I used to help my mom in the kitchen when I was little, and she showed me how to make meatloaf, spaghetti, and things like that. When I got older I learned to cook new things by trial and error, sometimes doing research on the internet or asking people I know. I have ruined a few things but I have tried to learn from my mistakes and identify what I did wrong. I think I am now a decent cook and people seem to like my food. Since I like variety in my life and diet I try to branch out and cook something new and different once in a while.
about age 5
For Christmas when I was 7 I asked for and got a copy of the Joy of Cooking. Very shortly thereafter I was making pancakes from scratch for the family on Saturday AM.
No deaths to date from my cooking.
The aforementioned pancakes had me sifting the flour twice, separating eggs, beating the whites to stiff peaks, then folding into the batter… pretty complex. I would like to note that the current copy of the JOK has the same recipe but simplified, very much simplified.
When I got married and moved out on my own.
My mother was my guiding light and pointed me in the correct direction.
How old were you the first time you cooked anything more complicated than toast?
Not sure. I know I “helped” my mom when I was old enough to do the mundane stuff like beating a cake batter 100 times or something, and was expected to plan and cook at least one full meal a week when I was little. I also had to cook for myself when my mom was working multiple jobs and I was a latchkey kid. So… 6-ish or a bit younger by myself.
**How old were you when you cooked your first full meal? When was the first time you fed others? Did any of them die?
**
As above, 6 or so. No one died, thankfully.
What was the first really complex thing that you cooked?
Don’t remember. Probably a loaf of homemade bread I made because I was bored at home (I was a latchkey kid, mom didn’t get home until I was already in bed). Before that, it had been stuff like scrambled eggs or quickbreads.
What were some of your earliest breakthroughs that you could honestly brag about?
Using common sense to do ingredient substitutions. I remember my mom and I were in the middle of a recipe, and she realized she was missing sour milk; I suggested adding some lemon juice to milk and letting it curdle a bit. Or when I was making some chewy cake recipe, and in the middle of everything, realized I had run out of eggs. I figured the egg was meant as a binder, peeled a small orange, removed all of the pulp from the pieces, smashed it, then substituted them for the eggs, and it worked fine.
Did someone teach you, or did you learn it on your own?
My mom taught me the basics: how to read recipes, what the various terms meant, and so on. She had a muscular dystrophy, and so I was pressed into service from the point where I could hold a spoon, and quite often it was up to me to actually get food prepared. We were also too poor to afford pre-prepared foods, so cooking from scratch was a daily essential. Being poor also helped to train me to be able to wing it, or do wholesale substitutions in recipes that happened to work well. I was always confused when friends’ parents would have fits when I asked if I could go into their kitchen and cook… it never dawned on me that there was both a liability issue, as well as an understanding that young kids simply didn’t know how to cook.
I did teach myself later how to properly cook vegetables (or simply leave them raw); she was a cook of the “boil it until it’s dead” school.
The best thing she did was trust me. To not burn the house down, to not poison myself, and so on. It gave me the go ahead to feel comfortable experimenting at an early age, and I got an intuitive feel for how to do most types of cooking before most people would have been allowed to reheat their own stuff in a microwave. And she got to come home after 16 hours of work to a pot full of homemade vegetable soup and a basket of hot crusty rolls.
Largely self-taught, and through books. My mother died when I was 7, but she had been very ill for so long before that that I hardly remember much of what she made, except “chop suey” and very hard fried pork chops. My father’s repertoire consisted of chili and baked beans, so he took to bringing home potato chips and pretzels to fill us up, which brought about a weight problem that has dogged me to this day.
I started learning to cook in self-defense, with some minor help from my aunt, whom we visited on occasional weekends and spent some weeks in the summer. She made a lot of things out of packages, but it did help me learn to operate different utensils and appliances. My father’s mother, who died before I was born, had been a Viennese chef, so when he mentioned something she had made, I was instantly challenged to trying it myself, so I was making strudel and stroganoff before I was 10.
I cooked my first complete Thanksgiving dinner when I was 8. I find it’s easier without “help.”
How old were you the first time you cooked anything more complicated than toast?
Eleven, first Boy Scout camping trip.
How old were you when you cooked your first full meal?
Twelve, working on Cooking merit badge.
When was the first time you fed others? Did any of them die?
Twelve, working on Cooking merit badge. No deaths.
What was the first really complex thing that you cooked?
Cannelloni when I was around 25, from a cook book.
**What were some of your earliest breakthroughs that you could honestly brag about? **No real breakthroughs, I can make just about anything from a cookbook recipe.
Did someone teach you, or did you learn it on your own?
Boy Scouts got me started, and curiosity and books did the rest.
I’m the oldest of 5 kids, so I was helping my mom pretty early along, tho I don’t remember exactly when. I’m guessing bacon and eggs was probably the first foods she taught me to make, since opening a can of corn and dumping it in a saucepan really isn’t cooking.
I think she taught us more about baking than actual cooking - starting with Christmas cookies, and eventually letting us make cakes and brownies. When we were kids, Mom’s cooking was pretty simple and basic, but she did emphasize the importance of following a recipe, so when I got out on my own, I knew what to do with a cookbook.
I honestly don’t recall the first time I fed anyone. I do know I’ve made some really good meals, and some really awful ones. I’m still a better baker, but I can throw together a mean soup, and I do pretty well with casseroles. I’d like to learn to stir-fry properly - my attempts have been pretty sad.
I have to say, I love my rotisserie!
I was one of those kids who never really ate much yet was always hungry, so I tended to hang around the kitchen and intently watch mom cook.
When it came time for me to feed myself, at first I just went with what was quick and easy (a lot of precooked frozen meals), then once I had a proper kitchen setup I would make stuff from packages, and once I was confident in my ability to not burn the house down, I would make what my mom made.
Exact ages are blurred. Like Rhiannon8404 I started out standing on a chair and helping.
I learned from my mom, and my grandmother. The earliest things I remember being taught are basic baking and the family recipe for latkes. I remember being taught a few specific skills (such as how to fold in ingredients or how to separate eggs) when they weren’t crucial so that when they were I wouldn’t be nervous.
Every summer my grandmother would take her four grandchildren for as much vacation time as she could accrue to a farm house near a lake. She thought it was important that all of us know how to cook a few basic meals so we’d each have a night as chef. I was probably “head chef” at 11 or 12, but that kitchen was never empty so I had help. I know that in high school I cooked dinner a few times for whoever was come over to work on a project. But basic stuff, no culinary innovations.
My grandmother was not an adventurous cook at all. She made good rib sticking meat and potatoes meals. And spaghetti. And that’s what she taught us to fix. Pot roast, meat loaf, roast chicken. She was always doing three things at once so she usually rejected any preparation that included stirring constantly or was overly fussy. She cooked to get people fed.
Cooking as a relaxing hobby didn’t come into the picture until my grandfather retired. Up 'til then he’d cook on the weekends occasionally, and always one big breakfast on those farm vacations. He read the New York Times on his commute and if a recipe in the paper caught his fancy he’d fix it. After he retired he did most of the cooking for the two of them.
To this day my favorite cooking is baking. For one year in college I baked two pies every Thursday evening, one basic and one experimental.
My son cooks quite a bit in our home. I’ll leave a note that dinner should include the leftover rice and the chicken I’ve thawed and he’ll find a recipe and often improvises.
Around 6 or 7 mom started having me help with cookies and side dishes for dinner. Also taught me things like addition and basic fractions at the same time, she was sneaky that way.
Around 14. Mom was very sick and out of commission for about 6 months, so the rest of us had to take over cooking duties. Since I couldn’t drive yet, and didn’t have a job, I wound up doing more cooking than, say, my sister who had her own car and a job.
Somewhere between “helping with cookies” and “mom is really sick”. No, no one has ever died from eating my cooking.
Probably divinity. It’s not that the ingredient list is complicated but it requires precise heating to specific temperatures and adjustments for humidity. That’s right, you have to check the weather before cooking the stuff.
Well… reliably making divinity, and things like angelfood cake from scratch that required more than just opening a box of mix and using a mixer.
Don’t make much candy or cake anymore, I’m much more into cooking basic sustenence food rather than special occassion treats these day.
Mom got me started and well educated in the basics, after that it was cookbooks and experimenting on my own.
My mom considered making sure that all of us kids could feed ourselves a basic part of parental responsibilities. My older brother is the only one of us four who didn’t learn to cook worth a damn. I cook three meals a day, and only eat out when traveling. So I really don’t recall a time when I wasn’t cooking.
My mum and granny are terrible teachers, but great cooks (so is everyone else as well, uncles, aunts, grandpa, and papa). But it was from my mum and granny that I learned. You’d just have to watch, no getting in the way, no helping. I still can’t be in the kitchen with either, for granny you do everything wrong. If she was going out and I came in to cook for grandpa she would put things ready in the pan including salt and everything else, then label it with the time it was meant to be on for. For mum you just can’t work with her, she has some sort of plan in her head that she can’t share.
Somehow I learned, probably more tasting than anything else.
Grandpa was a great teacher, the outdoorsy cooking kind. He taught me to pluck a pheasant, to skin a rabbit and to build a fire. He and my papa taught me some specifics of cooking, how long, what temp, that sort or thing.
I cooked meals from a young age, but not with my mum or granny around. Just if they were out. I really can’t remember when.
The complicated stuff came at university. We were a house of 7 foodies. About once a week we would each do a course. That’s right: hello 7 course meal 
But at least 3 people cooking per meal means that you can always easily do complex things; you’re not thinking about something else that’s boiling or burning so you can focus and learn. Sometimes we would call in sick and spend the day cooking. I remember one (good good) time one of the guys called in sick and spent all day preparing duck. I still dream of that duck.
I’m not sure about the first time I cooked for a large group… might’ve been my 18th birthday party? I think it was venison, I should ask my mum if she remembers. Definitely soup for a starter. Nobody died and no disaster. I doubt it was spectacular though! 
Not sure, maybe 9. I know I was younger than 11 and made lemon bars.
12 or 13. Made a pizza from scratch using a recipe from Home Ec.
Same as above and no.
Other than pizza dough? Frosted brownies from scratch, around the same age.
Making chocolate candies for the first time. Must have been about 16.
Little of both. The lemon bars were from an old family recipe that I had previously watched siblings make. As I mentioned elsewhere, Dad was the family cook; my sisters were the family bakers. Then we moved and the new school district required one quarter of Home Ec for each year of Middle School.
My mom stayed home with us 4 kids, and we all helped in the kitchen all the time, boys too, cooking and baking and candymaking. I remember my mom visiting relatives, and me making eggs for my dad for breakfast, and I was standing on a chair, so…kinda young, though I was always short so who knows. Worked in restaurants a lot, and if prep-cooking paid more, I’d happily do that forever, lol. Prep is a lot more than chopping carrots or a flat of mushrooms in 5 minutes, btw. 
Not a huge fan of the line cook thing, though; I like playing with the food too much. One sports bar that I worked at, I made more salads for guys, off the menu, then what was on the menu itself. Of course my salads include bacon and chopped steak and avocado and cashews and yum, so…your mileage may vary.
How old were you the first time you cooked anything more complicated than toast?
16
How old were you when you cooked your first full meal?
16
When was the first time you fed others? Did any of them die?
16. No, but I used lemon extract instead of lemon juice on the salmon. 
What was the first really complex thing that you cooked?
I baked a cake from scratch when I was 25.
What were some of your earliest breakthroughs that you could honestly brag about?
Um, not really any. I learned to bake chicken and pork chops in the oven, instead of on the stove, though.
Did someone teach you, or did you learn it on your own?
Mostly, my mom taught me.
On my own, probably when I was about 8-9, and I learned how to make scrambled eggs both in the microwave and in a pan.
Probably 16-17
When I was 8-9 and had learned how to make scrambled eggs- I made them for my parents and brother. Nobody died.
Depends on what you mean by complex. If you mean something more complex than say… pan-fried chicken in cream of chicken & cream of mushroom soup over rice, then sometime in my early 20s in college when i learned how to make chicken piccata and jambalaya and several other somewhat complicated dishes.
If we’re talking more complex than grilled cheese, it was probably around 13-14 in Boy scouts, when I learned a bunch of recipes of complexity on par with the chicken/soup/rice one above.
Probably the fact that when I was in Boy scouts and volunteered to be the patrol cook, ours was the only patrol with no food left over, and the only one where nobody was hungry due to over or under cooked food.
I’ve always been a ridiculously curious and mentally active person- as a boy, if I wasn’t playing outside with my friends or reading a book, I was probably hanging around my parents trying to learn about what they were doing. So as a result, I learned how to cook by helping my mother cook and bake while I grew up. She taught me things like a level teaspoon vs. a heaping teaspoon, and other procedural cooking stuff, and let me sort of sous-chef for her.
Eventually, after a lot of practice in some fairly unforgiving situations (campfires, college dorm rooms, cheap apartments) with honest feedback from friends and family, I got pretty good at cooking, and will now confidently attempt anything you choose to throw at me.
How old were you the first time you cooked anything more complicated than toast?
No toasters in the house, I had been cooking pasta and rice dishes for months before I got to grill bread soldiers into toast to dunk into the chocolate I was cooking (the churros kind, but with toast soldiers rather than churros). I think I was 9 when I first started cooking.
How old were you when you cooked your first full meal?
11 or 12. Whenever Mom considered I was ready to learn how to cook a steak. Actually, correct that… I’d been roasting chicken and pork for quite a while before I got hands on a frying pan, so not sure.
When was the first time you fed others? Did any of them die?
Unless we’re counting sandwiches it would be the first time I cooked. Only one, but many years later and as far as I know both things are unrelated.
What was the first really complex thing that you cooked?
Define complex. Due to a bunch of dietary restrictions, cooking at home was minimalist, but I remember figuring out how to leave pasta al dente when I was 15. Neither my mother nor grandmothers did that, bunch of overcooking heretics.
What were some of your earliest breakthroughs that you could honestly brag about?
See pasta al dente vs. mush. Mom’s Mom once got a mouthgasm from my penne with tomato sauce; once she could speak again she declared they were “just like my godmother’s!” Said godmother was her aunt (father’s sister), who’d immigrated from Italy along with the rest of the family. My parents declared that apparently the gen which had skipped both Mom and Grandma had surfaced in me.
Did someone teach you, or did you learn it on your own?
My mother, but whenever she considered I’d learned a dish I’d become its primary cook; eventually I started tweaking the recipes.
I’m not sure; can’t really remember. Does my Easy Bake oven count? I’m sure I made “cakes” and “brownies” in that thing, probably around age 7 or 8. I remember being able to make grilled cheese, and fry eggs and bacon as early as 9 or 10. (First time I did bacon on my own, I undercooked it. My mom asked why I didn’t ask her BF for help. Because I’d never seen him cook anything; I had no idea he’d know more than I did.:D) I cut myself with a knife once in 5th or 6th grade. The school nurse spotted my injury and took me into her office to give me a proper bandage. (Because I’d probably screwed up re-dressing the wound that morning after mom had already gone to work.) She seemed shocked that my mom “let me have knives.” My mom was a nurse as well; my sister and I had to fend for ourselves after her divorce when I was about 7. We both had boxed Mac n Cheese down by age 9 or 10.
Again, not sure really, but probably around 15 or 16. My stepmom thought she was teaching me how to cook, but I think she was just using me for cheap labor. I probably put dinner on the table a couple nights a week and was very much involved in the holiday dinners – probably handled about half the cooking (and 90% of the cleanup afterward, and not just in the kitchen – I did the whole house cleaning before and after all the guests arrived and left again).
I’m sure I shared my first Easy Bake oven creations. Nobody has died from my cooking yet, that I know about.
I’d probably go with a complete Thanksgiving dinner that I cooked for friends one year when I was maybe 22. Getting everything on the table hot at the same time can be tricky.
When I was about 15 or so, my dad got a bug up his butt around 9:00 one Saturday night. He was craving Italian food. We ended up making stuffed mushrooms and lasagna – up to around midnight. To this day, I still make incredible stuffed mushrooms and lasagna – I have far and away improved upon that original recipe, which was thrown together on the fly.
My grandmother taught me a LOT. I learned gravy from her, canning, and most of my baking skills came from her. My mom and stepmom are poor cooks, but each has a couple dishes I learned from them that are tasty. When my dad bothered to cook something, he is actually quite a bit better cook than his wife. My sister and I won’t eat anything she makes, but if I find out dad made it, I’ll try it. His palate is fucked up though – sometimes he thinks flavors go together that just don’t, e.g., spaghetti sauce over dry oatmeal. Bleargh. So I’ve learned to ask what he put in it before I eat anything.
I watched a lot of cooking shows and of course, took Home Ec in middle school (from which I remember nothing – the sewing skills have come in handy). Once the Food Network was born, I was completely hooked and started studying. I bought Harold McGee’s books, devoured Alton Brown. I even looked into chef’s school at one of those for-profit franchise “universities”. They didn’t have any sort of program where you could still work your normal day job and just take a few classes whenever, here and there (which was what I was after – I think my knifing skills need refinement). You had to sign up for a full-time two-year commitment for gobs of money. Instead, I found some textbooks used by the Culinary Institute of America on eBay and started teaching myself some of the basic techniques. I taught myself how to make the most amazing seafood bisque from that, as well as a few other basics, like pie crust, bechemel sauce, making my own stock.
Few things to add:
• My Gramma had this Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from 1952. When I moved out on my own, she gave it to me. I refuse to buy an updated edition because there are recipes for things in there that now are just assumed you’ll purchase ahead of time, like ketchup. I love that thing. Still consult it frequently.
• I remember making gingersnaps from scratch when I was around 14 and our family had some overnight guests. I think I got maybe 5-6 dozen cookies out of that recipe and every last cookie was gone by morning.
• In college, I got into this habit: I would crawl out of bed, hungover, around noonish, wander over to the grocery store for eggs and cheese and whatever else. Then I’d make omelets for my hungover friends, to order, until the football game started and we broke out the beers. I made up little order forms with a list of all the ingredients I had on hand. They would wander over to my apartment, like hungry little hungover orphans in twos and threes, pick up a form, check off what they wanted in their omelet, hand it to me, and go sit on the couch until I called them. I am still really, really good at omelets but I can’t stand them. I made so many! After I fed all my friends, I’d just make scrambled eggs and toast for myself.