Okay maybe this isnt the best demographics here but like I mean as in if you know someone who's Gen Z, do they have a "idk how to cook" issue?

(Please don't be like "omg its easy, how could you not know" in the comments, be nice in the comments okay 🙈)

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[–] 4 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Most people never need to cook before they’re 18

Is this a western thing? I was taught to cook when I was old enough to handle the stove.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 hours ago

    Westerner here (US-Am). This is not ubiquitous, but I was never prompted to even chop vegetables, let alone actually cook meals as a kid. I learned how to cook in my early 20s during quarantine due to wanting food that I like that fits my dietary restrictions, and because I was unemployed for a couple years and cooking your own meals is generally much less expensive.

    Now, while I don't "enjoy" cooking — sometimes it's actually quite stressful, though much less now than when I started; following recipe instructions initially led to burned onions or garlic, over- or under-seasoned food, concern over the caramelizing taking thrice as long as the recipe said it would, etc. — I rarely dislike my own food, since I generally know how I'm going to like it. Plus, my family enjoys it, which is almost as nice as me enjoying it, lmao.

    I do wish that I'd been taught how to cook when I was younger, but tbh my dad very rarely cooked — he wasn't taught how — and my mom's cooking was a lot of stereotypical white Midwestern-type tuna casseroles, spaghetti with canned marinara, etc. We had a lot of frozen microwave meals.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 hours ago

    My family believed that men do not belong on the kitchen, so I wasn’t taught how to cook. I was later taught the basics by my at-the-time-girlfriend and then learned the hard way when I started living alone

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  • [–] 1 point 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

    Netherlands, born in the 90s. My mom tried to teach me (maybe at like 15? Idk) but I basically refused because she had always done it and I didn't want to

    Not saying I'm proud of that, just giving the data point you asked for exactly as it happened! I know that many other families handled this very differently, but that's what it was like for me

    Of course, that meant catching up once I moved out ~4y later. Still hate cooking (and my gf hates it even more than I do, so the task falls to me) but I've only got one life and I have yet to find a place that sells healthy food that you can just shove down the gastrointestinal tract as-is... ^^'

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