Learning to cook from a very early age (Learning to Cook)

Member Name: mummy2twogirls

Product:	Learning to Cook
Date:	04/11/08 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: From Watching older family member cook, i learnt a lot

Disadvantages: some people thinking it's impossible

Cooking has always been a big passion in my life, growing up and living next door to my Nan, i always used to pop round and be greeted by wonderful smells of home cooking. Most of my family ( well the women) are wonderful cooks and nearly everything i know, stems down to them, picking up tips and watching as a child when they made cakes, pies, soups, stews etc.
My mum used to be a chef at the local pub, and made nearly everything from scratch, i remember sitting there watching her prepare dinner, amazed at the way of how she just knew what amount of cornflour to add, with out having to measure it, or having the ability to chop up a onion in mega fast time, without chopping her fingers off or crying!.

When i started secondary school, i used to love the food classes, we would various things from quiches to pizzas, and i would watch in anticipation as the teacher demonstrated different recipes, i wasn't being a swot like the rest of the class thought, i just really enjoyed the whole aspect of cooking itself.
Over the years i grew more and more confident and started experimenting at home more often with bigger recipes.
A little old lady who lived just up the road was a family friend and i used to go round to her house twice a week to help with her cleaning, and walk the dog, we would sit and have a cup of tea and for reason the subject of cooking cropped up, i told her how much i enjoyed it, and she said so did she, from then on once a week we would make fresh bread, different flavored ice creams, soups, all sorts of cakes together, and each week i would take something home for the family to taste.
When i was in my final two years at school i opted to do a gcse in food, which meant for the next year and a half we would work independently on our chosen food/ food group and study aspects of it and different recipes, a lot of kids chose simple things like pizza's and cakes, because they thought it would be easy and they'd get to eat what they'd made each week. I however chose a trickier option and decided to base my project on Greek food. Mainly because of my love for it, and visiting Cyprus so many times, i wanted to explore how the Greeks cook, and the different recipes.
With this my cooking skills became more and more, with the help of my teachers, books, and visiting Cyprus i successfully made many wonderful dishes including, mossaka, greek salads, Stifado, Roast Lamb and many of the dips like Homous, Tzatziki and dolmades. I really enjoyed doing this project and with a lot of effort and hardwork i managed to get a A* in my result.

My mother once said to me, if you can learn to do basic sauces, like white, bread, stock, gravy, etc, you can cook almost anything, which in a way is true, 80% of recipes has some sort of sauce in it or that goes with, and she said once you know about different meats and how there cooked you can't really go wrong, cooking is all about creativity imagination and confidence. Experimenting with different meats and vegetables is all part of the learning experience.

When i met my partner, and we decided on getting a place together, i loved the idea of being able to cook for him, sound stupid i know, but for once i would finally have my own kitchen and not have to share it with a family of 8!, it would be my space to create and cook for my partner, i think since we've met 4-5 years ago, he has cooked for 3-4 times, and we're talking only scrambled eggs, and pizza's from the freezer- even then he needed my help! but i don't mind, he is the breadwinner and im a stay at home mum, i feel it's my duty to cook for him, after all he does work long hours as a long distant lorry driver and he's not always home every night, so when he is home i make sure i cook a nice meal for us.

When i first started weaning my daughter, i wanted to make all her meals from scratch, chopping up fresh vegetables and fruits may seem like a drag, but when you think it will give your children a good start in life it's a good reason to do it.
My children only have homemade cooking and sometimes once in a while they might have a occasional happy meal.
But it's important to me that they get to know the values of cooking right from an early age, if they go off to college or university i don't want them living off take-aways all the time, but i want them to learn the basics of cooking, as it's not hard and everyone can do it, if they put a little effort and passion in to it.

Summary: Learning to cook doesn't have to be torture