Dumbing down cookbooks

[Cataholic]

I love to cook. I don't have a willing audience, currently, but, I do love to cook!

[Killearn Kitties]

I'm sure that when I started looking at cookbooks, they always had a glossary of terms. They didn't necessarily assume knowledge. Surely they could still put that in? Perhaps they don't think poeple would bother to read it.

A while ago, one of our TV chef-types, published basic cookery books teaching people how to cook, assuming no knowledge whatsoever. Foolproof recipes for everything from cooking storecupboard staples to really quite accomplished dishes. It was aimed at people, possibly students, leaving home for the first time; and it attempted to equip readers with good techniques for cooking fresh food, who might otherwise only eat heated or take-away meals. She took an enormous amount of flak at the time for telling people how to boil an egg, but the books were very successful.

[Edwina's Secretary]

My mother did not like anyone else in the kitchen with her and felt it was just easier to do it herself. Something none of us particularly fought....

My senior year in high school....my mother went off on a trip and left my dad and me home. There were meals prepared (this was before microwaves).

I worked after school. One night my dad called me at work. He was trying to follow the instructions my mother had left. "Put some oil in the pan." An automotive engineer, I am sure he was looking for some crank case oil in the kitchen.

Just as sad.... I had to put him on hold while I went and asked a co-worker what I should tell him.....

[Uabassoon]

My mother did not like anyone else in the kitchen with her and felt it was just easier to do it herself. Something none of us particularly fought....

My mom was the same way about cooking as well as the cleaning. I came to college with no domestic skills. My grandmother tried teaching me how to cook when I was a kid, but she passed away before I really got a chance to learn or remember most of what she showed me.

I know now some of the basics, but all of the dinners I cook are very basic and simple. So usually Alexa prefers to cook now because she claims she doesn't like my boring dinners.

[slick]

I learned how to cook when I was young and had to help out in the kitchen as part of my daily chores. When I was 10 years old, my Mom got very ill and was in a coma for about a month. When she came to, she had brain damage and was in the hospital for an additional 3 months. The whole time, my Dad worked and my brother and I cooked supper. We had sausages, peas and mashed potatoes every night for 4 months. Occasionally my wicked step-sister would come over and prepare something else and that was OK with us. Even when Mom got home, her brain damage was so bad that we had to teach her how to do everything...read, write, dress, wash....all the things we take for granted. So we still had to cook but fortunately my Aunt introduced some variety. I remember learning how to cook fried chicken and once I mastered that, we had it every Sunday night.

As for now, I really don't like nuked food and I always try to cook a balanced meal on weekends. Last night I had a baked chicken breast with steamed asparagus with "real" hollandaise sauce.

Alot of times I will also cook in bulk, for example a huge pot of chicken soup, a big lasagne or a whole roast stuffed chicken. That way I can freeze leftovers for lunch and suppers during the week.

...and thanks to Pet Talk, I can now boil the purrrrfect egg!!

[k9krazee]

Wow, its amazing how things have changed. I LOVE to cook

I'm currently in a Food and Nutritional Science class at school. The teacher one day asked who knew what hamburger came from ( ) and some Freshman said Horse! She honestly thought beef came from a horse I'm not surprised they're having to "dumb down" cookbooks...

[Maya & Inka's mommy]

My mom taught me everything I know! As she had MS, she couldn't do lots of things, but she gave me instructions from her wheelchair! Though I don't like to cook, I know all I have to know thanks to her!!!
No spaghetti sauce from jars here, I make most things from scratch

[Laura's Babies]

I had trained many cooks when I ran that cafeteria. One lady had no idea how to even follow a recipe, have never made anything by a recipe. After the first year of her working for me, her husband came to pick her up from work one day and told me how much he has benifitted from what she learned at work. He smiled and said, "I actually get HOMEMADE cornbread and ROLLS now.... AT HOME!"

I am proud to say, I taught all my kids how to cook, even the boys and what they didn't learn from me they learned from cook books. I think both my son's had to teach their wives how to cook. Kevlin really enjoys cooking.

It is just not the art of cooking that the kids today are not learning. We all sat at the dinner table to eat at the same time, families don't do that much anymore and to me that is a very important part of being a "family".