Okay maybe this isnt the best demographics here but like I mean as in if you know someone who’s Gen Z, do they have a “idk how to cook” issue?
(Please don’t be like “omg its easy, how could you not know” in the comments, be nice in the comments okay 🙈)
At that stage of my life, my cooking was rudimentary. While my parents made sure we could cook, it was limited to grilling and baking
Is this really a thing? My kids regularly help with the coooing, they know meal prep, we have them sometimes cook entire meals for the family. I did the same as a kid, although it was largely due to having a single parent who often worked nights.
I can’t really imagine a human growing up without at least some culinary skills. Enough to feed themselves and have basic nutrition literacy anyway.
I found this Food Theory video right after I posted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkLk1qGdnGU
👀
Wild, I honestly hadn’t heard this before, but it really does make sense considering some of the hilariously novice cooking instruction videos that I’ve seen popping up recently.
I’m involved with scouting so most of the kids I know are a good bit more self sufficient than average I’m guessing.
To counter your anecdote with my own, not that I’ve seen. My Gen Z sister and her cohort of Z friends have a “chosen family” dinner every weekend where they come over and cook. One person takes lead, the rest help as needed, and almost every single one finds recipes and learns techniques from Instagram or TikTok.
They’ve come up with some crazy good dishes that I wouldn’t have stumbled across via traditional cookbooks and more millennial + oriented websites. My sister also has much better and more varied techniques than I ever got the old way, learning from mother and other relatives.
My niece and nephew are young but can both cook. if you don’t know you learn the same way you learn any other skill. When I was figuring it out I looked up simple recipes and mastered those and then moved on to more complicated ones. If I didn’t know how to do something I watched someone on Youtube do it first. Even when I was starting out it was rare that I ended up with a meal that was inedible. There’s nothing to be afraid of.
Every Human needs to learn to cook. Not a gourmet 12 course meal. Just cook simply to feed yourself. This is a basic skill.
I don’t disagree, but the number of things “every human needs to learn” has become utterly impossible.
Cooking, sure.
Cleaning and housekeeping, yeah, okay.
Managing your money, banks, pension, boring stuff. Ugh.
Media literacy (understanding author’s biases, checking sources, etc.), uhh, getting pretty hard, but not learning this can end up destroying your life.
How to use a computer, and how to use Windows and MS Office in particular, because you’re going to have to do that at some point whether you want to or not. Ugh, getting a bit tedious now. And the software keeps changing so you have to re-teach yourself every now and then.
Identifying scams and phishing, and what to do when you encounter one. That’s a real tough one, and keeps getting harder faster because scammers continue to invent new tricks.
Politics. Gotta know a thing or two, and who to vote for (if you live in a democracy).
Detecting deepfakes and AI propaganda. Maybe count this under media literacy, but it’s a totally new thing that everyone needs to know.
How to use public transportation. Can be really difficult in some places, and always very intimidating the first time you do it.
The list goes on and on and on. Every single human is expected to be Superman now. No, I refuse. Fuck that.
I’m shit at cooking. I will avoid cooking as much as possible unless my life depends on it. And I rely on my family and the society around me to keep me fed. I repay in other ways. I can fix just about anything around the house. And almost any computer trouble. My family relies on me to do those things.
I’m not surprised that people can’t cook. The world is impossible to navigate.
deleted by creator
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein, 1973
Bread and topping exist, you don’t even need cooking to feed yourself.
Well said. Don’t even need to spend money to learn. Go to web. Find interesting tasty recipe… Try it out. Leftovers for lunch or freeze. I’m gen x and grew up cooking. Trust me - eat microwave pre made crap too much and you’ll be fat with ass cancer before you know it.
Just for context, a hell of a lot of Boomer men (and those men before them) could barely warm up a can of soup because cooking was women’s’work, despite most “great” chef’s being men at that time. Gen X men were a little better, but not by a lot. I’m Gen X for context.
It really only became widely desirable / fashionable for men to cook with the Millennials came along. Before then, the ladies were expected to learn how to cook from other ladies, but of course only some of them had role models to teach them.
tl;dr everyone cooking is a relatively recent phenomenon, and as all the commenters here say, it’s a skill one needs to learn. Thanks for coming to my mini-TED talk.
As a millennial, I only learned to cook as self-defence; my mother was a shitty cook. On top of that she regularly did some diet stuff while I was underweight. Virtually none of my male peers did much beyond heating stuff up.
My friend’s boomer aged parents got a divorce at like age 75. Nobody really saw it coming. His dad sent us a picture of some stew he tried to make and I didn’t even know you could make stew so bad. I could just tell from the picture. My chef roommate went over and showed him some instructions and tips on how to cook.
or is that just a minority?
I mean, where? Things like this depend entirely on your local culture and policies.
I read that theres a global phemonmeon ranging all the way from US to China and im not sure if the mainstream media is right and kinda wanna hear annecdotes. But I’m gonna assume mainstream media probably excludes “poor” countries (since they dont have the luxury that “rich” countries have)
Apparantly this issue is even worse in China because of high tech (in terms of smartphones and app usage) combined with the labor is cheaper so Gen Z Chinese can afford delivery services to be used frequently.
My problem is that I can cook but never have the willpower to after work, so I usually don’t eat or eat some junk
Fun fact - Throughout much of recorded human history, there is evidence that much of the human population has relied on centralized food services and kitchens.
Not knowing how to cook is not as uncommon as people seem to think.
The fast food joints in the ruins of Pompei are fascinating. Stone tables with circles cut out so you could put food on the table and warm it from below, it’s basically a modern street vendor setup without the glass.
As far as I know cooking (and no, shoving something in a microwave is not cooking ) isn’t an ability you’re born with, you need to learn it from someone.
Yes, I do know Gen Z who cook. I even know Gen Z who meet up with friends to cook together. Not because “cooking is so easy”, most of them learned it from their parents, but that’s to be expected because where I’m from most people cook on a daily basis.
I guess it depends on where you’re from and whether cooking is a regular thing there, then you just learn it like you learn how to use the washing machine or the hoover.
Cooking is different than using a washing machine. A washing machine is basically a “microwave that cleans your clothes”… as mean as in “put the stuff inside, press some buttons, and wait”, well with just one extra step of adding detergent but yea the point is you dont have to actively monitor it through the whole process, and have some leeway after its “ready” (cuz food just gets cold, and your clothes dont start rotting unless you leave it in there for like 5 hours or something)
As for “where I’m from” oh yea kinda reminds me, my parents are from China and I think Chinese cruisine is just complicated as hell, cuz like one time I tried like stir-fry some beef dish already marinated and ready to cook, and like I try to do it from memory of watching dad cook, but it ended up like tasting a bit “off” vs how he normally cooks. And yeah I have no clue how the marinating works, they just put a bunch of weird sauces and its done too fast I cant even remember which bottles of sauces and I was standing too far away to see the label on them.
I could roughly make a Tofu dish thingy but its like barely 50% of how my dad made it, then I think he got older and in like a few years, food quality started to deteriorate too, I lowkey think he was just like omg why is my son so stupid, eh I dont even feel like cooking and so less effort got put into it cuz he was tired, tired of having kids lolol 💀
I think Asian households just creates a “distance” that makes it hard to be like “omg dad teach me how to cook” cuz if you mess up they’re gonna have the Tiger Parent Death Stare.
You could ask some of your family for the recipe? It’s kinda sad that you’re trying but it’s off.
Both my kids are Gen Z and at least from my experiences talking to them and their friends, one of the big factors is no one taught them when they were young. I’m not talking anything formal, just helping out in the kitchen, chopping veg, grating cheese, whatever. Either their parents don’t cook or they didn’t let them be active participants in meal prep.
My kids however do know how to cook, as they’ve helped out since they were little. Learned from my own experience as a picky eater - get your kids involved in making stuff and you won’t have to worry about them only eating chicken nuggets or whatever. Once they were teenagers, they got assigned meal prep once a week - they’d pick a recipe, help with the shopping, and make dinner (with help if they asked for it). And now they’re both adults who can make their own food. It’s shocking to me though how many in their generation just were never given the chance to learn the basics when they were young.
Wow, I love that technique for teenagers!
i think its your first point, parents/friends dint show them how to cook. and they are likely just microwaving things. the parents are cooking all thier meals for thier children and they dont push them to participate or dont do it in a way to let them learn from it(some are enablers, and will just baby the child which has its own problems, because they dont want them to mess up the kitchen)
I’m seeing a lot more apartments without kitchens than I did 20 years ago.
Without kitchen at all or just without kitchen furniture/appliances?
im a gen z with insane executive dysfunction thanks to adhd. for a while when I was living on my own, yes I was living on microwave meals. they’re really cheap to get a bunch where I live and they have some variety, and I grew up on them due to my parents not really cooking often and being a latch key kid so they were a little nostalgic. but once I realized I never felt full after eating one and making some more money I started meal prepping for the whole week. i know how to cook and I can make some banger meals but my main problem is cleaning up everything afterwards. I’m learning to enjoy cooking and i always try to make a meal for any guest I have over.
Yes, that’s called “growing up.” You have to teach yourself. It’s a frustrating process, because you don’t understand how to select recipes that suit your needs. 1/2 the recipes I found online usually resulted in a fail, because I couldn’t tell the difference between a good recipe and a bad one. I love the first cookbook I bought now, but at the time, what was I going to do with buckwheat blinis or tea-poached pears in chocolate sauce? I needed a basic pancake and chocolate cookies recipe. That book was basically useless for the first 5 years I owned it.
If I could go back, I would start with:
“I can cook vegan” by Isa Chandler
Chef John on youtube https://www.youtube.com/@foodwishes
Cooking is a skill. You learn it one meal at a time. What you want to start with is building a repertoire of simple, 15 minute meals that you love and that you can crank out with your eyes closed. Once you have like 3-5 of those, then you have a separation between “I need to eat” and “I want to learn to cook.” That separation is what lets you not feel frustrated and focus on your skills.
Cooking is a skill, you learn it one meal at a time.
Wow, well put.
I’d also recommend America’s Test Kitchen (the older ones with Chris, because they focused on basics), and their cookbook (which is like $20) because it explains the “why” for a lot of recipes.
And Good Eats, because he was all about how things work from a food chemistry perspective.
I love the “why” and it applies across many recipes. I also recommend the ATK “One-Pot” cookbook for stuff that takes roughly ~45 minutes or less and fewer dishes (“one-pot” can be a little misleading).
Yes, it really is just having a few basic recipes that are adaptable.
Unfortunately, nobody generalizes their recipes, so you have to look up a lot of recipes before you see the pattern sometimes, and that makes it feel more challenging…
Someone needs to make a cookbook full of recipes like:
- Add oil to a pan.
- Add your aromatics [select from the following list.]
- Add your [vegetables]
- Add you [meats]
Cook on medium heat for 20-40 minutes, until everything is beginning to brown or something.
Insted, you get a 300 page cook book with all the possible combinations of spices and ingredients and it’s overwhelming.
“Happy Pear Vegan Cooking for Everyone” is pretty close to what you describe. You get cooking instructions and a list of ingredients divided by their role in a dish (aromatics, core vegetables, beans, liquid, spices etc.) The recipes are great as is, even if you’re not planning on experimenting.
It’s kind of my dream to make a series of videos about taking care of your home (apt or house) and cooking for yourself. It’s kind of an ask your parents and grandparents kind of thing. There has to be something already out there, right?
Yeah, it’s called HowToBasic.
This should be much higher up - the guy’s amazing.
I helped me to see how to teach my son’s certain tasks that were at the time eluding them.
I like this site for a “generalized recipe”
Ha, that’s like much every Lutheran hotdish recipe. Basically need a meat, spices, veg, and cream of mushroom soup. It’s pretty wild what some people come up with, but the tater tot and the green bean variants were staples when I was a kid.
https://www.ocweekly.com/five-great-minnesota-versions-of-hotdish-aka-casserole-6612337/
It’s awesome comfort food in the depths of winter, uses the leftovers, and is cheap to make. I don’t go to church anymore, but still love a good hotdish!
How To Cook Without A Book by Pam Anderson describes the basics really well and each chapter goes over the general principles of a kind of dish (like seared meat or steamed veggies) with a general master recipie and then describes variations (like different pan sauces for the different seared meats).
I found a PDF of what looks like the whole book: https://cdn.bookey.app/files/pdf/book/en/how-to-cook-without-a-book.pdf
Plus one to Chef John. That’s how I learned how to cook, one recipe at a time.
I would recommend this one as a starting point because it’s easy, you learn a method that you use all the time (making a roux) and it’s delicious. I still make it all the time.
Chicken with Chipotle & Green Onion Gravy
Also a quick tip: you can roast most veggies (e.g. green beans, brussel sprouts, asparagus) with some olive oil and salt at 375° for a bit and they will come out tasty.
In my 20s I perfected my chili… It took a long time to get right, and I ate a lot of bad chili (but really, even the worst chili is still pretty good). I found the perfect ‘secret ingredients’ and techniques and then I got married to a wonderful woman, who is allergic to tomatoes and peppers, and doesn’t like beans. It’s been years since I’ve made chili.
Anyway, my point is just that you’re absolutely right… you learn to cook by doing it.
Tragic, maybe make some for yourself?
In an ideal world, I would… but I’m not going to make something that can take a few hours and then eat it by myself.
Any desire to share the recipe?
It’s been 20 years since I last made it, and it wasn’t something I ever wrote down… But from memory:
Dice 1 white onion Dice 1 bell pepper Chop a few cloves of garlic Add a tablespoon of cumin seed Saute the onion, bell pepper cumin and garlic in bourbon until the onion is translucent (I have no idea if the bourbon helps at this point, but it was an excuse to take a shot) Add ground beef (the amount will depend on how much you’re making and if you’re adding beans, I usually did 1 pound) . Chop up a spicy pepper or two (type and amount depends on how spicy you want it, I usually did 2 habineros and a jalapeno) After browning the ground beef add 2 large cans of tomato sauce and a small can of tomato paste. If you want beans, add a can of two of kidney beans. Add in ground cumin, paprika, onion powder, graphic powder, cayenne powder. Drain beef grease Pour in a bottle or can of whatever beer you’re going to drink with it . Simmer until the right consistency, stirring occasionally. Don’t let your hunger rush this step. Serve with sliced peppers, onions and shredded cheese as offered toppings.
Really, I’m sure I’m missing something with this, and I have no idea how much of each spice I added… I’m pretty sure I never actually measured it. Cumin was a game changer when I found that… It adds a great flavor. The whole seeds at the start add some texture, while the ground added later helps punch up the flavor.
Thanks. Ill have to give this a try.
I’d add that the cooking community here on Lemmy is helpful, too. It’s active enough that you can constantly get ideas.
Another great YouTube channel for learning to cook and bake is “Glen and Friends cooking”. He has years of videos and always aims his content toward those that are new to kitchens.
He does a Sunday morning old cookbook recipe every week as well that goes into food history. He also releases a regular recipe most weeks but his schedule is changing a bit. It is worth going back through his older videos because he does a lot of “what was on sale at the grocery store” recipes that are great for making cheap meals for your family.
Haha. Yes, it’s important to get some basics down. Get a small amount of stuff from the store and be able to do many things with it.
The fancy recipes are great and all, but you end up with some items in the pantry you may never use again.
My kid is gen-Z and he loves to cook. When he was still living at home he used to have to cook once a week, and now he’s living on his own he gets inspo from Sorted.
