Sometimes I'm amazed, I really am...

[OverWyreGrower]

My mum's version of spag bol was beef mince, cooked in a frying pan, with a tin of cooked sliced mushrooms and a tin of chopped tomatoes added.

Spaghetti was boiled until it was losing its shape, then served, as above, with the pasta round the outside and the mince in the middle....

[jackie j]

My nan was a cook, my mum was a cook, my eldest sister cooks lovely meals, my nephew is a chef, me ??? I cook because we have to eat, I make meals mostly from scratch, I dont bake cake's as I am the only one who eats them now, I made bread the other day, again I was the only one to eat it. I no longer enjoy cooking.
I make chutney's to use up stuff that I have grown, I love to grow things but cooking them is another matter, maybe I should go to cookery classes.
The kids at work have to ask customers what fruit and veg they have in their basket, I sometimes ask the customer just to make sure I am pricing it properly.

[Hilary B]

My Mum was a reasonably good cook, and I certainly learned a fair bit from her, but I also learned some rubbish, which I found out the problem and solution from all sorts of other sources.
Mum never cooked anything that Dad would have described as 'foreign muck'. a slice of tinned pineapple on a gammon steak was as 'exotic' as he ever accepted (except when it was someone else's home cooking, and even then my pizza was described as "nice foreign muck") so I couldn't learn anything about THAT at home.
School Domestic Science lessons taught me a certain amount of nutritional info, but had rather more to do with inspiring me to read cook books, and ask other people how they did it.
My children both cook. My son when aged about 8 made some biscuits, which tasted fine, but he'd added some food colour, with a little too much enthusiasm, so we called them "Gordon's Ghastly Green biscuits". A couple of years later he got hold of Delia's Christmas book, and made the Mincemeat cake. I don't eat fruit cake, but everyone who tasted it though it was lovely!
I don't remember teaching either of them to cook, although they used to help (as soon as they were old enough to be sensible with kitchen knives they were preparing veg etc) and watch.

[General Woundwort]

Living in Thurso, with miles and miles of empty farmland all around, you'd expect local kids to recognize what animals have done.

"What's that on the road?" said one kid in the street.

Horse dung. No, on second thoughts, there's no excuse for their being from the big smoke. The bleeding horse was still in earshot, clipclopping away.

[Comfreyfan]

Mum and her sisters are all excellent cooks, as was my grandmother before them. They produce amazing roasts, stews, casseroles, pies etc and of course, as proud Cornishwomen, totally awsome pasties! But spaghetti bolognaise, curries and the like just weren't on the menu when I was a child. But they grew up and learned their cooking skills at the end of the war, in the middle of Bodmin Moor with ingredients they could grow themselves or buy at the local shop and they certainly didn't eat out! I try to cook what mum cooked as well as she did, but the rest of the time I'll have a go at anything and like to try at least one new recipe a week and if it includes a new ingredient I'm even happier

[Caro]

My niece and nephew had no idea what rhubarb was. So I had great fun introducing them to a stick of rhubarb and bowl of sugar for dipping

[womble]

Yep, Nan used to put raisins in her "curry" too.

When I was about 7 or 8 in the 70's, I first had curry, made with raisins and some other muck in it.

It put me off curries until I was in my 20's when I started going out with the lads to the local indian restaurants. Then I started cooking my own.

I just love curries now

All of my family use packet mixes for everything, I'm the only different one.

One of my friends married a lady who doesn't eat vegetables.... at all, literally none. So him and his 2 kids don't eat any either. I asked him the other day what he actually ate, as I don't get it.
He replied, well we had risotto yesterday, to which I said, well there's loads of veg in that (thinking of our risotto which has everything and anything chucked in it) and he said, well it's from a packet, so I suppose it's got some veg in it.
I think my eyes almost popped out of my head. So that's it, packet mix and rice added to it? Or just from one big pack, I'm not sure. But it sure isn't a decent meal.

We've been there for a bbq and had to bring out own salad otherwise it's meat only.


[OLDGITMODE ON]
And what about those sauces you are just supposed to add chicken and rice to, that can't be a proper meal either.

[/OLDGITMODE OFF]

[OverWyreGrower]

Mum never cooked anything that Dad would have described as 'foreign muck'. a slice of tinned pineapple on a gammon steak was as 'exotic' as he ever accepted (except when it was someone else's home cooking, and even then my pizza was described as "nice foreign muck")

Pretty similar here... I was about 16/7 before I first had actual Italian, Chinese, Mexican or Indian food. Weird, as recipes like this are more prevalent in what I cook than 'british' food...

Even now, my mum won't eat pasta or rice, as "it doesn't taste of anything". I've tried telling her that is the point of them, but it hasn't sunk in yet!

[Hilary B]

Pretty similar here... I was about 16/7 before I first had actual Italian, Chinese, Mexican or Indian food. Weird, as recipes like this are more prevalent in what I cook than 'british' food...

Even now, my mum won't eat pasta or rice, as "it doesn't taste of anything". I've tried telling her that is the point of them, but it hasn't sunk in yet!

I always reckoned that potatoes don't taste of very much either, or most bread. The point to the 'big carbohydrates' is that you ADD the flavoursome foos to it!