| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/13/2008 6:49:56 AM | I was homeless at 15, and a very old, southern woman took me in to be a caregiver for her. And she could cook, southern fare from scratch.
Well, as she was quite elderly, I would often offer to cook, and I learned how to make all those succulent things that are very bad for you. I know how to cook for 2 and I know how to cook for forty. I am blessed in that I know how to lay a table, and not a whole lot of people are anxious to get up from it when I do.
There ain't nothing like breakfast cooked in a cast iron skillet.
Also, I learned how to be frugal if needed, this was a woman who lived in the depression. It was always some manner of beans Monday thru Friday, Pasta on Saturday, and Sunday was usually Chicken. We would scatter pork chops here and there and rice and gravy, oh my, but yes, one can eat very well on precious little money if they have a mind to...
Stef | |
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eseven
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Joined: 9/14/2008
Msg: 177 | |
| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/13/2008 6:22:50 PM | | I hear you Stefyleigh, Theres no breakfast like bisquits and gravy, fried bologna and fried taters, eggs and bacon, from the skillet. I miss my grandmas cooking. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/14/2008 12:38:48 PM | I come from a long line of good, down home mountain cooks. I grew up eating good food and developed a taste for it.
My mother taught me how to prepare a few things b4 I left for college...meatloaf and pot roast. I could fry an egg and a hamburger, that was it! Her philosophy was that if you could read you could cook.
So I read and I practiced and used my own creative genius and turned out to be an adventurous and excellent cook! Kinda like the way bank tellers know counterfeits .... that was my cooking school. I knew good food growing up, and know how to make it so in my own kitchen now. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/18/2008 10:33:32 AM | | I learned to cook at a young age. I realised I was a good cook when I lived with ten people. We'd all take turns cooking and it was unanimous that I was the best cook in the house. It was either that or I was the only one whose food had a little thing called, "Taste." That experience lead to training and a brief career as a cook. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/18/2008 1:14:50 PM | Growing up in an Italian family (even though mom wasn't Italian) when mom cooked on Saturdays and Sundays we (my brother, sister, and I) were all in the kitchen helping and learning. So now I can cook just about anything including my own spaghetti gravy ( we don't say sauce) . I own about 200 cook books even if I don't follow them they do give me some ideas and directions to go in anything I do cook.
Ciao! Tom | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/21/2008 5:41:31 AM | Our family lived on a large sailboat crusing the Carribean when I was a youngster & we all had cooking responsibilities according to our age/abilities. Both Mom & Dad were accomplished cooks, so it was part of our 'home schooling'.
It definately taught us the importance of fresh ingredients & the ability to make the most of strange new combinations!  | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/21/2008 1:15:41 PM | My maternal grandmother was Cajun & taught me how to make gumbos, jumbalias, & red beans & rice. And she made a mean Chicken & Dumplings ( the flat rolled out kind)
Being from Texas... I learned how to make chili (NO beans) & all those great Southern recipes which I only do once a year now. I also make all kinds of Mexican food - from a Hispanic housekeeper. I still make tamales once a year around Christmas time. I moved to E. Tennessee at 16 & raised 3 boys, there I learned how to make "cat head) biscuits, sausage gravy, homemade bread & cooked & canned veggies from our acre of garden. Along with Saw Mill Gravy from country ham.
Basically, I just love to cook. When my sons were here, my oldest would stand at the kitchen counter & tried to record my recipes. That was all the thanks I ever needed. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/22/2008 9:38:01 PM | | Well my mother an grandmother taught all of our family to cook from old country receipes and i do mean hill folk's food from the mountain's plus some native american stuff most folk's can not handle you messed up a hot iron skillet was a reminder to learn right the first time granny had a wicked back hand with that skillet lmao come to think of it.. it was never really hot just warm but alot of early american food has been forgotten by us just the fast food an prepared food's i tip my skillet to folk's who still find time to stew tomato's down for sphagetti sauce..any one up for tatanka rump soup | |
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mind92
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Joined: 9/25/2008
Msg: 185 | |
| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/23/2008 6:52:28 PM | Hello everyone. I learned to cook at a very young age, when I was 9. I took interest in cooking just because I was curious and wanted to learn. As far back as I can remember I was always wanting to help my mother cook something. She was always grateful that i wanted to help and eventually I became a better cook than her. Soon it was me that was cooking everything. I enjoy it a lot.  | |
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spcl_1
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Joined: 1/21/2007
Msg: 186 | |
| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/23/2008 10:35:39 PM | | I still have issues cooking, it’s a huge laugh in my family, I can cook Ukrainian dishes no problem, but when it comes to everyday stuff, I seem to burn everything! when my son was about five years old (he's 23 now) I was cooking dinner, and the fire alarm went off, yet again, my son without any prompting from me, opened the back door and yelled out to his dad who was working in our garage, "Dad!!!! dinners ready!!!" lmao.. that about sums up my cooking abilities! | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/25/2008 2:09:11 AM |
How did you learn to cook?
ummmm? by burning stuff.
I realized the need for survival and good nourishment was key if I had any chance in making it after I left home. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/26/2008 1:21:16 PM | | lots and lots of trial and error. definitely not from my mom, i don't dig casseroles a whole lot. :) lots of grilling from my dad and the gourmet stuff, i don't know, lots of experimenting. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/27/2008 1:37:50 PM | | Pretty much on my own, starting with stuff that's pretty hard to mess up like pan fried steak and every variant on eggs known to man. Still can't lay claim to much more than that for the most part, but every now and then I get an itch to try out something new which has borne mixed results thus far, never inedible but sometimes leaving me wishing I'd stuck to more familiar things. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/27/2008 11:14:30 PM | | Camping. If you're going to go out in the woods and burn twice the calories you normally do, it doesn't take long to learn out of necessity. I wasn't completely clueless to begin with, having some basics from my parents at home and at parks (we camped a lot together), but then began to develop my own on scout outings. Throw in a little competitive nature of teenage boys along with being really hungry and you'll understand why it's important to be able to come up with a seven course meal miles from civilization using only a campfire and Coleman stove. Way cool. I'm just now beginning to translate those skills into a "normal" kitchen... | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/28/2008 5:23:52 AM | Everyone thinks my dad taught me to cook because he was a chef.
He didn't but he taught me two excellent things:
1. What good food tastes like - bad food is unacceptable
2. Not to be afraid in the kitchen - good ingredients and methods = good food
Then I hit the books over 40 years of trial and error. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/28/2008 5:39:03 AM | | I learned by helping my grandma in the kitchen when I was a kid. I am single and I have to eat, so I choose to eat good. So I experiment until I get something right. Cooking is sooooo AWSOME! | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/30/2008 10:23:36 PM | First and foremost I learned from my Mom. I always used to hang around the kitchen and help out as a kid. OnceI hit University I picked up a couple of cook books and went from there. If you cook a lot you learn quickly what flavours go together and which ones do not. I found I would make a recipe from the book once, then start making changes to suit my taste. Thats how I came up with my mushroom soup recipe.
The only work of advice is that if you do change something write it down, there is nothing like making an amazing dish and then not remembering how you made it. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 10/31/2008 4:01:22 PM | | I learned Italian style cuisine from my ex-mother-in-law. I learned Asian-style cuisine on my own from books. Everything else - I learned through trial and error, and 8 years of subscribing to Bon Appetite Magazine. Cooking is one of my greatest passions. I just love feeding people. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 11/29/2008 11:07:49 AM | | I was a Brownie (before Girl Scouts), and knew that I would have to learn in order to get a cooking badge. I made a (lopsided) cake. (looked bad - tasted GREAT!!!) | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 11/30/2008 10:29:59 AM | When you grow up in the kitchen it just seems to come natural. As I became older it was if you want to eat you must help find the food or prepare it in some way.
Living on a remote island, though it was the largest island in the nation gave a young child an open view to alot of assorted fruits, vegetables, island herbs, natural cooking utensils, and a open ocean and grounds of fresh fish, fowl, and other meats.
We would buy our staple goods by the 25 to 50# bag that were brought over by the ferry. Our kitchen was with us at any given time or place since it was basically an open fire that you would start whenever or where ever you were at.
Watching over the shoulders of the islanders and or active participation was my best teacher and the taste of the food after working hard to obtain it was definitely rewarding.   | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 11/30/2008 1:05:58 PM | | hi.. being Italian I watched my mom and dad plus older siblings cook and bake constantly.. later we all worked in restaurants, one sister even owning her own... we have many family get togeters so cooking for 30 or 40 people was par for the course... after getting married we became vegetarian so that was a time of learning to substitute meat with alternatives... I loved cookbooks and I bought so many beautiful ones that gave me many ideas for dishes and presentation.. later I started eating high raw and even 100% raw so that was another time of learning how to make meals all over again substituting cooked mains into raw ones... thanks for asking, warmly Mona | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 11/30/2008 2:33:57 PM | | I learned the basics from my mother (like how to measure and read a recipe). It was my grandmother who taught me the most about the recipes she and my grandfather brought over from Italy (and like how not to measure and not use a recipe) . My plan is to take all those recipes and put them into a cookbook (along with the history and pictures of our family). My mother and I are the only ones that know them and I'd like to preserve them for the future generations. | |
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| How did you learn to cook?
Posted: 12/4/2008 9:33:11 AM | My mother is teaching me how to cook before I move out.
Shes teaching me to use a crook pot so that should come in handy. | |
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