The other day my mother phoned me to ask me if she could use quinoa flakes to make a dish that clearly required just the plain old quinoa grain. I was thrilled, it was a personal victory. My mother is a brilliant cook. She can outcook any member of my family by a kilogram of potatoes. Except me.
When she fumbled about the quinoa I knew I had her. My mum can roast the flavor into any meal, she can turn out the perfect scone and her pasta is sublime. But she kind of got stuck when she realised how good she was. It wasn’t like her skills deteriorated or that she could no longer whip up her famous culinary delights it was just that she never ventured away from them. Quinoa was never something she cooked with so it never made its way into her repertoire.
When my mother makes a salad it’s tasty and delicious but it generally doesn’t venture far from lettuce, carrots, tomato and cucumber. And even with the most spectacular dressing it is still lettuce, carrots, tomato and cucumber. When I make a salad I also use lettuce but I add nuts or roast vegetables, or both. I put in seeds and quinoa, I even make a salad that has caramel popcorn in it. It’s amazing.
And that’s just a basic salad. I don’t think my mother would ever rustle up sushi, teriyaki chicken or a blackened salmon for dinner. She certainly never kept truffle oil in her cupboard or memorized the recipe for Turkish Delight ice cream. These are all foods that I cook on a regular basis (especially the Turkish Delight ice cream).
A British study recently carried out across two generations shows that modern mothers know 25 per cent more recipes than their counterparts in the 1970s and 1980s and they are far more adept at making exotic foreign meals.
The Telegraph in the UK reports:
On average they know 21 recipes off by heart and, although they favour British cuisine, they are happy to try more difficult international dishes.
Women aged 20 to 35 serve up meals such as Mexican fajitas, Chinese vegetable stir-fry and curries to their families regularly, it emerged.
Thirty or so years ago their mothers’ staple dishes included meat and two veg, pork or lamb chops and shepherd’s pie.
The study of 1,000 mothers found that those in the 1970s and 1980s had a repertoire of 17 dishes which they knew well and cooked on a regular basis for their children. Jacket potatoes, fish fingers and chips and chicken casserole were particular favourites.
While today’s mothers cook many of the meals they enjoyed as children, they have a more varied menu, which includes home-made pasta dishes and home-made pizzas.
The survey found that 57 per cent of mothers aged 50 and over admit their daughters cook a wider range of dishes for the family now than they ever did.
Would these results translate in Australia?
A recent article in the SMH reported that 51 per cent of people say they rotate between a repertoire of five meals or fewer and 25 per cent have just three recipes up their sleeves.
I am not convinced. Is this because it is so hard to decide what to cook rather than doing the actual cooking? Do we cook a wider repertoire than our mothers did by relying heavily on recipe books and cooking shows? I do. But I’m still a better cook than my mother (although I hope she doesn’t read this because she won’t agree.)
Are you a more adventurous cook than your mother was ? How many recipes in your repertoire ?
Comments
96 Comments so far
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I’m a better cook than my Mum, because she doesn’t like cooking or baking, never has. She did it because she had to. Our meals as kids were things like pie and chips, sausages/mashed potato/boiled vegetables, shepherd’s pie, fish fingers etc. I probably made life very hard for her as I was a picky child, couldn’t stand soft textured food. I’d hide the boiled vegies in my pockets, gag on the mashed potato, etc.
At uni I discovered the existence of stir fries, and was overjoyed. Crunchy vegies! I went home and cooked it for my parents, and they liked it too. This is the only new recipe my Mum learnt and cooks.
When I go home for visits I try and cook them a new recipe, but they’re never interested in learning anything else. Mum and Dad are content eating the same things. Depending on which day of the week it is, I can predict what they’ll be having for dinner, lol.
Of course my kids are picky too, and my Mum finds a lot of delight in this.
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I’d say my mother and I are pretty even, while she can feed a family and has her list of staples that hardly ever fail, I’m certainly more adventurous, but can still end up in the trash.
http://boughtbybirdette.blogspot.com
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My mother hardly ever cooks since my dad retires, as he does all the shopping and cooking now. When I was growing up they split it pretty evenly. When I was young they were pretty bad – my dad had just been diagnosed with diabetes and they cooked with NO sugar and NO fat for years ( not that you’d guess from looking at me now). But then again, it was a pretty impressive learning curve to totally change the way they prepared food.
Now? I’m not bad, and I’m very adventurous, but I don’t think I’m better than my parents. I learned from them and have a similar style. I also just love eating and enjoy most things I put in my mouth so I’m not much of a critic! Better at Asian style meals than them but I think that’s just generational.
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My mother is definitely a better cook than I am – she’s had more practice
I can cook well enough for my own purposes – I’m single and live alone, so I don’t need to cook up a storm every night. It’s more of a once-a-week thing for me. Her spaghetti bolognese is one of my favourite meals, but I’ve never tried to cook it for myself – I’m more than content to boil up some pasta and tip some pasta sauce from a jar on top. We both cook goulash pretty well, but I vary my recipe just a little – instead of onions I chuck in sliced potatoes and carrots along with a couple of cups of frozen peas and corn kernels, and I eat it with pasta rather than rice. It’s delish and I quite happily eat the leftovers for dinner over the next two evenings – plus it saves me cooking three nights in a row 
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I’d say Mum and I are on par in the cooking department but I’ve got a bit more of an adventurous spirit. My Mum does the country basics beautifully and I don’t want her to change because she’s great at it. More than anything though, I’m lucky enough to have a husband who is the truly adventurous and willing to attempt the most complicated of recipes. Whereas my Dad can do a BBQ, likes to “advise” on roast potatoes and that’s about it. I’m also inclined to think he hasn’t touched a washing up brush in 25 years. But that’s whole other story
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My sister is the most adventurous cook in the family and she pulls it off every time. But my mum still makes the best chocolate cake!
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I am def more adventurous than my mother or grandmother, but they are still great cook in their won rights. We have a family recipe for relish that we all can make, but nan is the only one who still wins an award for it!
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Nope my mother kicks my arse in the kitchen. I love doing fiddley little things but my kitchen is so smal and i’m always cooking for one that when i do make something more amazing more often it’s in her kitchen with her help. She also kicks my behind in the knitting stakes but FAAAAAAAAARRRR!! However i run her into the ground when it comes to sewing/tailoring i win i win i win!!! and i dance about to prove it sometimes. (oh yeah and i dance better than her too) Love you mum (if you read this todayxxxxxx)
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My mother is by far the better cook of Asian cuisine (makes sense, we’re Asian). I can’t cook intricate Asian dishes to save my life – I can make basic dumplings, noodles and stirfries. But being able to do a traditional steamed fish with ginger soy and shallots? Or my mum’s eggplant, mince and chilli vinegar dish? Or her fish head noodles? Or her chive pancakes? Or prawn hotpot with vermicelli noodles? No chance.
On the flipside, I’m much better at baking sweet dishes than she is. I’m also better at improvising with basic ingredients at short notice – especially using basic root veggies like potatoes in different ways, which my mother can’t do. I’m better at not using a lot of ingredients – for each dish my mother cooks, she might use three different sauce combinations, and five ingredients – I can make a perfectly serviceable meal with three ingredients and one sauce.
I can do pastas, roasts and things like that better as well.
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My mum is an amazing cook! I think she just keeps getting better! She is a really adventurous eater too – always willing to try international dishes, and she and my dad grow their own vegetables and raise their own sheep for meat and ducks for eggs. I bought her a subscription to Feast Magazine for Christmas and she was so very happy for it – she loves learning about different foods, trying out new recipes and immersing herself into other cultures.
When she met my dad she couldn’t cook – she told me she made a pie for him with filo pastry and put chicken in it, bones and all! Over the years, home with me as a child, she taught herself to cook. And now she has approx 4582 cookbooks (not really, but she has a few hundred!). She works three days a week now, so she is always cooking when she is not at work.
I think I am a great cook too, but I don’t have as much time to cook as mum, and I don’t think I am as adventurous as her – maybe if I made more time I would. I love eating as much as her, and I feel really lucky to have been raised by parents who appreciate food.
Over the Christmas break I cooked my parents a Mexican feast – tomato and green chilli salsa, mango salsa, guacamole and prawn tacos, and they were impressed. They don’t experience my cooking as much seeing we live in different states.
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My mum is an amazing cook who just gets better and better. She taught me and I cook well but the plethora of food snobs out there (and on here, holy crap!) means that I dread the thought of cooking for others. Thanks Masterchef et al, you’ve killed it for me! ; )
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If you can do something simple well, that is far more impressive than being able to cook truffled calves livers in a caperberry sauce with celeriac mash, kale and kohlrabi and a quinoa salad.
Having cooked for the masses, it’s the classics that are done well that impress the most.
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My mum took Chinese cooking lessons in the 70s and due to the influence of our Italian neighbours used to cook spaghetti/lasagne. We kids loved it. In my 20s I made a purposeful effort to cook more “exotic” food, Moroccan, Japanese, Thai, Cajun, Vietnamese, etc. I don’t usually go to a huge effort regularly, I think most of us end up regularly having a certain number of favorites that are quick n easy. It’s more for special occasions/when I have the time.
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Mum is an awesome cook – she’s far more instinctive than I am. I have got a LOT better over the years, but I know I used to drive her bananas cooking things and trying to make sure I had exactly what the recipe said. I rarely follow recipes now, but that is because I have learnt what goes together and how to do things. Cooking as a job in the navy obviously helped with that too!
But I still can’t make a cake or scones or pancakes or chocolate slice from memory, which Mum can no worries. For sweets I really need to follow recipes as I don’t really eat desserts or cakes much, so I’ve never had a burning desire to learn how to make any of them. Curries are my forte.
Mum and I lived with Nan and Pop for a while, and we thought their food was dull, but Mum reckons Nan was an awesome cook when they were kids. She just kind of lost interest when she got older.
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I think every generation thinks they are better. I’m sure mum thought her stuffed zucchinis were hot stuff in the 70s
. Mum had 4 kids & she got a bit over experimentation. Although since her ‘burn became more multicultural there has been some recipe swapping going on….usually baking rather than cooking
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For a long long time it was Mum. She always led the way trying new recipes and successfully entertaining large numbers of guests. However over the last couple of years the dishes have turned to my direction..
I think I’m a more instinctive cook, whereas Mum is a to-the-letter recipe follower. And I love her for it! She gets the ground work down and I build/modify/modernise. It’s a winning partnership (if only we didn’t live on opposites sides of the world!!)
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I think I am better cook than my step-mum. She was a notorious over-salter and was very reluctant to try new things or even variations. But then again I think maybe she just didn’t have the time for that(4kids). I like (to try at least) all sort of different cuisines, the only thing is I take to way to exact with the measurements, so it takes too much time for things to prepare. I should be more adventures!
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I can’t cook a lot of fancy stuff. I do cook every night almost without exception, making low salt casseroles from scratch that my husband takes to work the next day (or stir fry, or pasta, or curry, or similar). I also feed our family of 5 for less than $140/week including non-food items like toilet paper and cleaning products. So I suspect I cook in the same style as my grandmother!
I have no idea if I am a better cook than my mother or stepmother – it’s been ten years since either of them has cooked a meal for me, preferring to order in when we visit.
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Oh dear. My poor parents tried, but neither of them could cook. At all. Each night was tinned vegies (usually pea/carrot mix), fried potato and fried chops (or sausages, frankfurters etc). Ugh!! Occasionally we would have takeaway, which was great, but my 2 favourite dishes were corned beef and warm boiled egg sandwiches.
Those 2 things were all I could make when I left home! I’ve taught myself to rustle up a decent meal now, but I have many recipes that I’ve gradually collected to help me on the way. I don’t bake much, and frankly, I’m mystified by pastry … but other than that I think I do OK
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My mum, grandma’s and most of the people I know who are of those generations don’t have very mature palates. So white bread, never rye or sourdough. Desserts are sickly sweet, they don’t like any contrast with a little bitterness or sourness eg. salted caramel or burnt fig icecream. Sandwiches are basic, no roasted vegies, goats or feta cheese or any lettuces other than iceberg. They don’t like varying textures in the one meal. Salads are lettuce, tomato and cucumber, maybe carrot if you want to get a little wild. They might be able to handle curry powder, but not an actual curry sauce. Bland tomato sauce instead of rich, complex flavours etc.
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I think that you are generalising a little too much. Many women of my generation, 60′s, almost 70′s are by dint of their travels and the years spent living overseas, Asia or Europe are actually adventurous cooks, and able to refine and build their repetoire to embrace current fashions in culinary excellence. Cooking is more than following a recipe, it is also the ability to improvise with what’s in the frig. or pantry, and to bring home ideas from their own eating out experiences. there will always be people, men or women who have no interest in broadening their culinary abilities, and people who are too lazy to even try. Food is the staff of life.
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I hate to be picky but Anon wasn’t generalising, she (he?) was saying their mum, grandma and most of the people they know.
Peace.
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My Mum hates cooking so much that these day she has frozen meals for dinner. I can think of nothing worse! When we were kids it was meat and three veg, apricot chicken, spag bol or roast. Every night of my childhood!! I am the complete opposite and love trying new recipes. As a result my kids love all kinds of foods. Mum is amazed that they eat so many different veggies etc
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I think Lana needs to write more cooking articles! I was wondering about a variation on the caramel popcorn salad- keep the mango and the avo but add baby spinach? Any thoughts?
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Mum’s good, but I’m better
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I think I just drooled reading this article. Mum beats hands down but I am learning
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Mum. No doubt at all. But then, I ‘m a ’3/4 of the ingredients is good enough’ cook – and sometimes, it actually is, much to my surprise.
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With cooking I find that less or more of an ingredient doesn’t change it too much (except maybe ginger and garlic etc) but with baking it needs to be very close to the mark otherwise it won’t turn out. Took me a long time to figure that one out.
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That’s exactly why my mother hates baking – she’s a “metric dollop” sort of cook.
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Especially pavlova! Found that out the hard way at a friend’s beach house – no measuring spoons to be had, and my first attempt looked like a cross between a pancake and a meringue. Tasted alright, though. Whipped cream covers a multitude of sins…
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I’m not sure about better, mum is probably more adventurous. I prefer to follow recipes and love pretty basic food. My mum hates cooking, always has. So now that its just her and dad at home they eat out almost every night at a variety of restaurants. She sees it as her reward for having to cook all those years
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Oh gosh yes! My mother doesn’t cook. At all. She can bake reasonably well (cupcakes and the like) but has possibly never cooked a savoury meal in her life. Dad is an alright cook, but only cooks sometimes. I grew up on a lot of Japanese, Thai, Indian etc (edit – takeaways!) and dad’s easy veggie bolognaise which I hated.
As soon as I moved out of home, aged 20, I taught myself to cook and I LOVE it, it is my complete passion, I bake most days and cook all sorts of things, I blog about food, I teach friends to cook etc! Very different from my parents.
I learned to cook by… Reading Nigella Lawson’s ‘How To Eat’ cover to cover. Twice in a row! Then I just started cooking – pastry, roasts, puddings, custards, then I started collecting Asian cookbooks, vegetarian cookbooks…
Now I have over 100 recipes in the repertoire (many more I think), everything from Age Dashi Tofu to braised lamb shoulder with capers to curries to teriyaki salmon etc. Plus I make ice cream, bake cookies, 4-layer cakes, steamed christmas puddings etc. My parents just shake their heads and laugh – no one in EITHER of their families can cook! So I seem to have thrown a strange recessive gene!!
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I am in love… With Nigella ATM. Shouldn’t say it but people are so freakin lazy. My boss was half snarky and asked if I enjoyed my salad for lunch! Yes I did and he proceeded to singe about the time to make one…. Seriously five minutes. Needless to say he is grossly overweight, had stomach surgery to cut dowahead he eats but still eats out twice a day but wonders why he cannot lose wEight
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Good for you, Smiley. My mum worked full time & didn’t enjoy cooking, so meals were very simple until I hit my teens & from then it was full on fun in the kitchen as I took over a lot of the meal preparation.
When I first got married I tried hard to cook a different meal EVERY night & did well for about the first 6 months without repetition, learning a lot along the way. I now have numerous cookbooks, hundreds of food mags & friends on the other end of the phone when all else fails.
I absolutely love trying new recipes & foods, & regularly take cooking classes to expand on my skillset – always learning.
One thing I’m missing about being a Travelling Mum is my beautiful kitchen & pantry. I plan to go crazy when I return home armed with all my new knowledge & inspiration re different cuisines!!!
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Lana, please share the recipe for turkish delight ice cream!
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Lana please, I’m begging you, for the love of all females with emotional turmoil, please tell us the Turkish Delight Ice cream recipe!!!!!!!!
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I am the better cook.
I too, grew up on soggy overcooked vegetables, overcooked meat etc. Mum would make this awful pasta sauce, it was a jar of black & gold tomato paste, beef, onion, mixed herbs. That was pretty much it. It was awful espec since my Nonna makes the best pasta ever. Oh and she made the spag weekly. We were so limited in our meals, I didn’t learn about the following until I was a teenager:
- Pancakes are a breakfast food, not a dinner food! we never ate them for brekkie, only for dinner.
- Omelettes have various ingredients. The only ones I ever had were with chips. Freshly cooked from scratch chips, 2 eggs, make into an omelette, add a slice of cheese and salt.
- Pizza can have lots of toppings. Mum only ever got supreme & ham & pineapple (i hate pineapple so would pick it off). Until I was about 8 I only ate the crust cus I hated the supreme toppings!
- I didn’t eat chinese food until I was 16.
- I didn’t know what pork crackling was until I went to a bf’s house for dinner. I had to ask how to eat it. Dad doesn’t like pork so we never ate it growing up. Ever.
These days I’m always trying new recipes and impressing the family with exotic dishes such as… Bruschetta. Hahaha
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We always had pancakes for dinner because my mother hated cooking breakfast. I had Canadian Pancakes as my birthday dinner for a few years!
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We had pancakes for dinner all the time! I make them now sometimes. Simple, healthy meal (as long as you don’t have syrup or nutella of course).
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I stayed with Mum over Christmas and on my first night there, she cooked lamb chops, mushroom sauce and mash and it was bloody awesome.
To my surprise, she spent the entire time she was cooking apologising to me for the plain food and it took quite a bit to reassure her that just because I cooked different things, it didn’t take away from the pleasure of sharing a meal with her.
Mum has always cooked ‘plain food’, in part because Dad didn’t like pasta or noodles (she didn’t like curries or chilli), but in no way is she a bad cook. She is a product of her times. She was never afraid of having people over for a meal, or sharing a barbecue or throwing a great party. She knows the value of sitting down with people and sharing food together and for that I owe her a great deal.
I thought it sad that she should suddenly feel the need to qualify herself. She’s Mum. Her food rocks.
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Yes, products of their times, that’s what I was trying to say but couldn’t put it that eloquently.
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I would have to say I am a better cook than my Mum – but only because I like cooking! My Mum is a great cook, still finds new recipes – even living on her own at 70 – but will tell you she hates cooking. My husband is a great cook and throughout 2 pregnancies, he took over the cooing because I couldn’t stand to be in the kitchen.
My Dad never cooked – save for a great sandwich at the weekend (best eggs & mayo) or BBQ – which reminds me that we need to cook scallops & bacon when we’re next back.
My Mum worked but cooked every night – and I now understand how annoying it was that my sister and I never had an answer to “what do you want for dinner”? Yes, she had staples but they varied.
She also made our lunches right through school and must have been the only mother poaching chicken breasts so her fussy daughters could have chicken and mayo sandwiches in their lunchboxes. Canteen lunches were a special treat and she once even brought my forgotten lunch into high school (horror of horrors) because she wanted us to eat well.
Working full time in Hanoi where I don’t have ready access to the supermarket or wet market after work means that someone else cooks for me – or at least does the preparation. I started Michelle Bridges 12 week body transformation in August and my housekeeper has learnt a whole lot of new dishes – and adapted some local specialities to be even healthier.
That said, I am obsessed by cooking mags, shows and emails/blogs – but would like another few days in the week to have time to cook. I did manage to make the Christmas fruit cake I have been making since 1990 even during our move across Hanoi and I am having a ball making birthday cakes for 2 little boys.
And thanks to this, I am now dreaming up a whole lot of great things to cook this weekend – really need to make the most of living here to practice some great Vietnamese dishes. Thanks for the inspiration.
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Lana, I’m dying to know what the recipe for the caramel popcorn salad is?? Please share
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I’ve left it in comments down below. Scroll – its worth it
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Found it. Thanks Lana! I’m going to try it on the weekend I’ve decided
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Mum is better, much better. Her and my dad owned and cooked in a restaurant in the 80′s, early 90′s. It was fairly exotic food for the small country town we lived in. Meat and three veg was NEVER just meat and three veg in our house and I was eating oysters kilpatrick when I was just two! So while I am a very good cook and can create my own cuinary masterpieces, Mum is, and always will be, better. Thats fine by me, I much prefer being cooked for anyway
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Haha, now I have read some comments below I have to laugh at some things people have written about salads. I ate very exotic salads as a kid and even in the 80′s I only ever saw iceberg lettuce at friends houses so now I love it. I love that it is all packaged in itself so conveniently. I love I can give it to the kids to rip apart to make a salad and keep them entertained while I chop everything else. And I love that it is so fresh and crispy. Sure it is very ordinary, but as someone who grew up eating everything that was the opposite of ordinary, thats not a bad thing. Apologies though to anyone I have served it too who doesn’t like it
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Oh and to the comments about Ice cream, I hated store bought chocolate ice cream until they started bringing out the gourmet kind of ones about 10 – 15 years ago because my mum’s homemade chocolate ice-cream (before ice -creams makers were in the home) was so good that the store bough stuff tasted like cardboard to me! On the other hand I don’t think I will ever have the motivation to make my own ice -cream, even with the help of a machine!
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I guess you’d have to define “better”.
I cook more exotic food and my family have a broader palate. However, Mum used to do amazing things with offal and probably fed the family for waaaaay less than I do.
Mum never had a microwave. She used a pressure cooker.
It’s a different time.
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my mum still uses a pressure cooker! its the only way she has cooked veges since before my bro was born, over 20 years!!!
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I don’t know that I’m a better cook than my mum, but I’m definitely more adventurous. She was a full-time mother and had time to make dishes like lasagne or casserole, things I don’t have time to do.
Some things I do better – I was in my 20s before I learned that cauliflower and broccoli didn’t have to have the sh*t boiled out of it or that curries don’t normally have apples and sultanas in them.
I don’t have as much of a passion for cooking as my sister, and I’d definitely say she is a better cook than Mum.
I had that “oh wow” moment when I taught her a knitting technique (3 nedle cast-off) she’d never heard of before.
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My mum wins by a couple thousand miles. I’m only just learning how to cook properly and I’m starting slow – snitzel, mash potatoes and different pastas. We eat adventurously in our house, lots of Asian cuisine, seafood chilli dishes, curries… Everything. My mums Italian and she is a great cook I only hope I’ll get there eventually!
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I am definitely the better cook. I am in no way a great cook but I do cook a variety of meals and am not afraid to try something new.
My mother didn’t know how to cook when she got married and like others have commented, I grew up on meat and 2 vege and chips cooked in oil (so gross now I think about it). Dad was a fussy eater so no pasta, pizza, asian dishes in our house. I grew up a very picky eater, I eat more of a range of foods now but do not eat most seafood or anything hot or spicy.
Mum is a vegetarian these days and although I have bought her several vegetarian cookbooks I think she mostly eats boring salads (such as those described by others here) and steamed veges.
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My mother (now in her 80′s) could cook basic cakes very well, but her meals were pretty awful — cook it till you’re sure it’s dead and then a little bit longer just to be sure, and never use any seasonings/flavourings. I thought I hated pastry till I grew up and tasted it elsewhere
I, on the other hand, avoid baking (except for the rare batch of muffins) and am constantly expanding my repertoire. I’m a totally self-taught cook (when I got married (1977) I sat down and read Margaret Fulton cover to cover) so i don’t do complicated techniques, but I’m always trying new ingredients and flavour combos. My husband claims that in 35 years of marriage he’s never had the same thing twice — that’s not true, but since it makes him happy, who’s arguing?
I consider myself a capable cook (never made anything inedible) but not in the first rank — I like shortcuts too much
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My mum is long gone but we only ever had meat and three veg (with the meat overcooked) or spaghetti bolognese if she was feeling capricious, so I’m gonna say me.
A fairer comparison would be my nanna, who was a fantastic cook, but had a fairly traditional repertoire. I cook a wider variety of things but I can’t ever quite match her mashed potatoes (although my brother’s mashed potatoes come close).
It’s kind of understandable though, if you think about what the world was like if you learned to cook in the 50s/60s/70s. Fruit and veg were a lot more seasonal, and they relied on frozen and canned stuff a lot more to keep down waste and because you couldn’t just run down to Coles every night after work.
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I come from a long line of fabulous cooks. My Mum and Aunty love all of the cooking shows on TV now and recreate the meals without a problem.
Me however…. well…. not so much. I can make jam drops and cupcakes, so I’m popular with the kids!
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Well, my mother hardly ever eats and resented cooking the entire 17 years I lived at home, so I’m going to say ME.
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I grew up with chops, potato salad, corned beef and roast on special occasions.
(hated the chops, hated, so much so that my own kids didn’t even know what a chop WAS until they ate them at a friends house)
We eat pretty varied at my house, when I’m on holidays and have time I love to experiment (just blogged our beachside whole snapper and summer pudding recipe) eat a lot of asian and a lot of mexican (but prefer real mexican, not tex mex, total snobs thank you very much)
After work though I’m tempted to slip back into pasta style staples, and I feel more for my mum and her limited access to recipe books let alone the internet!
Yve
http://yveblogs.wordpress.com
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Oh, I hate chops so much too!
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I hate chops but LOVE lamb cutlets – I teethed on them, in fact LOL.
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Love chops and their fatty tails tooo much! Hence I only buy fhem as a treat.
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I suspect I’m more adventurous. I don’t think Asian cooking features at all in my parents household, whereas a stir-fry is a staple in ours. Although maybe it’s more about being comfortable with different things as we rarely cook potatoes (in any form) and don’t bbq.
Do people seriously live on a rotation of 3 recipes? Or did they quiz people on the spot? I know my memory doesn’t go very far back, so it would probably blank if pressured. But we’ve eaten 3 different dishes in the last 3 days!
P.S. My dad is a cracking cook and does most of the dinners now. Mum’s specialty is baking, although she did all the dinners when we were growing up.
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Lana, could you please share some of your recipes? They sound yum!
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Yes, I am always looking for more tasty vegetarian recipes!
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My mum is Asian and doesn’t believe any meal without rice is a proper meal. The fact that I eat a sandwich as a full meal means I’m more adventurous than her.
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Hmmm I disagree with that sentiment. You’re not exactly saying that your mum doesn’t eat sandwiches, just that she doesn’t eat them as a full meal.
I am an Asian girl and I fully believe that all main meals must have rice (although I make exceptions for pizza, pasta, tacos and burgers) and eat sandwiches as snacks only. Reubens are my favourite sandwiches.
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Obviously I shouldn’t quit my job and become a comedian. I just meant that my mum is so set in her ways that my eating sandwiches as a full meal, dull as that is, is adventurous for her.
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Absolutely I am a better cook. I love to cook and my mother never did. I definately grew up with the meat and 2 veg every night with a roast once a week, every meat was well well well done and veges had most of the colour boiled out of them.
From the time i was old enough too Ide cook my own meals at home (I became a vegetarian so had to anyway)
Having a child our menu has become fairly boring I must say as our daughter is quite fussy and I refuse to cook 2 meals for dinner. Before having my child I had a huge range or recipes I would cook and would always be trying new things. I love baking too although try not to do it too much as its all so fattening and I cannot stop at one anything thats yummy.
I really enjoy changing recipes too substitute items high in calories for items with lower calories.
Cant get enough of the cooking channels either.
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I hated all veggies when I was growing up. When I left home and found out that you didn’t need to start cooking them at the same time as putting the roast in the oven, it was a revelation! But no-one, hear me, no-one, bakes or makes better ‘puddings’ (it was only called dessert for visitors!). And we had pudding every night! I can hear all six of us kids driving Mum mad asking “what’s for pudding?” like it was yesterday. I used to sit at that table for hours eating cold defies for hours before I could have pudding. My favorite – sago with runny cream!
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*cold veggies*
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i can cook a roast, scrambled eggs, and chicken schnitzel… that is about it. My mama is brilliant, but not as good as my nana.
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I got my love of cooking from my Mum. She was very adventurous and would try anything she cam across. While I wrote down a lot of her recipes while I was learning to cook unfortunately I didn’t get them all before she died. I wish I had her lamb’s fry and bacon recipe, the best, amongst others. Who is the best? Well that depends on what were cooking.
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I love my mum’s cooking (especially her lasagne) but I think I’m a better and more adventurous cook than she is.
My dad always says how bad mum is but I disagree – she’ll occasionally try new dishes, but I think dad is bored with her regular recipes and any salad that is just iceberg lettuce, cucumber (plain cucumber, not Lebanese or continental), carrot and sliced regular tomatoes (not even grape tomatoes!), with a dash of a store-bought Italian dressing, is boring in my book.
I once took over an avocado salad with orange vinaigrette (found the recipe on the Taste site) and dad raved about the cucumber – all I’d done was slice up a Lebanese cucumber using a V-slicer.
My husband and I have lots of favourite meals and we have something different for dinner each weeknight – there’s a few recipes that pop up more often than others, depending on how much time we have and what’s in the fridge.
I really enjoy cooking healthy meals, especially in summer, and every time I visit my beautician for a leg wax we spend most of the time swapping ideas and updating each other on the things we’ve tried or the restaurants we’ve been to. She’s about the same age as my mum but cooking is one of her passions and she swears by the Delicious magazine.
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oh good grief, that salad sounds like a salad in my mum’s house too! I loathe salads like that, I actually feel ill if someone puts one in front of me – must be scarred from childhood or something. I also HATE it (Mr W and his family do this), when people make salads and just create them layer upon layer instead of tossing the salad!
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I didn’t realise there was another kind of cucumber other than Lebanese or continental!
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The plain old ‘slicing’ cucumbers are the only variety my mum’s ever bought, so my dad was delighted when he discovered the Lebanese and the continental type!
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I most definitely cook better than my mum. She was a tomboy growing up and her older sister learnt the household duties whilst my mum played with her brothers outside. When she got married, she had to go to TAFE to learn how to do basic household chores and how to cook some basic meals. I started teaching her how to make things when I was in high school.
She doesn’t enjoy cooking, whereas I do, and she has a steady rotation of about 7 or so meals she cooks. She is getting a bit better with recipe books though.
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My mum had to go to TAFE when she got married too. She’s super clean but couldn’t cook to save herself let alone feed dad, despite her mum being a cooking whiz back in the day.
Even with lessons mum knows all the buzz words but hates cooking. Dad is a brilliant cook, he just doesn’t do it often enough. If I visit I have to cook. Admittedly I have a special needs diet because of multiple bowel diseases but I’ve learnt to modify almost anything to suit my special needs. Dad generally has a list of requests for me to cook, and mum has the shopping list at the ready. They always look forward to the new recipes I bring home because they are so bored with meat & 3 veg. My dad is European but he hates foreign food. When I was growing up foreign food was pizza, spag bol and the occasional Chinese take away, now they eat lots of foreign foods they would never have considered in the past because I’ve shown them what to do.