No one taught me, really. I watched my mom cook and learned that way, I guess. Wrote down the ingredients to some of her dishes when I asked about them after I moved out. I taught my kids a little bit but they didn't really seem interested most of the time. My son later became interested after working in a sushi restaurant, though and my daughter likes cooking and baking and wants to own a restaurant and/or B & B someday. She was into culinary classes in high school but only recently has asked about some of my recipes.

My mother taught me to cook when I was quite young. When I was about 8 I was cooking simple meals for the family as she was working and when we moved to a country hotel when I was a little older I was filling in for the cook from when I was 13 or 14. I remember being absolutely nonplussed when I discovered a school friend (whose mother was one of those incredibly capable people) couldn't even fry bacon. I decided then and there that any children I had would be able to cook before they left home. Throughout my life I have worked in a number of restaurants and other food outlets and I love to cook and bake.

Eventually DD came along and I did teach her how to cook. By the time she was 9 she could make simple dinners and had a regular turn at making dinner once a week or so. She was never a keen cook but more than adequate. Her DH is a good and keen cook and that has rubbed off on DD to my delight. When she moved out of home I gave her a handwritten notebook with her favourite recipes in it, which I have added to on subsequent visits, and every so often she calls and asks for a particular recipe or technique information.

Of course! It was one of my "weekly chores" assigned by my mother. I have done the same with my kids.

One night a week, dinner was my responsibility. I had to plan my meal, make sure the needed items were on the grocery list before the next store run, cook it (initially under her supervision) and serve it.

My mom considered it a basic life skill that my brother and I both had to learn. I also had to learn how to do basic mending (hems and buttons), do my own laundry, had to clean (dust and vacuum) my own room as well as the living room area and/or the bathroom (scrub toilets, counters, sinks, sweep and mop, etc) trading off main rooms with my brother each week.

I have always been and will always be grateful to my mother for teaching me basic life skills.

I grumbled about having to learn them until I moved out on my own with a friend/roommate and I had to teach her these basic skills her parents had never taught her.

It was literally less than a month after moving out that I thanked my mom for teaching me how to actually take care of myself.

I hope my kids learn the lessons from me as well.

My mom did. She was working full time and hated coming home and having to cook, while I hated doing the dishes. And I was home after school so I cookede while I did homework. I aessmeblde a cookbook of my own ... long gone..of mother's basic recipes which I used for years to make dinner and I was delightede to no longeere edo dishese.

My father, ran away from home to Hell's Kitchen, Manhatten when he was a kid. He started out as a busboy, waiter, then cook/chef...then manager, country club manager. He taught my mom to cook ...and drive a car. She taught me. We ate at the country club to save money, most of the time. My mom was a sort of "party" girl. She thought cooking and cleaning house was menial labor. She'd grown up with maids. I ate a TON of pbj's and Campbells soup under her care. Cinnamon toast was one of the first things I learned to make myself.

My mom taught all us kids to cook -- not "lessons" as such, but from my earliest memories, she was in the kitchen, so we were in the kitchen. She was mixing, measuring, stirring; so we were mixing, measuring, stirring. And licking the spoon. As we got old enough, she let us use the sharp knife to cut veggies. I don't remember my sibling's experience, but by the time I was 10 I was flipping through Mom's recipe books and asking to try this or that recipe. Or asking Mom to teach me to make bread like she did. Mom always said "yes" but once she sighed and asked, "Why do you always want to bake the very day I've cleaned the kitchen."

I did much the same with my daughter -- kept her close, encouraged her 'help' as soon as she was old enough to hold a spoon. She grew into a competent cook and can put together a complete, delicious meal. But she's never been into exploring flavors, so her palate is more limited than mine.

My sister and I started cooking Sunday dinner, when we were 12 and 13. We had watched what was going on in the kitchen... and were tired of food not all be done at the same time. Nope, my mother didn't teach me life skills... but because of her, I learned them.

I let my girls cook, when ever they wanted to, and they did before the age of 10 I think. Both are excellent cooks. One "regular" and one now vegan.

My grands all helped in the kitchen from a tiny size to now... and all love to help cooking. The oldest didn't want to dry the dishes and complained... and wanted to know what she could do to not have to.

I told her, whoever cooks, doesn't have to do dishes (as that was my agreement with my room mate at the time).

Promptly Sophia made (well, heated up) tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. That was two summers ago.

She cooks pretty well now. :)

Moni

I watched a lot when my paternal Grandma cooked and baked and still remember how she did things. I also remember how my Mother cooked and of course in school took Home Ec. I baked a lot of cakes from scratch while I was still at home. I married when I was 18 and then just read my cook books and cooked away.

Sue

I learned to cook by watching my mother. I started out when I was 5 years old, making cakes. I would mix up the batter and she would bake it for me. When I was 12, she took a trip and I stayed home to cook for my dad. I remember the first time I tried to make gravy. I had seen my mother do it, but it would have made better biscuits than gravy, because it was so thick.

My mother was a good cook, but nothing fancy. Some of the things she cooked took me quite awhile to master, to be as good as she was.

I have always liked cooking. Nothing fancy for me, either, but I am picky about how things are cooked. I would rather stay home and eat my own cooking than eat out, with few exceptions.

My mother loved to cook, and loved to learn to cook better. She tried, oh she tried, to teach me, but I just wasn’t interested. I didn’t really learn to cook till I had children. I subscribed to a menu-planning-and-a-recipe service, and I learned to cook by doing. My older son took an interest in cooking once he was out of the house, DS#2 isn‘t interested yet.

My earliest memory of cooking was when my dad taught me how to make creamed corn soup. My mom was a great cook who could barely boil water when she got married, and became a gourmet cook after. I took Home Ec in seventh grade where I learned how to cook cheaply. When I went away to college, Mom gave me cards with some of her recipes and outfitted me with basic kitchen tools. For graduation I got a set of Le Creuset pots and pans that I didn't really appreciate until years later. I then lived alone until my mid 50's, and cooking dinner meant steaming a vegetable, topping it with grated cheese and hot sauce, and calling it dinner. If I made things like stew, I ate it every day until it was gone. Then I moved in with my (now) husband, and learned how to make a few things at once, and serve them all at the same time, something I still find challenging. I also learned how to cook meat. (The key -- use a thermometer, or just stick to "low and slow.") I now cook and serve full meals, but I have to say, I think I ate healthier when I was single and ate simply.

I was thrown into cooking because my mom was sick a lot. I did a lot of basic stuff because I was never really taught technique. I've learned a lot through the internet. I'm still not someone who loves to cook. I've passed on a few basics to my kids. They won't starve if they don't eat out. Dd really loves to cook and bake. She tries a lot of different things. Some are disasters, but she has fun.

My mother and her mother were wonderful cooks. I learned a little by watching them cook, but not much. My mother died when I was 12, and my older sister, and me to a lesser extent, cooked for us 4 children and our father. My sister married when I was 15, when I took over. My own kids did not demonstrate any interest in cooking. I taught my daughter some things, but not much. However, my two sons discovered after they were out on their own that they love to cook. My older son does all the meals with his wife joining him in the kitchen for some projects. The boys are self taught, with a lot of help from the internet.

I was an expert french toast maker when I was 9. My parents owned a small diner in small town Alberta for less than a year. One of our customers would only eat the french toast if I made it. I could bake cookies from scratch when I was 10. I can cook or bake almost anything now.

I took foods/cooking in high school which is where I learned to cook all the basics. I don't remember my mom ever teaching her children to cook but she taught foods/cooking at high school and probably didn't want to teach 6 more students at home.

I didn't teach my sons although I should have but I don't have the patience for a mess. One of my sons is a pretty good cook although his fiance doesn't cook, He was cooking a bone-in ham for a bunch of his friends on Friday and I got 4 phone calls from him asking questions. Boy, that ham was good. :)

Mom used to shoo us out of the kitchen. She was OCD clean and would get upset if flour, etc got on the floor. When I got married The only thing I knew how to cook was scrambled eggs. Luckily DH’s family owned a diner and he knew how to cook. He would cook dinner and I would clean up. I started cutting out recipes from magazines ( no internet back then) and trying them out.

My mother learned to cook after she married. She did not teach me to cook, aside from telling me, "If you can read a book, you can cook. You'll learn when you need to." And she told me so long as I bought good cuts of meat, there was little cooking to be done. I think she was right. Between Fannie Farmer, Julia Child's The Way to Cook, and Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian Cooking, I learned to manage in the kitchen once I started having children. I taught my boys to cook only because I thought it would encourage them to learn other skills, like planning and cleaning up after themselves and expand their palates. My eldest son, despite my best efforts is as good in the kitchen as his great grandfather. He does not have a single cooking capacity. Boiling water for tea and toast making are seriously his only skills.

My mother hates to cook, so as children, we stayed as far away from the kitchen as possible. I never learned to cook until I took early retirement and watched a few Food Network chefs teach their methods back when FN actually taught cooking. I’m still not a natural cook like so many of you are, but I can follow a recipe successfully and make a pretty good roast turkey...thank you, food thermometer!

My mother had serious health problems. My siblings and I were given quite of bit of responsibility early on. We all knew how to run a household, by our early teens.

We were banned from the kitchen all besides my oldest sister and my second youngest sister. The rest of us are clueless Cooks.

I learned to cook by watching my DH who can fly around a kitchen and magically come up with nourriture fantasie fabuleuse. So I come up with passable food. DH keeps telling me it is good and so I sort of believe him. :-)

I’m one of 5 girls and our mother taught all of us to cook the same way as your mother taught you. She prepared meals in advance for us to warm up, while one of us did that, another would set the table and another would empty the dishwasher. We’d rotate responsibilities on a weekly basis so everyone got a turn. We’d also do the clean up after dinner too while our mother would bath the 2 youngest and get them ready for bed. Eventually she showed us how to prepare meals on our own and even let us plan them now and then. I did the same thing with my daughter, she and her husband both love to cook and cook well together. I’ve also taught my DH to cook and he’s gotten pretty good at it too.

I don’t think of this mindset as old fashioned or a dated way of thinking at all. As parents it’s our job to provide our kids with all the life skills we can so they’ll be able to make it successfully on their own. It’s also a process that helps to form a stronger bond with your children too.

"I am always amazed at how many young women and men do not know how to cook"

Cooking is an essential life skill that should be taught by parents. It's right up there for me with always be honest and truthful, don't spend money you don't have, plan ahead and work hard, look after your own things and keep them neat and clean, and prepare your own meals using healthy foods. If an adult of whatever age doesn't have these and other important skills, the blame lies with the parents.

My Grannie took seriously her responsibility to teach life skills. She taught my mother (her step daughter) and then us. You started with cornbread, something that cant be messed up. I can remember standing on a stool to reach the counter that as an adult I found impossibly backbreakingly low. I don't know how old I was. Then came biscuit and so on. It was not optional. Everyone of us learned. She was a master cook and I learned solid techniques. I do not cook the same foods she did nor do I cook in a similar style but I learned how to do things properly and always use the best ingredients I can afford. I love to cook, My oldest sister does not but she is good at it. The rest vary. We all had to get to the point of being able to walk into the kitchen and produce a dinner from what ever was there to cook. Of course we washed dishes and peeled vegetables and all the rest. I even know how to pluck a chicken and turn it into excellent fried chicken and I know how to scrape a hog. I haven't found that very helpful as an adult but I have had to cut a couple of them up. I got a lot of practice as a kid. My mother was bone lazy though a good cook when she bothered so my oldest sister and I had to do most of the cooking. I was the family baker-better than my mother or grandmother. I learned to cook on a wood cook stove. When all my friends were setting up household cooking with a wood cookstove was a major fad. I had been there and done that. Messy, inexact, HOT.

@Fun2BHere - So many people are afraid of cooking a turkey so kudos to you for taking it on. It is one of the easiest and yet one of the most dramatic (I think) things to present in a kitchen.

Elmer - I wouldn't class it as a failure as a parent if I didn't teach my kids how to cook. There are a lot of worse things to be neglectful about. However, in the past couple of months I've taught the younger one to make soup and to cook a bone-in ham. And he does a mean stir-fry and spaghetti meat sauce from watching me. It's all part of the process.

I way preferred to teach my kids how to ski and hike rather than spend time in a kitchen.

Unfortunately, my mon was not interested in cooking. She did, however, make quite a few tasty meals. She did not have the patience to teach us.

I learned to cook from her though in an unconventional way.

My first job out of college was as a house manager to three severely disabled young adults in a group home. We were basically "parents" and had all the responsibilities a parent would. Of course, this included cooking. Each night I would call my mom and she would talk me through some of the basic recipes. Eventually, I branched out and added to the repertoire.

Fast forward: I didn't formally teach my girls to cook but as they got older they naturally became interested and started to pick up the basics which I was happy to share. Youngest became a vegetarian in middle school and she had to figure out how all this was going to work in our household.

Both now live in Manhatten where you can get anything at any time of the day. They both sometimes do cook and text me pictures of the meals they have prepared.

High school home ec class.

"I way preferred to teach my kids how to ski and hike rather than spend time in a kitchen.“

Sounds like a rationalization, these were hardly mutually exclusive.

My Mom often said that when I left home and started my own family I would have many, many years of being a wife & mother. I would only experience being a child & teenager once and I was to have fun (and I did). You'd think I'd have turned out to be a lazy, selfish and demanding adult but quite the opposite. I'm a good cook, loving wife and mother and worked my butt off from the minute I graduated until now. Funny how that worked out :-)

I think it’s pretty harsh to say that just because someone feels differently or has a different set of priorities that they have failed their children. We all have our own perspective on what’s important, what’s not as important and what isn’t important at all. There are lots of resources available to help people learn to cook, it doesn’t have to come from the parent.

Ladydi, that was exactly my mother's take. Childhood is short. Adulthood is long. Plus, cooking is not rocket science.

Thanks Zalco. I know it may not work out for every child but I had the best childhood ever and still turned out to be a competent & good person in adulthood.

My initial comment quoted and was in agreement with what the original poster said who started the thread. I think of cooking as an essential life skill or trait that parents need to pass along to their kids. There are many others. I'm amazed by how many parents I've known over the years who have either ignored or been indifferent to their responsibilities AS PARENTS on many different fronts. Not the least of which being, to take seriously the need to impart important skills and traits to help their children be happy and successful in their lives.

I've seen lots of parents who don't care or have the attitude that their children can raise themselves and figure out key things when the time comes. That doesn't happen as easily as these flippant ones assume. Anyone who thinks it does or who thinks that guidance for important life skills while kids grow up is unnecessary or spoils their chance to be kids when they're young is mistaken in my view. It has nothing to do with priorities and lots to do with what responsibilities most people believe a parent has with respect to their children.

My Mom hated to cook and was bad at it. I basically figured it out mostly by my self. Someone did show me how to make gravy. I did teach my kids to cook and they enjoy it. One loves to make desserts and the other isn't interested in baking.

I never had any formal instruction.....just picked things up while helping out in the kitchen. I watched and absorbed a lot. In high school I started cooking dinners, in part just to expand on my mom's limited repertoire but also because I liked it. Maybe the most valuable culinary skills I learned from her were how to make gravies and a proper white sauce/bechamel :-)

The rest I just figured out on my own and from reading cookbooks (pre-internet days).

One of my earliest solo "productions" was cooking and hosting the family Thanksgiving dinner in my very first apartment as a college student.

ETA: cooking is a "life skill" that can be learned at any time in one's life. My mother grew up in an environment that limited a young woman's need to learn housekeeping skills as there were servants to do those tasks. They did not do the cooking or cleaning!! She never learned to cook more than to boil water until she was in her 30's with two small children and living on another continent. And it is hardly an essential aspect of modern 21st century life. Even someone with very limited cooking skills will not starve and can even entertain reasonably well with the options available now.

My grandmother and my mother were fabulous cooks and I was interested in cooking as far back as I can remember. When I was about 5 or 6, my mom and I started making cookies together. My father taught me how to make the brown sugar fudge that his mother had made for him when he was a boy. I was allowed to use the toaster to make toast and taught not to ever stick anything made of metal in the toaster for any reason. Later, when I was between 8 and 10, I started learning how to use the stove to make simple things like pudding, warming up soup and frying an egg. At 12, I made my first cake from a box mix.

By the time I was a teen, I'd taken over many of the cooking duties from my mother who had grown sick and tired of cooking. I planned menus and did much of the grocery shopping once I had my driver's license. As a bonus, she let me keep the change from the grocery money for myself which motivated me to teach myself how to watch sales and manage a food budget.

As a young married adult, we didn't have a lot of money and those skills served us well. I still love to cook, especially now that I've retired and have the time to make the types of meals I never had time for when I was working. The only thing I've never been able to master is how to make fried chicken like my grandmother and my mother did. Mine is good, but it's nowhere near the level of the juicy on the inside, crispy on the outside and well seasoned with every bite chicken that they made.

I will agree that basic cooking is not Rocket Science, but really good cooking is Quantum Physics. So while you may not starve you aren't going to experience great food unless you are a lucky natural. Having said that I don't think most people are going to notice or care. Good is enough.

Hardly a rationalization but rather family priorities.

Our house was designed with open concept before that term was created lol.

It was one big area. The kitchen with the dining table in the middle and open to the the living room. No matter where you were you could watch mom or dad cooking. That's how I learned I watched and apparently learned a lot. Most Cajun men cook as well or better than the women. That was the case in my family. They had their specialties. I also took home ec. Classes in high school. Sewing and cooking were required for girls but the boys could take them too.

After I was married when we were back home visiting my husband started talking to my family about how good I could cook and some of the dishes I had made etc. Everyone at the table looked at him in astonishment. None of them knew I could cook. I was paying attention!

My mother couldn't teach what she didn't know. She has lots of skills and talents and cooking wasn't one of those. She doesn't really have much of a palate either, food is just not high on her list of interests. Fast food, fine food, all the same to her ;0)

When I was about 12 and my dad got sick, she had to go to work. I taught myself to cook and could often have dinner ready when she got home. I made lots of mistakes. No internet then, no cookbooks in our house (not quite true, there was one) but magazines had recipes. I would call the woman I sometimes babysat for and ask her questions...That was also an era when convenience foods were making a strong appearance. TV dinners, frozen breaded chicken, fish sticks, rice-a-roni, noodle-roni - and I could read as well as anyone.

I had a little instruction in junior high. A little more in senior high but we barely took that teacher seriously, she was only 5 years older than us, not exactly grandmotherly in an apron.

I can remember my sister, home on college break, telling me one day 'when I have my own kitchen its going to be really equipped. It will have a cooling rack, a colander'....all little things my mother had never seen need for :0) Really, all three of us (I have a 'little' brother too) are probably better than average. We learned out of desperation. And mother? She has even less interest in food now than she did 50 years ago, and I still keep trying to encourage her to eat well.

Being able to prepare food to eat IS a necessary life skill.

Sure, a great many people can survive their entire life not learning how to do it. They can rely on convenience foods (high in salt and preservatives) or pay out the nose for quality food ($$$) but the vast majority of humans were not born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

Buying ready made, processed carp OR paying obscenely through the nose for high quality food takes a massive hit on resources that could be better spent.

EVERYONE has to eat, and EVERYONE SHOULD know how to feed themselves without relying on those expensive crutches.

What better way to cripple a young adult than to send them out into the world with not even an inkling of how to prepare food for themselves? The young high school graduate/college freshman that MUST live on microwaved ramen and cheap dollar menu fast food items because they don't know how to boil water?!?!??

It would be laughable if it weren't so true and, sadly, I've met more than one "adult" who couldn't even prepare a "convinence" food themselves because mummy always did it for them.

Letting them "be kids" is NOT a blessing or gift, it is a hindrance and a curse to themselves and anyone else who must rely on them for food in the future.

Well said, TG. It sounds like you've guided your family to "prioritize" eating an adequate amount of well prepared good food every day. Haha.

Enjoyable thread, I like hearing other's experiences.

Elmer, you are a smart, capable man and from past threads you've raised your kids in a very smart, sensible manner. Kudos. I'm curious about how you yourself learned to cook? I believe you're just a bit older than me, and I was at the beginning of the "equality" era in public school education. It had been common for Shop to be a boy's class, and Home Ec to be a girl's class, with no overlap permitted ... and that was just changing when I went through our local school system. Did you learn at home, from peers, from tv, ?? Did you enjoy learning or was cooking something you don't care to do? Again, just curious, no need for any of us to reveal anything we don't care to share, lol.

"Life Skills" can be categorized into three broad groups -- how to find food, how to find shelter, and how to fit into your social group. Just thinking of a book I read a while a back about a hunting-gathering culture ... the life skills the parents & elders passed on to the young looked a lot different than the skills we'd use. So, different strokes for different folks, different times, etc.

I learned basics from my Mum and she is a competent cook, but her style and range of dishes is limited so I have continued to learn on my own since becoming an adult and I am now a decent cook and baker. Roasts, casserole, pies, cakes and cookies are my strong points. I have done my best to teach my own four kids the basic skills and encourage them to cook - but their responses have all been different. Child 1 (now 22) can cook simple things but is not interested beyond that. Child 2 likes to occasionally tackle complex baking recipes but isn't much interested in day to day cooking. Child 3 took food science as an option at school and did well but never does any cooking at home beyond heating things up in the microwave. Child 4, who is just 14, is an excellent cook and baker who makes e.g. breads, complex pasta dishes, pizza ( including dough), curries, naan breads, samosas, fajitas, complex desserts etc. While she learned basic techniques from me and still asks for advice sometimes, she typically chooses to cook very different dishes than I do. She probably cooks 3 or 4 nights a week as she gets home earlier from school than I do from work. She'll often head to the kitchen late at night to relax by learning to bake something new. She was amazed recently when she was talking about cooking and baking with a friend at school who claimed to be a good cook on the basis of being able to bake a box cake mix. Child 4 was not impressed! Although I took the same approach to parenting and teaching all four of my kids the results have been very different.

Growing up, I was always interested in what Mom was doing in the kitchen. My Dad was a meat and potatoes man so meals pretty much revolved around what Dad liked. So I learned the basics watching Mom. When I was 12 Mom got a job in a local store and didn't get home from work till about 5:30. I got home from school at 3:30 and Dad was home from the mine at 4:00. So dinner was handed over to me to have on the table when Mom got home. I learned a lot from Mom about baking cakes, pies, cookies...goodies in general. And in Home Ec high school classes more on general cooking. Got married right out of high school and learned by experience, wasn't afraid to try anything.

My older daughter hung out in the kitchen with me and asked questions and wanted to learn cooking techniques. She also hung out in the garage with her dad, and learned a lot from watching him. Today she is very self sufficient in both areas. The younger daughter couldn't tear herself away from sports long enough to be in the kitchen with me or the garage with her Dad. But she did become a good cook after marriage. She would call me with questions at first, but soon was able to and confident to try things on her own.