How did you learn to cook?

Question

taught by your parents?friends?or special institutes?
or simply by yourself,through reading books?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Watched my mother, and than I tried and tried again. I would follow recipes and after I tried them I would adjust them to my liking. After a while you can throw things together without even thinking about it. My soups and stews are one thing I never fix the same way twice, but they are always good. I also semi-homemade things. You take something with a prepackage mix and add or make something out of it not intended by the package. I make a great chicken and dumplings this way. But most important I just decided to cook my way and practiced.

Answer 2

A little of all the above.

When I was three, my mother was throwing a dinner party and needed the extra help. I was pretty young, but that's when I learned to crack my first egg without shells falling into it. She was baking a cake.

My mother wasn't really a cook.... she was a convenience cook. But I learned techniques (chopping, dicing, slicing, etc., proper care of utensils - using wooden spoons vs. metal, etc.) - all by the time I was five years old.

When I was six - I made full meals. My mother and I cooked meals together and at that time learned how to bake from scratch - cookies mostly - making up to 17 different variety of cookies each year consecutively from age six through highschool..

But by the time I was seven, my parents put me on a bus to go learn how to cook in the Summer at Summer school. I went for five years ..... I was told to learn how to cook and to type - so I would always have a job and know how to prepare meals with the money I earned from my job.

It was then I made my first salad dressing from scratch (Itallian) and made my first Thanksgiving meal (9 courses) and made Thanksgiving for my family every year thereafter with my mother for 18 years.

Cook books were instrumental of course - I had kids cookbooks and such.....I loved those.....especially ones with pictures.

I've done consignment baking and catering on the side and to this day, love to cook and bake. It's a passion.

Answer 3

I taught myself....I've always liked well prepared....well rounded tasting food...Even as a kid...I would be very disappointed when food didn't taste right..I started cooking at about age 9 or 10...by 12 I was making whole meals. I learned through trial and error how to combine ingredients...cooking methods...to make my food have a full rounded even taste.

Answer 4

I learned when I was a little kid from my Mom. On my 7th birthday, I made my own birthday cake from scratch with my Mom guiding me along and teaching me how to do everything like sift flour, measuring stuff and how to push the shortening down in the measuring cup to get the air out and how to grease and flour the cake pans so the cake doesn't stick. My Mom was not too fond of cooking because she had 5 kids and we were kinda fussy and complained a lot, especially me because I hated vegetables except for spinach because Popeye ate spinach so it had to be good. We lived on a farm so we had beef all the time. It was always tough because my Dad hated beef that was not WELL DONE, make that VERY WELL DONE. It was always nearly jerkey with out flavor. I hated beef because it was so tough and flavorless. So, I added as much salt as I could and drowned it in ketchup, when we had it. It wasn't til I was 16 and my parents were gone one day that I found out steak tasted good. My cousin came over and said,"Let's eat steak!" I said,"Go ahead, I'll have baloney." He was incredulous. He couldn't understand why I didn't like steak. I told him it tastes crappy. He said it does not. So, he took out the broiler pan and turned on the broiler. I didn't even know what the broiler was. My Mom never used it, she just put steaks on the electic skillet and left them sit there for about an hour til they had no moisture in them like my Dad liked them. Well, David broiled two T-bone steaks done rare and I thought WOW! This CAN"T be steak! This is GOOD!

My Mom also made all the kids make their own lunches for school. I moved out of the house when I turned 18 (Back when people could afford to live on their own at 18). My sister bought me a cookbook, "The Joy of Cooking". I learned alot that way. I also just tried different recipes and stuff and talked to different people. My 1st wifewas very lazy and she couldn't cook very well, so I cooked a lot. At the end of the marriage, we fought all the time and we never ate together. I had my food and she had her food. I love to cook.

Answer 5

used to go to grandma's house every sunday for a big family meal, started helping her cook when I was about 5, learned to bake from my mother. got a cooking job when I was 16 just to work. Went to a University to become an architect, went there for 2 years and hated being out of a kitchen then went to culinary school and ive been professionally cooking every since

Answer 6

I taught myself how to cook by cook books, recipes, and watching Food Network (the likes of Rachel Ray and Martha Stewart).

Answer 7

I taught myself to cook when I moved out of the house. My mom was always kicking us out of the kitchen saying "Did you hear me call you to supper yet?" So we never even watched her cook. My daughter on the other hand learned from the time she was 3 or 4, pulling a chair up to the stove or counter. She cooked me and her dad breakfast by herself for the first time when she was 8...scrambled eggs with cheese, coffee, and Grands Cinnamon rolls. She was so proud of herself and so were we.

Answer 8

I cooked with my parents growing up-- mostly baking, but it really wasn't til I was out of school and cooking for the family (I lived at home for a few years) that I started cooking meals. I started with Mom's recipes and eventually began finding recipes and cookbooks of my own.

Answer 9

My parents taught me the basics--reading directions, measuring, etc.

Everything else, I either picked up on my own or learned by watching Food Network and reading cookbooks.

Answer 10

My father cooked breakfasts on weekends with my sister and I, doing pancakes, waffles, muffins, popovers, etc. Mom did most of the cooking, actually had one of the first home economics degrees and a radio show training people to use the newly installed electric stoves in the upper Midwest, and expected us to know how to cook.