i want to learn cooking
By bjjp
Basics in Cooking
I will begin with a few basics on cooking because I could go on for hours about cooking. If you are serious about cooking I suggest you get a book or go online and find the basic measurements needed in cooking. By measurements I mean tsp (teaspoon), tbl (tablespoon), C (cup), Pint, quart, gallon, etc. Make sure you have plenty of mixing bowls, pots and pans of all sizes. You can get measuring spoons and cups in the local dollar store, grocery store, Wal-Mart, or whichever store is close at hand.
I learned a lot about cooking when I was at home when I was growing up. There were 13 kids in my family and I was one of the oldest so I had to learn early. I had one older sister and I remember her standing on a footstool to fry chicken while mom and dad were out in the hayfield baling hay. We planted a garden, pickles wild berries, dressed chickens, pigs, rabbits, squirrels, fish, whatever it took to feed the lot of us. Mom did a lot of canning in the summer too and of course we girls had to help do that too. Life was NOT a bowl of cherries for us when we were growing up, but we did manage to get in a wild cherry fight once in a while.
Sorry, got carried away. Back to cooking. When you are cooking something it is very important that you keep a close eye on whatever it is cooking. If the recipe says stir continuously, you better do it or you will end up with lumps in the food, or it will stick on the bottom and scorch or burn. The best and easiest way to learn to cook is to watch and assist others. Nothing beats hands on training no matter what you do. All the book learning in the world works as well as hands on training. Find someone that you know is a good cook and has a lot of patience and you have found yourself a good teacher.
It is a good idea to begin with some simple recipes and start there. Repeat a recipe if you have to until you get it right. You will be surprised how much you will remember as you go along. Before you know it you will not even need a recipe to look at on some foods because it is implanted on your brain. Once you have done it a few times you won't have to look at the recipe. By the way there are some very good recipes on the internet. Just do a little research and you will find them.
You can save a lot of money by preparing food yourself instead of eating out. Even with the high cost of groceries there is still a big savings. Anyone with the will power and patience can learn how to cook. When my son was growing up I told him he was going to learn to cook because I didn't want him depending on a woman to do the cooking for him all the time like his father did (he couldn't even boil water). He learned to cook so well now his wife won't hardly ever cook. Don't know if I overdid it or what but at least he can survive on his own cooking which is more than I can say for some people I know. You hang in there and you can and will learn how to cook if you are serious about learning.
Comments
Thanks for your input Yankee Gardner. Some of us had to learn out of necessity didn't we. But it is still refreshing when our young people also want to learn just because they want to and not because they have to. Being self sufficient is a good thing because one never knows if or when we wmight need to take care of ourselves.
Good information here. I started learning to cook at a very early age and at age 10 started helping with the cooking for our 3-generation family plus the ranch hands. What I mostly learned at that time was the old "tried-and-true" methods that didn't use formal measurements! That meant you put water in a pan until it reached a certain height, added salt measured in your cupped hand, etc.! Later, as I grew older, I learned to read and try regular recipes.
I actually advocate learning both methods. When you know basic ingredients that go well together, and the approximate measurements of them in relation to each other, you gain some important fundaments in the art of cooking...and it is an art. :-)
Tetonrose I know what you mean. We used a pinch of this and a dash of that, etc. It sounds funny but it worked very well and the end result was some very good down home cookin'!
Yankee Gardener 3 years ago
Great Hub and some great advice. I learned to cook at a very young age also. I came from a family with 6 kids and sometimes with Mom working we had to cook or be faced with eating sandwiches. I love to cook and especially enjoy going out in the garden and harvesting some fresh vegetables to use in new dishes we constantly try to avoid the doldrums of eating the same old recipes over and over again.