My father would never have called himself a cook, but he made a mean potato omelette (he left the kitchen looking like someone had held a battle with egg-based weapons, but that’s another problem) and knew enough to be able to keep us kids fed and dressed when Mom was sick or away, so long as it wasn’t for too long.
That time when she was bedridden for thereabouts of a year, I already was able to pretty much take over the running of the household, although I couldn’t cook vegetables to save my life (other than green beans and their daughter “ensaladilla rusa”); two of Mom’s friends, knowing about this hole in my knowledge and figuring that I had enough on my hands with two little kids, high school, a bedridden mother and a depressed father, would cook extra when they made veggies at home and either bring them over when coming to visit Mom or give me a call to come pick a tupperware. They even took into account which veggies we absolutely hated!
I still can’t cook veggies too well… one of my first stops when I’m living in a new area is at the canned veggies and frozen veggies sections of the local supermarkets, to see what’s available there. But I’m reasonably sure it’s still healthier and less expensive than buying pre-cooked food, specially given than the pre-cooked vegetables seem to enjoy coming drenched in white sauce.
I’d bet if we handed you a button, a shirt, and a needle and thread, you could figure it out all by yourself. This is the sort of thing that is pretty common sense - at least to create a serviceable “won’t fall off” button.
(An easy-to-button-last-until-the-shirt-disintegrates-shanked button you might need to be shown how to do).
I think some of it is also sexism. Back in the 1960s and 1970s American culture tried to raise it’s boys and girls equally, but what really happened is some percentage of a generation of girls were raised like boys. We learned to change the oil in the car, but we didn’t learn how to fold laundry. Domestic skills were not valued as automation slowly took over, specially for those in the middle and upper classes.
My mom tried, but I was very resistant to absorbing the knowledge. I went to college, lived on bagels and frozen peas, got really sick, and learned. (It helped that my boyfriend’s roommate was a great cook–I learned a lot from him.)
So I think I need to make my kids learn more. My 9yo has all these allergies, and she will have to know how to cook–she won’t have the luxury of living on burritos. Luckily both kids are interested in cooking ATM, so I’m trying to take advantage of it. I find that I hate having interference in the kitchen while I’m scrambling to make dinner, so I plan lessons and train them before I ask them to do something at dinnertime. I can’t just have them help me–I have to consciously plan lessons and teach it, then bring them in. IMO the best book for this is Cooking with children–it’s full of real recipes and techniques, not cutesy snack plates. Once you’re through that book, you can usefully cook a lot of different things.
I have a chore plan that is more daily than what my mom did. She had us do chores, all right, but again–I was resistant to learning, so I’m going more intensive. They have morning, lunch, and evening chores and I hope to have them self-reliant by the time they leave. I should have been, but I wasn’t–sorry, roommates. :o
Other things are more optional. For example, 9yo is interested in sewing, so she’s learning a lot. 6yo doesn’t like the idea, but will be required to learn basic mending and how to run a machine. (I make sure to have my husband be really vocal and obvious whenever he does any of his mending; she takes more after him and we find it helps if sewing isn’t considered girls-only, but life-skill.)
I have become convinced that doing everything for your kids because it’s easier does them a terrible disservice. We’re preparing our kids for useful adulthood, not perpetual dependence, and if they don’t learn this stuff early it seems to become scary and intimidating. It’s much easier to learn if you start as a kid. It seems that if you get to college without ever having to look after yourself, it’s seen as a burden and an imposition–I shouldn’t have to do this stuff! I’m above all this!–instead of just daily life. I think that feeling is really hard to get over.
Oh, a fun thing we did this last summer was to have a cooking class with about 10 kids 8-11. They got cute aprons and each parent took a week and did themes like eggs, fruit, chocolate, quick breads, yeast breads, etc. They had a ton of fun and next summer we plan to do it again.
For one thing, you can look at the other buttons. Similarly, a lot of the non-processed food at the grocery store actually has directions for using it right there on the package!
I couldn’t agree with this more. My husband never had to raise a finger in his life until we moved in together. We’ve been together 9 years, five of them married, so imagine my shock when a few months ago, he apologized for not cleaning the sink because he admitted that he “didn’t know where to begin.” He said he had no idea what cleanser to use and if he should use a sponge or paper towels or a rag and he was afraid to use the wrong thing because he didn’t want to ruin the sink. Ditto for making anything beyond a frozen pizza or eggs - he’s so scared he’s going to ruin something, he doesn’t want to try without supervision.
Luckily for me it’s not that he doesn’t want to help, but that he doesn’t know how. He’s learning, though.
Another thing occurs to me - we may be seeing an effect of the “overscheduled kid” - if your kids have soccer on Mondays and Wednesdays, piano on Tuesdays, Scouts on Thursdays, and overnight every Friday, relatives to visit on the weekends, church activities, homework…when are they going to have time to learn to do their own laundry, sew on a button, or learn to plan and cook a meal?
In that case, they were probably raised in a house where swinging through the fast food window on the way to practice was normal and laundry appeared on their beds done to be put away.
And a lot of these people are probably young enough to have come of age through the plentiful 1990s - their parents could afford to spoil them, they got out of college in the mid 2000s, had their kids and boom - the only economic downturn they were really aware of was the dot-com bust - and they may have been in college for that - safely insulated.
A lot of parents who grew up during the Depression had the mindset of “I had to do without, so my kids won’t!” We were lucky, in that mom made all 3 of us kids learn how to cook. We had to plan the menu and do the shopping (with mom there to guide us). This included my brother.
I’ve heard people say they can’t cook, after “trying” to follow a recipe. Wtf?!? How can it not turn out right if you follow the directions?
My mom made all my school dresses (yeah, we weren’t allowed slacks until high school). My 7th and 8th grade, I learned to cook and sew - made an A-line skirt (with waistband and zipper) and then an A-line dress. We had to prepare full-on meals and bake. It was a lot of fun, too.
Those classes went away due to budget crunches, just like art and music. It’s too bad, because they taught necessities, at least the cooking portion.
I’ve learned stuff watching the Food Network programs. Sure, a lot of the meals are kind of fancy, but not all. And Emeril (Lagasse) Green on Planet Green, I found out how easy some things are. For the first time, I had chard last week. Just because I watched that show.
It’s “easy” to just buy prepackaged food, but a lot of nutrition is lost. I much prefer homemade food from fresh ingredients.
Reading this thread makes me consider making bread. Haven’t made it for years, it IS time consuming. Hm…
I’m a male, but I stay home (not by choice, I am looking for work). Even before the unemployment when I was working 25-32 hours a week and going to school full time I did all of the cooking. My wife can cook, but she thinks I cook better - and I actually enjoy it, and to her it is a chore.
That said, I don’t bake much. I did make bagels for a bit, but it got to be a hassle and my wife just had that “I don’t care either way.” So she didn’t think homemade ones were definitively better. I get bagels on sale (like 2 bags for 4 bucks). It is only saves about half as much to make your own (unless you use bleached flour and no other fancy ingredients). I just buy bread because only she eats it.
We don’t eat pasta a lot, but we are rice snobs and I buy good rice (and treat ourselves with sticky/sweet rice regularly). We make a lot of stirfry but I buy frozen veggie mixes. They stay good longer and are as far as I can tell actually cheaper. Buying mushrooms, broccoli, asparagus, etc fresh give you a bit more but cost just as much if not more.
However, I don’t understand the need for beef. I love a good steak now and then, but I’ve been the one trying to push for rice and beans on my wife (who thinks it sounds weird, but will eat it), and I usually cook a chicken breast portion and cut it in half for us to share (3-4 oz each). We sometimes spoil ourselves once or twice a week with some fish (expensive here for the most part, good Salmon can run 11.99/lb for a salmon or tuna steak that is pre-cut. Here being the Seattle area)
It is sometimes hard to eat healthy and keep it cheap. So much of “homemade” crap like bread, or cheap stuff like pasta, while isn’t entirely unhealthy, isn’t exactly something you wanna eat when you are watching calories.
It’s interesting that the subject of overscheduling is brought up. That reminds me of a chat board I had been a member of. The woman who created the thread (a stay-at-home mom, I believe) and many subsequent posters had had to cut back on their kids’ summer activities because of the recession. Most had absolutely no idea what to do with their children if they weren’t at camp. They were all looking for cheaper versions of the camps they had sent their kids to, but none even mentioned sending their kids to the park (or going with them) or a community pool.
It was kind of weird, but at the same time understandable. I mean, with all the news stories about pedophiles lurking around every corner, I can sort of get why someone would be hesitant to let their kids out of their sight, but at the same time, their children have no idea how to entertain themselves.
I went to a really good parenting seminar once given by the local Parents as Teachers program. I loved the speaker, because one of her comments was, “Of course you should provide your kids with stimulation. But you should also let them be bored sometimes. They don’t need to be plugged into something all the time or off at day camp. How else will they learn how to entertain themselves?” I also really liked her because she disagreed with a lot of parenting that focuses on your kids always being happy. Not that you should want them unhappy, but some parents are so focused on making their kids happy that they don’t parent and their kids feel “off” if they’re not deliriously joyful 24/7.
It could be a recipe that is sensitive to differences in room temperature, humidity, or altitude, and have been written for a different climate than yours.
You could be missing some information. What does it mean to “cream” butter and sugar together? What consistency/texture/color/smell is this supposed to have at this point? Some cookbooks are better than others at explaining basics for people who don’t know.
Your stove or oven might not work quite right, or might work differently than the one the cookbook author had in mind. I mess recipes up sometimes because I forget that my new toaster oven retains heat better than my old one, so a recipe that would have come out fine in the old one gets burned in the new one.
You might not have the cooking skills assumed by the recipe writer. Maybe you can’t do things like dice onions.
The ingredients might not have been fresh/ripe or of good enough quality. You can’t make a recipe with mediocre ingredients and expect it to turn out great. Occasionally that happens, but usually it just doesn’t work that way.
If the recipe relies on how the food looks, sounds, or smells, obviously people with handicaps related to those senses are going to have a problem. I have allergies, so I know my sense of smell cannot be relied on to tell me when something is done (or burned). I try to avoid recipes where there’s a narrow window between “underdone” and “burned” and being able to smell when you’re in that window is critical.
It might be under- or over-seasoned for your taste. Not all cookbooks will tell you that you should always add salt and pepper to taste when possible. Health-oriented cookbooks can be particularly bad on this one, because they’re trying to control sodium.
The recipe might just not be the sort of thing you like. People are individuals when it comes to food, and there is no dish that everybody in the world likes.
Or the recipe writer might just not have been very good. You can write a recipe for bad food the same way you can write one for good food.
Cooking and teaching others how to cook are two different skills. Especially if you follow the “a pinch of this, a little of that, stir it until it feels right” school of cooking.
I agree. Women who do magically frugal things in the kitchen have time (and probably had an example to learn from). If I can afford to take the easy way, I usually do. I work a lot and it’s not worth it to me to give up time for the savings I’d realize.
That said, kowtowing to finnicky children isn’t good. They need to learn better eating habits. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do easy-and-interesting foods, too.
It’s easier to do household chores without kids watching you, especially if you are like me and get nervous when people watch you do things. Any process will go slower if you’re having to explain it while you do it.
When kids do chores, they don’t always do them as well as you might, especially the first few times. If you’re a perfectionist, you might have a hard time with that. Some people might also have a problem with giving up control over a chore. If you take the trash out yourself, you know it gets done. If you delegate that job to your kid, you lose that certainty. It’s tempting to not give chores to the kid who will not do a very good job, or the one who is flaky and might forget to do it. The chores get done that way, but if you keep doing that, the kids never learn how to do chores or how to remind themselves to do them.
Kids can make more work for you while trying to help. I’m sure we all have stories from when we were kids (or, for parents, stories of our kids doing this) of trying to do some chore and accidentally making things worse. It’s easy to yell at them or tell them something like “stay away from the cleaning supplies” after such an incident. You might not want to teach them the right way to do whatever it is they were trying to do, because you don’t want to deal with another mess.
