i am not joking we need to force teach cooking in schools. like. it is an essential thing for survival. do you know how easy it is to make things if you know even the bare bones shit about how cooking works. we need to teach teenagers how far you can take an onion and some other veggies it’’s sad that people grow up not knowing how to prepare literally anything. and i’m not talking about oh this home ed class taught me how to make chicken nuggets at home i’m talking about learning the balancing of sweetness and acidity and saltiness and bitterness and shit like that and techniques and oil temperatures and how meats cook. it needs to be taught because it’s literally not even that difficult and it matters so much
i truly believe that knowing how to cook is a basic survival concept and the fact that so many people can’t even make simple dishes is depressing as hell this is the sorta thing that should be taught at a young age. being able to take the ingredients you have around your home and turn them into a meal is like, essential and will make life so much better. you don’t need to be a high end chef you just need to understand some things that can be easily taught… but then again maybe the education system is playing a roll against this and ultimately they want you to grow up to rely on mcdonalds for dinner. i don’t know. please learn how to cook for yourself if you’re able. i’m not asking you to hunt for specific ingredients to make some expensive youtuber’s “best” recipe but if you know the basics of cooking you can do a lot with cheap canned ingredients. cooking can be affordable i promise you just need to learn how to make do with what you can get
Can anyone point me towards resources that teach those basics cus I would LOVE to teach my child this stuff but i dont know how to cook
not comprehensive but heres some:
internet shaquille’s basics but especially:
making rice
making scrambled eggs
making oatmeal
levels of cooking meat
using & storing vegetables with recipes in the description (this one has a bit of Sassiness directed at people who dont like vegetables but the content is solid)
food safety + a recipe to demonstrate
how to learn to cook (just a list of subtopics, no actual tips)
cooking techniques playlist
how to cut x
basics with babish s1 & 2, but particularly:
freezer meals,
weeknight meals,
kitchen tools (although the specific suggestions are pretty expensive even with the lower end scale items the basic categories are solid, and you can evaluate what items you will realistcially need - eg. if you dont need to read temp for steaks etc the temp reader will not be relevant) &
kitchen care (mid-high advanced home cooking)
basic knife skills
picking the right pan for each recipe
j. kenji lopez-alt’s tips and tricks playlist
egg recipes
a little more complicated, involved, and longer than any of the rest of these but good breakdown of flavor & how and why to use the basic seasoning/flavor profiles
and then recipe channels representing various cuisines:
j. kenji lopez-alt (various)
marion’s kitchen (southeast & east asian, western/asian fusion)
maangchi (korean)
future neighbor (mostly korean)
the western supermarket playlist of chinese cooking demystified (more recipes available but these are accessible if you dont have “specialty” ingredients)
family recipes playlist by made with lau (chinese)
not another cooking show (various)
cooking with boris (bear with me here i know he does it exaggeratedly humorously but a lot of them are actually solid and beginner cook friendly. mostly slavic/russian)
you suck at cooking (also falls into the intentionally humorous category but most of the recipes are pretty solid anyway)
how to cook that (baking, also does debunking videos of viral cooking hacks - breaks down the reasons the hacks dont work, pretty important to understand those basics imo)
internet shaquille (various)
babish culinary universe (various)
i REFUSE to recommended joshua weissman because he is fucking insufferable but if you want you can try if you can deal with it, the techniques/recipes seem fine for the most part
again definitely not a comprehensive list but it touches on most of the basics
I honestly recommend cookbooks for beginner cooks (they cost more than internet recipes, but you can get them used without too much agony.
Internet recipes are great, but they vary widely in explanation quality, which is fine if you know most of the techniques, but less so if you’re still learning. There’s an extra level of overall organization in edited cookbooks that I take for granted but that can be a lot of help if you’re starting out.
There’s a whole genre of cookbooks that are “for teens” or “for college students” which are specifically focused on new cooks without too many tools. Don’t be embarrassed to get one even if you are no longer a teen or a student. They’re just really useful.
My favourite is “Clueless in the Kitchen” by Evelyn Raab. It leads with a whole section on cooking and kitchen maintenence and it gives the recipes with minimal spices but with instructions about how to add or alter spices in a recipe, so you don’t get pummelled with huge numbers of herbs and spices to buy all at once. This copy is $4.
I once won a giveaway for a digital copy of Cooking Is Terrible by Mischa Fletcher, so I feel kind of obliged to try and convince people to buy a copy, but honestly it’s fun to read even if you’re not using it for its intended purpose: learning how to make a decently nutritious meal for not a lot of time, energy, or money.
