/ck/ - Food & Cooking

U.S has a relatively high rate of dining outside of home for a Western Nation.

At the same time, anecdotally it seems that interest towards spending time at home and making great food is also increasing. There seems to be less interest in making food as a daily chore.

>seething poorfag mad they have to congregate at the common livery with the rest of the rabble
let me guess, you also cant afford to tip either?

>>14617089
lol look at this amerimutt thinking tipping is something normal that people all over the world does

>>14617105
Stay in absolute povert, third worlder!

>>14617024
No. Plenty of young adults know how to cook and do so quite well, especially those from the southern states.

>>14617134
>Imagine not living in a place where waitstaff makes enough money without relying on tips so they aren't insufferable entitled cunts

>>14617024
Americans can’t cook. None of them.

>>14617024
>Is it true barely anyone in America aged between 18-30

That's pretty much true for most 18-30s in developed nations. Maybe not as bad in Europe compared to the USA but it's still pretty bad.

I really enjoy cooking so I suppose I know how to although I am far from am expert. My brother dislikes cooking so he lets his woman do it for him, she's a stellar cook.

>America
The better question is why is it so easy to trigger Americans that basically every thread is bait for Americans now? I thought we had thicker hides than this.

Millenials and zoomers eat out a lot more often than boomers, but its not because their cooking skills are lower, boomers aren't good cooks

Millenials are just much more likely to live in nice urban neighborhoods loaded with excellent and convenient restaurants, while boomers mostly live in suburbs so going to restaurants that aren't shitty chains is way less convenient

>>14617024
That's not true, we also know how to open up cans and put the contents on top of carbs. Wala.

>>14617024
im 21 and most my friends can barely cook and mostly eat take-out yes. thats the norm for students here.
i wonder what the numbers are like in the far east

>>14617625
we are spoiled children who get triggered by the littlest of things
we have no hides to speak of

>>14617732
I hide in my room all day

>>14617691
>we also know how to open up cans

lol I have met too many college students who needs to be instructed on how to work a can opener

It's the idea that you spend you longer cooking something than it takes to eat it that puts a lot of people off. I don't know how to cook right now, but I do want to learn.

>>14617024

Not like we can't cook, but more like there's not enough time to cook.

>>14617024
Whats wrong with a sandwich as a meal?

Nobody enjoys cooking day in and day out and then doing a metric fuckton of dishes, which is why people have had servants to do it all throughout recorded history

Cooking is kind of a pain especially at the start

>lots of little things and equipment you have to buy and some of them are pretty expensive
>you have to buy large portions and think up how to use it all before it goes bad
>recipes online are often the kind that has 10 different things to prep and a bunch of steps
>"prep time 5 min" "super EASY"
>prepping and cleanup are boring and when you add up all the little things you need to do it can take forever
>food turns out mediocre at best but you have enough leftovers for another 3 days so guess what you'll be eating

A lot of these things go away or get a lot better with practice but it takes time and if you keep eating out you'll never get there.

>>14617024
>>plebbit

>>14617024
i cook great so fuck you OP

>>14617024
>put meat in pot
>put meat in oven
>put veggies in pot
>combine, add spices
Cooking lazy meals only takes like 5 minutes of work, I don't get how people can't find time to cook

>>14618724
What I did was that I watched a lot of jewtube videos from people who gave clear instructions and made good looking food. Eventually I got off my ass and made a recipe or two, which I liked, and this gave me the confidence to try and make more recipes more often. Just start off small and get used to it, because we're in an age where clear instructions are plentiful.

>>14617271
>you wouldn't even be seated
c'mon now

>>14617024
No. Everyone cooks. Other than like maybe middle class and rich college kids, I'd say everyone cooks considerably more than they eat out too.

>>14617024
It used to be that everybody knew how to cook and everybody are out a little
Over the last 40 years, there are two definitive groups of people; those who know how to cook, and those who eat out or microwaved food for every meal

>>14617024
Unironically yes

>>14617024
cooking is scary to people who have never cooked or were never properly taught. the amount of horrible food gore ive seen served proudly on people's plates is astounding. because a person is ignorant on how to cook and can only produce horrible slop, they feel like the barrier between them and a nice restaurant's quality is too immense to cross, and thus, they stay mediocre. it's disappointing but i don't know what can reasonably be done about it.

this thread reminds me that the last girl i dated was a complete idiot when it came to food and cooking. she had celiac and was tearing holes into her intestines because of her horrible diet of takeout every day and seemed unwilling to learn how to cook. i even made her a gluten free dinner one time and she loved it and had seconds, but when i suggested we try cooking it together sometime, she froze up. the barrier, to her, was just too immense

>>14621701
It's bizarre. You don't even have to do any fancy cooking to make a healthy meal.

Season some chicken thighs, stick in oven, take out after X time, eat. She could just do that, which even monkeys can be trained to do, and she wouldn't be destroying her body through shit food.

>>14621843
yes, she absolutely could. no matter what you suggest, however, you cannot force a person to change. disappointing

>>14617625
are US triggered or all the other countries that must ask "do americans really"

yes, no, who cares, live your own life

>>14619848
a pot, cast iron pan, rubber+metal spatula, big spoon, and an immersion blender if you feeling baller will cover 95%

spices last. cook smaller portions and it'll be better practice and less waste pleb

>>14621843
shit dog throw half a pound of broccoli tossed in olive oil and spices on that baking tray and you've got a balanced meal

>>14617024
Probably, but pretty much every young westerner can't cook and are eating takeout and frozen meals.

What cook books would you recommend to someone in that stage of cooking so that they could progress and learn a decent foundation of skills?

>>14621933
you dont need a cook book lol. just think about foods you like eating and google how to make them. eye up about 3-4 recipes to get a general idea of how it's done and knock it out. if you fuck up, eat your mistake.

>>14621933
Try cooking videos, they're better than books because they show you what the food looks like every step of the way.

my roommate eats nothing but frozen dinners and Subway sandwiches

>>14619848
This is why I think cooking should be taught in elementary school all the way up. I guess in the US with our service-based economy we can't ruin the market can we?

My roommate eats nothing but pizza and takeout. Literally the only thing he cooks are eggs. I cook every meal except takeout once or twice a month.

>>14617024
My mother in law is 60 and can’t cook. She either boils chicken until it’s Sahara desert dry or eats a bowl of cereal for dinner . Sometimes she tries to get “fancy “ and ends up having bloody raw chicken

>>14617024
>work for 45+ hours a week
>1 hour commute to and from
>have to be taking college classes simultaneously to have any chance of ever make more than $15 an hour
>no friends
>no gf
>family hates me
>news is terrifying and depressing
>nigger rap blaring in all public spaces
>child porn on tv
>70% of pay goes to rent
>on medications
>sleep deprived
I would cook if I had the energy

>>14622036
I don't know where you live but that's exceptionally rare for old US women. Women way back had 3 choices: become a nurse, a teacher or a stay at home wife. You were expected to cook no matter what you did.

I get the feeling by the time we're all 60 there will be no one left that knows how to cook. It's seen more as a hobby than a life skill.

>>14617024
I make breakfast on the weekends for my parents and siblings. I also cook dinner and lunch from time to time. Thanks to Boy Scouting.

i would not be a good cook if i didnt have practically a chef for a roommate years ago.

>>14622016
>This is why I think cooking should be taught in elementary school all the way up

This is the same retarded argument people use for things like learning how to perform basic car maintenance or daily chores or taxes or fill in a loan application.

No, that's not what school is for. Those skills are what parents should be teaching their kids at home. That's your fucking job if you choose to have kids - you teach them so when they reach adulthood they can leave and survive by themselves. You teach them how to do basic cooking shit at a young age and then engender in them the responsibility to contribute to cooking tasks, so when they do eventually move out they can cook all kinds of thing no problem. They don't freak out about boiling a pot of pasta like most zoomers in college do.

The amount of parents who don't teach their kids shit, just like them play video games and fuck around on the internet for 10 years, and then wonder why their child is a retard with no basic household skills is astounding. These kids aren't stupid or unintelligent. Many of them get into good schools and function just fine academically, so that says to me the schools are doing their jobs just fine.

>>14622209
My grandparents would only eat the same 10 or so things every week, but they were healthy and they made them by themselves.

They learned all the recipes in home ed, aka cooking class in the 1920's

I honestly think they would have eaten fast food daily if they were raised in our time, and they were by no means dumb or anything. Grandfather was navy intelligence / FBI, they died millionaires.
Millionaires that only ate stew and casseroles and stuff.

Taxes, hygiene, food preparation, how to use basic tools and many other things are invaluable life skills that should be a default that are taught to everyone

>>14617024
Its more that few are willing to put more than a half hour of total effort into making anything, dishwashing time included.

>>14617024
It's actually not that people don't /can't cook. It's that people are really fat, so they will eat out AND cook. I know so many people who can cook and will see them prep meals for work, and then order pizza for dinner.

>>14622016
No. Waste of resources. They need to bring back exercise and athletics to schools.

>>14622209
>no-one should learn anything at school because it's the parents job
>why even have school in the first place

>>14622244
My parents are chefs who have worked in Michelin star restaurants. We all still enjoy fast food. Knowing how to cook doesn't necessarily mean you won't eat out. Eating out is also a social thing, especially when it's restaurants instead of fast food..

Your grandparents also seemed to not have benefitted if they only ate 10 things most of the time. Clearly they learned the basics and stopped three. My grandmother is really old and still cooks 20+ things

>>14622290
>They need to bring back exercise and athletics to schools.

Do American schools not have this? What do you actually do with your kids besides telling them they should consider slicing their cocks off?

>>14622304
Schools today are indoctrination centers for most, and a waste of time for the intelligent kids. Really no point in arguing about the importance of school, when it stopped being important centuries ago.

>>14622308
Depends on the school. Large schools do not have it because they don't have enough time alotted for showering, and enough room. Most kids don't want to stink all day long so they won't exercise, which is understandable.

Small or private schools are more likely to include the program.

>>14622322
>Most kids don't want to stink all day long so they won't exercise, which is understandable.

Kids in my day just doused themselves in Axe body spray.

>>14622332
Yeah but that's not sanitary, especially for females.

>>14622354
I mean we had showers and I guess the chicks used them. I just remember a lot of the blokes couldn't be fucked. Just got undressed, applied a coating of terrible deodorant and got changed. Plus, showering lent itself to all sorts of hijinks, like getting your clothes stolen or your penis poked.

>>14617024
No what the fuck are you talking about?

>>14617665
>but its not because their cooking skills are lower

When you don't practice or even know the basics then eating out is the first resort for these types. You can bet millenials/zoomers cooking skill are worse than boomers who at least were raised by parents during a time that actually tried to teach their children to cook.

>>14622462
>who at least were raised by parents during a time that actually tried to teach their children to cook.
lmao do you know a single thing about mid-century American cooking? Literally anything is an improvement, very much including not having the 'techniques' passed on.

>>14617089
Of course not, even suggesting something like that would be considered an insult

Like most problems , working women caused it so m*dernity and c*pitalism could sell it back to you. Needing the drivers in the family and fast/frozen food really made meal prep unviable.

>>14623564
Yes, we should all be more like based Afghanistan. Also, stop self-censoring like you're some kind of /int/fag.

>>14623564
>Like most problems , working women caused it so m*dernity and c*pitalism could sell it back to you. Needing the drivers in the family and fast/frozen food really made meal prep unviable.

>>14623625
Logistically where's the lie? Not having SAHW or servant is lockout for cookery.

>>14621933
Youtube is your friend here. Tons of resources. Gordon Ramsey has a series of basic cooking skills videos which might be a good place to start.

>>14622046
Eat better food and you'll have energy
Ignore the news if it impacts you

>>14617024
I made a massive wok of stir fried noodles last night and ate it all
At least it was the only thing I ate all day

>>14622361
Are you from Germany too?

>>14622016
I did learn it in elementary school and I can only recommend it.

>>14623648
The creation of convenience foods predates the widespread presence of women in the workforce, retard. There are traditionar cultures where cooking is relatively rare. Sounds like you just need a scapegoat to blame so you don't have to confront the fact that you're an underemployed loser by your own doing.

>>14624101
The opportunity costs for cooking as a wagie is too damn high and even higher for the unemployed living in food desert where only MRE-tier slop is available.

>>14624152
I have bad news for you if you think that the average one-income family is regularly eating home-cooked meals that involve any manner of skill or complexity

>>14624227
My claim is that it is no longer frequent post-WWII, when refrigerated transport, car culture and two paycheck homes were synergistically introduced.

>>14617024
Most people I know cook the majority of their own meals. The only ones I know who don’t are software engineers who make enough that they pay people to have life skills for them.

>>14619848
This is a good post. I can technically cook, as in operate an oven or boil water, but I'm not a GOOD cook. It makes cooking no fun, the food is rarely good or worth my time, and putting in a bunch of practice isn't worth it.

I make too much money and am too stressed at the end of the day to not just pay someone to make me something good.

>>14619848
>recipes online are often the kind that has 10 different things to prep and a bunch of steps
>"prep time 5 min" "super EASY"

this is more or less how i learned to hate online receips, you always have some fools trying to larp as a professional chefs and most of the time the ingredient list is basically
10 ordinary things and then some super rare unicorn horn fairy dust tier bullshit.
Just fuck offfffff

>>14617024
I eat cereal for breakfast and typically leftovers if anything for lunch and make dinner.

>>14625160
The trick to getting past this is to make simple recipes. Like, REALLY fucking simple. Disregard those complicated "so easy" recipes with some thot's life story in them, look for a single ingredient with maybe salt/pepper/butter or olive oil and that's it. When you get comfortable with that you can get fancy and add something like paprika or garlic or something. It might be a little boring but it will still taste good as long as you don't undersalt it etc.

The great thing about this is that the cooking is much easier with a lot less invested prep time, PLUS you learn the basics of how to cook each ingredient PLUS you buy much less useless shit. This also means you waste much less stuff, for example if you have some old broccoli that'll go bad, you can just make basic roasted broccoli instead of trying to cook Aunt Mabel's Whatthefuck that uses broccoli and having to buy some other shit for it

Finally, once you're comfortable with all of that, you can cook the fancy recipes much easier because you already know how to prep the individual ingredients and you have intuition for how they come out. But it's still not necessarily worth it because the simple stuff is so easy and still very tasty when you cook it right.

Think about things like >>14621843 also get a decent cheap rice cooker so you can get a "free" lazy carb side with any meal without having to pay any attention.

OK so you're probably thinking "why should I bother even with this when I can just throw money at the problem", the reason is that by cooking for yourself you can control portions and ingredients, you are basically guaranteed to become at the very least a pudgy fuck on take out even if you have a great metabolism. There are other reasons but restaurant portion sizes are guaranteed to fuck you up eventually

>>14617024
Nah they eat raw food like Fruits and rice

I'm seriously embarrassed by how many fellow Americans get baited by this bullshit.

Im 26 most of friends are give or take 1 or 2 years. Most of the guys cook more then the women and we share recipes with each other. I have coworkers that exclusively eat out or do microwave/heat up contents of can. A bit gross imo but whatever

Is it true that SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU SOUR GRAPES THIRD-WORLDER.

>>14625765
I appreciate all of the advice there, but the fact of the matter is I hate a situation where I have to eat the same shit day after day under the pretense of saving money. The boring part that you mentioned is the issue. I eat about once a day. Having to worry about getting that expiring broccoli into my cooking schedule instead of going out with friends is why everything seems so wasteful.

There's just no guarantee I'm going to cook less and healthier at home than getting food from a place with listed calories. I can trust the business more than my own random recipes and things I have to measure out.

>>14617665
You're nearly there.
It's about hedonism and immediate gratification. I'm not American so can't speak of boomers. But my parents and grandparents would of hardly ever ate in a restaurant. Maybe once a year. They would never have of gone and maybe went on holiday once or twice to another part of the country.
They saved for their mortgage and were having children in their early twenties. They overpaid to finish their mortgages early. And yes life improved for them and they travelled a bit more after they paid the mortgage off.
Zoomers on the other hand get into debt. Debt for meme college courses, debt holidays, debt for a new car every couple of years, debt for the latest iPhone when it comes out. They eat and drink out all the time.
Packed lunch for work? No way. They must go to every third world shithole for those insta virtue signal points. Holidays abroad several times a year.
Then they're voting for communism which promises free housing because by the time they reach 30 they have no savings and a lot of frivolous debt.

>There's just no guarantee I'm going to cook less and healthier at home than getting food from a place with listed calories.
Unless you're going to shitty chain restaurants and picking items from the ''''healthy'''''' section, the food you make is guaranteed to be healthier unless you add a shit ton of butter and sugar, like restaurants do.

>things I have to measure out.

You don't even need to measure things out. Most home-cooked meals are very tolerant of arbitrary ingredient portions.

>>14625876
You sound like a bitter "not like the other boys uwu" loser. Grow up faggot

>>14625887
Hit a nerve there I think

>>14625940
Well yeah, there's nothing more insufferable than insecure children complaining about their peers in order to maintain what little self-esteem they have. Imagine complaining about people taking vacations the section of an anime website dedicated to fast food reviews lmao
Even twitter trannies are somehow less generic and eyeroll-inducing than socially isolated lost boys.

>>14626011
Try to "pwn" me again and see how quickly you get banned, idiot.

>>14625845
Fair enough on most points but

>There's just no guarantee I'm going to cook less and healthier at home than getting food from a place with listed calories. I can trust the business more than my own random recipes
Holy kek that's retarded anon and come on, get real, you know it is.
Restaurants are very good at being restaurants, it's a VERY competitive business with thin margins. However, surviving as a restaurant is about making food that people will order, NOT making food healthy in any way. They might have some ""healthy"" gimmicks like vegan or gluten-free or whatever but actual healthy food is not marketable and doesn't bring the customers back.

Portion sizes are also a big deal since they have to make the food seem "worth it" to people stacking up UberEats delivery fees and tips, plus it's much better to leave a customer too full than wanting more. So portion sizes are really too big, and it's hard to save food for later unlike with home cooking (where you could for example add noodles at the end and save the rest) so you will end up eating too much.
I'm not even saying you need to try to cook "healthy" food, fuck no. Load up with salt and butterall you want, it'll be tastier. No way will you match restaurant levels even so, you would be too disgusted.

Do what you want but monitor your weight and when you see it starts climbing you'll know what you have to do. You might actually get away with it for a while desu if you stick to one meal a day only.

>>14626023
ahahahahahahahaha
oh no, a ban on 4chan! whatever would I do????
jfyi you don't need to put terms that weren't directly referenced in quotes; hopefully you will learn about when they are appropriate in next semester's English class

>>14626087
cringe

>>14626787
Try to "pwn" me again and see how quickly you get banned, idiot.

>>14617024
I don't know how to do fancy shit I started college in january and i tend to not mix things together at all like some fancy pasta shit where you mix it with a bunch of stuff. I pan fry meat, make pasta/rice, have frozen veggies for most meals.

>>14622312

>>14622305
>My parents are chefs who have worked in Michelin star restaurants. We all still enjoy fast food
Not him, but what a retarded thing to say. The point is that if people learn basic cooking skills, they will probably opt to cook things more often. Some might not, some might only do it occasionally, and some might do it quite frequently. Eating fast food or takeout occasionally is not the same as multiple times per week, and therefore blowing tons of money on it. Imagine arguing that teaching people to cook at a young age is a bad thing.

>>14621475
lol why are you larping anon
its sad and pathetic

>>14623564
>Like most problems , working women caused it
hahahaha

>>14623533
>mid-century American

Not everyone was raised in America you dimwit.

>>14617024
Is it true that the basic Euro diet is just Muslim and somalian dick

I just want to grill for God's sake.

>>14622290
Exercise and food prep are two sides of the same coin brother. Teaching these things in schools would create a society of Chads.

>>14628473
This thread is about America retard

>>14623533
My god, a cold cut tray. The horror.

As an american me and my fiance eat out once a week with friends and maybe take out biweekly if were both feeling it. We have friends that may cook once a week though

>>14626083
My weight is just fine, and I'm 34 and have been eating out/ordering in for most of my adult life, at least after 25 where I started making decent money.

>>14619848
I have high end busy kitchen PTSD so I can cook/clean pretty quickly but imo most of the time it's just not worth cooking unless it's a simple thing or you are cooking for multiple people or family. Especially if you live in the city with higher grocery prices. You can usually find somewhere that will fill you up for 20 bucks and maybe get a second meal out of it.

Everyone in my family is horrible at cooking except my Chinese grandmother, It's just the way things are

>>14617024
I know how to cook, I'm just too lazy half the time.

>>14617024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_lCmBvYMRs