I’m about a 4.5, although when I cooked more for larger groups I was probably a 5.5 but I have forgotten a lot of the recipes I used to have committed to memory. My husband is a solid 2, however, so he rates me much more highly than I do myself.
That’s off the charts. I realized a few years ago I do that as well, and I do it even for my recipes that I might jot down if it turned out especially well. I don’t need to know any of the amounts, I just need to know that the really good dipping sauce had soy sauce, brown sugar, hoisin, orange juice and ginger in it.
I call it “Grandmother level” because it’s what my grandmother used to do to me when I’d ask her for a recipe. I got so annoyed - “Gram, that’s a list of ingredients, it’s NOT a recipe!” Incredibly frustrating for a beginner cook, but one I reached that level myself I realized just how my Gram came to be doing that.
Around a 3. I don’t have many recipes memorized, because I have a smartphone and allrecipes.com, but I do know a few simple concepts that I can use to make some meals without looking everything up. As a non foodie, my food related standards are likely a lot lower than most other people’s, though.
Yeah, and it’s partly what makes me so nervous about giving people recipes. I can’t just give them off the cuff, because it’s mostly by sight and feel. When I write down recipes or post them online for people, I have to actually go make the recipe and track how much of everything I’m putting in, as I’m usually just eyeballing everything and have no idea what the quantities are.
That’s the way I am with brewing. Recipes? We don’t need no stinking recipes!
My friends call it “Jedi brewing.”
That’s the way I brew, too. Couldn’t replicate a brew I’ve made whether my life depended on it! (Truth is, that’s not that difficult, either, if you like to brew and that’s the way your brain works. Some people just go crazy without absolutely exact step-by-step directions. I mean, you really, really need to eff up the quantity of an ingredient to get something undrinkable. And, to tell you the truth, some of these more extreme beers, it does feel like somebody’s gotten way off on proportions, and yet they get highly rated and have their fan base.)
And people who cook and brew without them drive these people nuts! Just different mind-sets is all. That and a shit-ton of experience. 
Right. The most direct way to transmit a recipe between two decent cooks is just to make it together, talking about every step.
This it true. It does depend on your mindset. I have two ways of explaining recipes depending on whether somebody is a very technical person or not. Technique is important in cooking. Ratios are important. But it’s not that exact a science. Even baking has a reasonable fudge factor involved in it. In my opinion, it’s more important to get a sense for how foods should feel and taste and to trust your senses. Of course, that sort of confidence develops through experience, and from making plenty of mistakes along the way.
Even though I can make a few things, I would not consider myself a cook.
God bless you always!!!
Holly
P.S. I can do hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, sloppy joes, and scrambled eggs, but that is pretty much it.
NM
Well Skald, I have a beef with your scale. I’m the worst cook I know, by far, and even I’m a two on your scale. I can believe there are zeros out there, I was at zero when I moved out. But the difference between a one and a two is pretty small. Is there really a group of people out there who figured out cold cereal and the toaster, but are scared of putting a pizza in the microwave or stove?
I’d bump what you refer to to as two down to one, and call two
2) Capable of making no-preparation required meals that don’t taste terrible.
I have managed to mostly avoid starvation. (I did drop over eighty pounds when I moved out at eighteen and had to eat my own cooking full-time) In my defence, I have no sense of smell, and thus very little sense of taste. Most of what I hear people talking about regarding flavours is totally lost on me. I can pick up the sweet, sour, salty and bitter flavours, but that’s it. And since I can’t smell, I often burn things,and thus while I follow the directions exactly, they don’t produce good food.
Moving out at the end of the month, so it’s back to the “starving is better than my cooking” diet. This is kinda handy, I could handle losing fifty pretty easily.
That’s fine. I made it up while typing. Even I think it has major flaws.
Sure. My father, god bless him, is a better man than I in most ways. But he has literacy issues (grew up black & poor in segregated Mississippi) and his memory is failing (nearly 80), so he can’t really handle instructions for frozen pizza.
Cuban friend giving me her recipe for Arroz con Pollo:
“Then put just enough cumin in it so you can smell it.”
Okay. Ground cumin or whole? How fresh is the cumin? Smell it leaning over the pan or all the way across the kitchen? What if my nose is stuffed up?
I understand that better now but I had to cook the dish a few times first. Think she might be a good cook.
Honestly I think I’d prefer that kind of direction a lot of the time. If she’d said, “Add 3/4 teaspoon cumin,” I’d be thinking three things:
- Why is this measurement so exact? Of course it’s just to taste!
- That doesn’t seem like enough cumin to me. Probably more would be better.
- Dammit, how am I supposed to level off this 3/4 teaspoon exactly? I MUST USE 3/4 TEASPOON!
It’s hard for me to get my touchy-feely subjective side to overrule my by-the-numbers side sometimes. If the recipe said, “enough so you can smell it,” my by-the-numbers side would probably shut up.
I guess between a 5 and a 7 somewhere. A seven only in the respect that I’ve won numerous chili cook-offs. However, since most peoples’ chili tastes like ass, that’s not all that difficult a task.
What comprises a great cook? The ability to recognize what is wrong with a recipe or a meal and correct it. The ability to understand spicing, as in what goes with what, what won’t work with what type of food, etc., and to understand it instinctively. The ability to not only know when something is heading south, but to know how to rescue it. How to use blades. How to make the basic mother sauces. How to make stock, demi-glace, and glace de viande.
But most importantly, a great cook needs to understand timing. If you don’t know how long things take to cook, or have an impaired sense of time, you are likely going to fail at preparing meals of any complexity. Or even at making bacon and eggs with toast. My wife is an innovative cook, but honestly, she’ll start cooking the eggs before the bacon is even in the pan. Makes me crazy. There’s a real choreography in getting even a simple meal on the table.
I’m a 4 on your scale. I have an excellent sense of timing, and a very good intuitive feeling for cooking, but I’m not very creative in the kitchen. But once I’ve decided to make something, I’ll be able to produce a meal and make the various parts of the meal finish at the same time. This is mostly due to the fact that I usually cook three meals a day, and it’s mostly a matter of practice.
::licks Skald’s first post:: Needs a little salt.
I think I’m about a five on the Skald Scale. I create recipes sometimes but they mostly are variations of dishes I already knew how to do, or things like a pan sauce that’s just a basic technique more than a recipe. Sometimes I’ll start from scratch and come up with something that’s somewhat brand new, but not often and not systematically. However, I can make just about any recipe I come across. I use recipes about half the time for my dinners, the other half of the time I’m making something I’ve memorized or created myself.
Chefguy, you are absolutely right about timing. Maybe a good test is is if someone can get breakfast on the table all done just right and hot. Took me a long time to get that right. Bacon, eggs and toast aren’t as easy as they look.
Now my post-retirement husband has started asking for his eggs the way his Mom used to do them - scrambled and stirred unti they are crumbly little pebbles. Argh!