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8K views 42 replies 34 participants last post by  aimlow 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Growing up I had the fortune of having two former chefs as parents. While being raised I never saw store-bought bread in the house or even store-bought pasta sauce. Just about everything was made from scratch and not only was it healthy and monetarily efficient it was also quite delicious.
Years later and being far removed from that life I still feel that I have the ability to mix and match things off the top of my head to make great meals and make up recipes as I go.
Sometimes I wonder if this is a learn-able skill because for example my wife can only cook directly from recipes and sometimes not even that well. You can tell who the cook is in our home.
The ability to combine ingredients on the fly is, in my opinion a great survival trait as you can easily waste food and resources on something that may end up being inedible or just unpleasant to eat.

I'm not sure if other people agree, I just thought it was a concept that I haven't hear that much in terms of survivalism and its worth to have as a skill.

Thoughts?
 
#11 ·
I was showing my daughter-in-law how to prepare her first STORE BOUGHT Thanksgiving turkey and i had her get the innards out..she literally started gagging and almost puked when she pulled them out. it's amazing how times have changed our culture.
 
#4 ·
definitely learnable. I cooked a bit off and on through college (made lobster thermidor for a girlfriend once). In grad school though I was really poor. I had to make everything from scratch (bread, tortillas, ice cream, jam, pasta sauce, pasta etc). I learned to make the basic sauces, how to debone chickens, how to use every bit of the chicken starting with roasted, then sliced for sandwiches to stock from the bones. For vegetables I bought whatever bucket was on sale at the farmers market for $1. Sometimes it was potatoes, sometimes it was a bucket of green peppers.

Im certainly no gourmet and Im out of practice now, but cooking is relatively easy to learn once you understand the basic sauces (western style as well as asian) and the basic ways of preparing and cooking meat.

I just made strawberry ice cream last night with my daughter.
 
#5 ·
It is extremely important. I grew up with stove top CRAP (the pre packaged stuffing mix) Since I turned 18 and moved in with my (now) husband we cook a lot from scratch. It's a bit hard at first. We make homemade pasta, sauces. But, we haven't made bread yet. Besides sweet breads. I find it much more rewarding than just opening up a bag (or whatever) and heating it. And it taste a lot better! minus all the crap they add into it.

We still have A LOT to learn though. We still don't know a lot of things.
 
#6 ·
@marcie & @charliemeyer007
It is sad that most are either too ignorant or lazy to cook for themselves and end up spending way too much money on badly made pre-packaged foods.
Convenience is key because of laziness. If and when everything goes to crap in this country and grocery stores can't stock food anymore it will certainly weed out A LOT of people that can't figure out how to cook or even put basic ingredients together to make some form of a coherent meal.
 
#7 ·
I have a talent that I can tell what ingredients are in any dish I have eaten. It may take me a few times experimenting with the recipe to get the right proportion of ingredients.
I spent 3 years after I retired to get all my recipes and published a copywrited cook book
I cook everything from scracth. I make an excellent Marinara sauce. I use Bison instead of beef. for a meat in my speghetti with Marinara. I use Bison in Chili , in tacos and and for hamburgers plus I can cook Bison rare. It has less fat and fewer calories than chicken.
My grown daughters cook from my cook book. It has the recipes they grew up with. I have always been the family cook.
 
#8 ·
So many of us are worried that given massive hunger the mobs will want to take our dried beans, pasta and rice.

Uh, no...imagine the reception someone would have received during Katrina's aftermath if they handed out dried beans, lentils, pasta, rice, and seasonings. The mob wouldn't just not touch it, they'd become violently angry as they're entitled to ready made foods.
 
#17 ·
This exact outcome happened to me when I offered to share beans and rice with my neighbors in 2004 after a hurricane wiped out our area.

I had made a rookie mistake early in my food storage plans by stocking a lot of beans and rice. However I found that I could not eat beans without getting violently ill for days. So I kept my beans for sharing with others and stocked other items for myself that I could eat.

You would not believe the hounding and complaining from supposedly hungry people. Most did not know how to cook the beans, so I did that for them. Then the complaints about spices and condiments -- and no one offered to help me with cooking or cleanup tasks. Nor did anyone offer anything in trade or assistance.

This was in Florida and I have since moved away. I hope it would be different where ive now, but I also would handle the situation differently - live and learn.
 
#13 ·
Cooking is a basic life skill. I've always been amazed at how few actually learn it very well. Even among those who can cook, they generally rotate the same dozen recipes over and over. This is a shame when there's an entire world of cuisines out there waiting for them to discover.

And that last part is important when it comes to cooking with our preps. One of the things I see often here is people complaining about how boring a diet based on beans and grains would be. I figure that's because they've only ever had them prepared a few ways, so they see an endless diet of bean soup and white rice.

But there are cultures all over the world that use many of these same foods as their staples. They prepare them in so many different ways that it's almost unbelievable. You could have them prepared differently for every single meal of your life and never eat the same one twice if you didn't want to.

Since I store a lot of dry staples, my food philosophy has been to research the cuisines of cultures that either don't commonly use refrigeration, or their recipes from before the era of refrigeration. When they lived off stored foods for the winter months and ate fresh foods in the summer. Sort of how many of us will be eating if we have to get by without the modern conveniences and grocery stores.

My suggestion has always been learn to cook. Really cook.
 
#15 ·
Exactly. Morale is a huge issue. Especially so during times of stress. And the longer the crisis runs, the more important morale becomes. Meals that people have to choke down, or that they get tired of, soon gets them eating less than they require to be at their peak. Where meals that they truly enjoy and look forward to gives them a short break from the stress and cheers them up some. It also ensures optimal food intake.
 
#16 ·
My Mother, bless her, was well ahead of her time. In my family, everybody learned to do
everything. Cooking, laundry, basic sewing, cleaning, as well as gardening, butchering,
canning and preserving. Heck, I still make bread every week because of watching and learning
from my Mom and Grandma. It is about being a self-reliant human being. You better start
teaching these kids how to cook over an open fire; they could be doing it sooner than you think!
 
#18 ·
I think one of the challenges to cooking is the spices. People will look at a recipe that requires a spice... Go to buy it and it costs $7 or $8 for a tiny little jar. They decide it's not "worth it" for one meal they might not even like. (Or discard the recipe right away because they "don't have the ingredients")
I shop for my spices in the ethnic aisle of the store or a store that sells them bulk. I keep more of certain ones that are used more frequently. Things like garlic powder, oregano, basil, and chili powder are used in many different types of cultural dishes.
When I go out to eat, I will not just enjoy the meal but I will look at the ingredients used and try to guess the spices. I'll cook a recipe exactly as it is written then alter it the 2nd time to suit our family. Once you get down the basics, it is easier to adapt things. I think cooking is a very overlooked "life skill". My son has been helping to cook since he was 4. He can follow a recipe and measure out ingredients. He is 10. He can bake bread!
 
#19 ·
I learned some cooking from my mom and I seem to have a natural sense for seasonings. I recently started a sourdough starter and it has matured nicely. I use it for most bread items, crusts, etc. it saves my girlfriend and I a ton of money and I like sourdough better than any other bread. I also do dutch oven cooking so I can make killer dutch oven pot pie and strawberry rhubarb cobbler, among many other things. i think that's not too shabby for a guy in his mid 20's.
 
#20 ·
Growing up in a small town with the closest store of any sort 12 miles away, a real grocery store 35 miles - everyone I knew old enough to see the top of the stove cooked.
Then walmart came to the town 35 miles away. My friends who would have been stay at home moms got jobs there. With the irregular scheduling, a 45 minute commute twice a day, having to pick up and drop off kids....it was just easier since they worked at walmart to grab some hamburger helper for dinner. At first they might have grabbed some veggies from their garden, or a few things for a salad, but pretty soon, no one had time for making a garden anymore. They bought canned veggies, then salad in a bag - don't forget that XLG bottle of ranch.
Fast forward, now there is a walmart in the town 12 miles away from my small town and my friends grown children work there. The grew up eating food that came from a walmart pkg, but are now convinced they don't even have time to cook hamburger helper, so they just grab something from the deli on the way home. They use what used to be the garden plot to park the RV or boat they bought with the money they made at walmart.
Wonder what kind of cooks their kids will grow up to be?
If Home Economics were required for both sexes, all 4 years of HS, beginning with the basics like nutrition and following a household budget and ending with food preservation, in 10 years I bet you could cut the amount of people on food stamps, if not welfare, in 1/2.
It won't happen of course, the HS needs a new football stadium.
sorry <rant off>
 
#23 ·
Cooking related skills are very basic skills what you should learn if you want to survive through your life. Those skills are very easy to learn too! Sadly too many stop developing their skills after they learn very basics and they can barely cook meat and potatoes for dinner.

Forexample my own mother have been cooking whole her life and are now retired... And she don't know anything about kitchen hygiene (when to wash her hands, not to cut veggies in the same board after raw meat and so on...) Or how to use spices (She just cook the meal and add salt and that it is!) And she don't even know if cooking kill salmonella or not. :xeye: That is just sad thing in my eyes and there is alot of folks like she is! They can cook their meal, but that it is.
And they don't even be interested about making more healthier or tastier food because you should be learning or reading or even watching television cooking shows... :rolleyes: :D:

Myself i'm good to making traditional nordics and French food. Mainly i do just home food because that is what i like to eat. Ofcourse when we talk about food that include all kind of salads, making bread, pastys, desserts and so on! I want to know whole picture instead of just cooking something to full my stomach. :thumb:
It is nice to know more than just the basics, because you must eat anyway so why not eat tasty and healty food instead of something scrappy? And it is always nice when your fridge is almost empty and you could still do your magic and improvise a good meal almost from nothing! :)
And ofcourse it is just nice to playing around and not to rotate those couple recipes what you know around all over again... :rolleyes:

Food what i make, is my pride. After all i'm cheff of this family and i don't want to serve untasty or ugly looking food for anyone. When someone come to visiting here, i'm serving always something for them. If not full meal, then small special coffe and bakings with it.
It is also good practising because when someone come here, i'm cooking what they want to eat, not what i want to eat or what i'm good to preparing. that make me to left my comfort zone.
Yeah i'm playing with appearances too, but i'm not fan of the fine dining. I just like to make tasty and good home food what looks good too! :D:
For me, food isn't only something to fill my stomach, It is "little extra" what make my life worth of living it. :D: :xeye:
yeah i have small passion for food and time at time i'm too near to run to the cheff school and make it a career for me, but at the same time i afraid a little bit that it could take some of the passion away because after that, it is 8 hours per day making food.
 
#24 ·
I do awesome slow cooked lamb shanks in a cranberry/red wine sauce served on mashed 'taters and shredded spinach, among some other little masterpieces. My mother was an awesome cook and taught me to make things from scratch.

But I'm not above walking around the back yard picking dandelions and eating them as I go or digging them up to turn the roots into 'coffee'. I'm sure the neighbours must think I'm odd...but I don't like them any way so I don't give a rats arse what they think of me.
 
#25 ·
People learn what they want to learn.

During the recession in the 80's I got bored because gas and movies cost too much, and so I took up trying new recipes. I learned pretty quickly that the recipes I learned from my Mom (who grew up during the depression) cost less to fix, but a girl needs some hobbies so I just tried new recipes less often.

I can now make most foods taste good.

My son only really likes to cook chocolate cakes, but he makes a better cake from a box than I do. He adds extra water to the batter and he eyeballs it. It was important to him to learn to make chocolate cakes, and so he learned it and he is good at it.

My kids know how to cook, but they need recipes because there are other things that they want and need to learn and that is where their focus is. They will not starve, but they are more interested in jobs and cars right now. Other than my youngest and his chocolate cakes they will not take the time in the kitchen to improvise.
 
#26 ·
Im cleaning my dutch oven today had some bacon wrapped pork backstrap lots of garlic and rosemary with potatoes , carrots and baked squash.
Was easy to cook and would you not rather have this than some boiled pine needles .Like MikeK said morale is so important and anything that gives a feeling of normalcy will be of grave importance.
 
#29 ·
Never learned how to cook when I was living at home, mom did all that and it wasn't required that I help. Joined the Army and ate at the mess hall, when I met my first wife she took over the cooking duties. Fast forward 15 years, first wife packs her stuff and leaves, now I'm to senior to eat in the mess hall and it's expensive.

Learn to cook, eat at mickey D's, or starve.......I learned to cook, well. Very well. When I met my current wife I cooked all our meals for the first six months, I still cook frequently and since the wife and I have lived all over the world in 7 days you'll likely get a meal from 7 different cultures. We raise our own beef, chicken, duck, turkey, pork, and utilize all the wild game I can bring in as well as raise most of our own veggies in two gardens. Everything is fresh or organic and the best we can put together.

I look forward to meal times.
 
#32 ·
Prepping said:
So many of us are worried that given massive hunger the mobs will want to take our dried beans, pasta and rice.

Uh, no...imagine the reception someone would have received during Katrina's aftermath if they handed out dried beans, lentils, pasta, rice, and seasonings. The mob wouldn't just not touch it, they'd become violently angry as they're entitled to ready made foods.
BadgeBunny said:
I saw this first hand. Some of the Katrina survivors wound up at a makeshift facility not far from my home here in Oklahoma. They threw an absolute FIT when they were served MREs ... The local fast food restaurants that were within walking distance of their facility all closed up for the week as they were sick and tired of the "refugees" coming in and begging. When they wouldn't feed them for free then they start tearing stuff up and the police would have to be called out. Tons of vandalism happened after hours (that didn't happen before and hasn't happened since).

One of the gals who worked at a grocery store near my home lived in an apartment complex down that way. Said she couldn't let her kids play outside for the beggars threatening them and she didn't answer her door unless her friends called her from their car when they were in her parking lot because of people trying to intimidate her into giving them all kinds of stuff ...

THANK GOD, my neighborhood was a little too far away for those dolts to walk to. I would have hated to have had to turn the dogs out on them.

Pretty disgusting, if you ask me. Our service men and women eat those same MREs and live in a LOT worse conditions than those folks were put up in.
My god! Posts like these remind me once again why i'm here in this forum! I'm living in so different country, but i know we are following your foot steps right behind you. Just wait couple years (to the next generation) and we are there.

I just cannot believe how people arent happy with MRE's! Heck they could be without anything to eat at the worst and they would have to beg and still starve because there just isn't food around!
Here people still understand that they just cannot go and beg food or raid places... Specially if they already have MRE's... They would just sit happily in emergency shelter and eat their MRE's and talk how it is good when things work and they have blanket over their shoulders and MRE in their hands. :D:
But in the other hands, we are old fashioned country and we still have people alive who have seen war and had to escape from their homes and never go back. When our grannies saw the war and raise their children, even next generation after that got that knowledge and way of life. That make things goes their right perspectives.
But like i said, generations after my generation are too far from our wars and living in poorness... Our generation got taste of modern day life and didn't raise their children too well because war and poorness was something from past.
We are soon there where you are in today, so better keep reading and learning. :eek: We are growing new generation and very soon they are adults and leaders of this country.

When we talk about Katrina, I would say if mob don't touch canned food or MRE's, they arent hungry enough. They can still be picky and demand better and tastier food... But that are just simple stupidity! They don't look to the future and where things can develope. Every meal is one meal forward.
I have seen poornes and i still live under the poverty line. I know what it is when you don't know if you can pay your next month rent or buy food... And i dumpster dived my food many years because i didn't have money to buy food after i paid my rent. Still today if i get sick, i don't maybe have money to go to see a doctor... And i'm living in the country of "free healtcare system..." (yeah it still isn't free.)
If someone would give me MRE right now, i would just accept it and eat it happily because it is one free meal for me. It would save me money what i would spend to buy food for some another day. (yeah i don't drink booze or party either, because that would be just waste of money what i don't have.)
That put things in their right perspective. IF someone offer you canned food or MRE during S situation, accept it and be happy because of that. You never can know if there is next MRE's comming! IF you are demanding warm food or hamburgers or something better, you are just picky and don't look into the future. Because when there is bigger situation around, even if you have all the money in the world, you still maybe don't get any food.

When we talk about moral, food is one big moral boosted indeed. When you have it, it ease your stress. If food is nicely prepared, it is always more pleasure to eat. :) More ways you know how to prepare your meal, more possibilities it also give you.
But ofcourse during s situation even if you eat straight from the can cold food, it is pleasure to eat because you have it and it is another meal forward. :thumb:
 
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