just been a lousy cook.

[vomit_comet]

I would say the hardest part of cooking well is learning heat control… If you try cook everything with a flame thrower, everything you cook will be sub par, except, maybe a nice thick ribeye. Sauteing onions shouldn’t smoke or turn black; Adding large volume of liquid, turn heat up to bring to boil, stirring occasionally, turn down again to simmer… etc. That kind of thing.

[May_20]

You also probably need to accept that you don’t have to be a chef to be a decent cook. All you need to do is to make food that you and the people you are feeding like to eat. If your spaghetti sauce is not as basil-y as someone else’s, but that is the way you like it, that’s fine. Or if you like your steaks seasoned only with salt rather than marinated, that’s fine, too. Or whatever.

You learned the science of music so that you could create the art. You can do the same with food, if you want to.

[iiandyiiii]

I’m not sure if a bad cook can be taught to be a good one, but I do know that too many cooks spoil the broth, and that’s not the American way.

[chappachula]

youtube is your friend.

Seriously.

Search youtube for whatever you want to cook. Then watch somebody else make it.
Try it–it works.
No matter what food you search for, you’ll find plenty of hits, usually 2-3 minutes long. Watch 3 different people make the same dish. (not professional chefs—look for amateurs at home in their own kitchen.) They usually explain it pretty well , step by step.

Watch carefully… For example, look at their hands while they mix ingredients–what size spatula are they holding, how much muscle power do they exert, etc. How high is the flame on a gas stove, or how hot is the coil on the electric stove, etc.

Then play monkey see, monkey do.

[Bridget_Burke]

Martha Stewart has a Cooking School series that runs on PBS. (Or you can see the episodes here; start with Season 1.)

Each episode is devoted to a specific technique or food. She will often show alternate cooking methods. And the website has the recipes…

Main things I’ve found: Pay attention. Control the temperature. Do check for seasoning–mostly that is to prevent too much salt or too little.

[Chefguy]

As others have said, practice is the key. I started out frying burgers in a student union building cafe some 50 years ago; now I’ll tackle anything that looks interesting. If you have the time, you might avail yourself of local cooking classes. Basic classes such as sauces, and soups, stocks and stews will give you a foundation for a ton of dishes. So-called ‘simple’ dishes often are not, i.e., your meatballs. By the way, try refrigerating them for an hour prior to browning them. And don’t try to cook them all the way through. Just brown the outside, then add them to your spaghetti sauce and let them simmer in there for about 20 minutes. Done!

Educate yourself on different types of cookware and how to use them, i.e., nonstick pans should never be turned above medium on your stove; don’t try to fry eggs in stainless steel, etc.

Instructions like “season to taste” usually just means salt and pepper. Terms like “adjust the seasoning” are vague and I usually ignore them.

Cooking is a complex subject. Don’t stress out if you don’t get it right away.