"I can't cook." One reason why some may think so.

I often wonder about people who say they "can't cook."   My wondering usually goes like this:  Can't pretty much anyone, if he is unhampered by serious learning disability, follow a recipe? 

I mean, I understand that there's a gift to recipe creation.  Let me give you an example:  Suppose a person opens the fridge and the cabinets and surveys the interior of each.  She thinks:  hmmm.  I have arugula.  And a pomegranate.  And some anchovies.  And some pecans.  And various bottles of oils and such.   And some Parmesan cheese.   Many perfectly intelligent people, confronted with this particular melange, would not have the slightest idea how to make dinner in this situation.  But another sort of person would immediately think, "Aha!  I can make a salad out of all this!"  This would not make the second person any better, just different, from the first person.  (A better person would know to leave out the Parmesan and anchovies.)

Leaving that aside, though, why do so many people say they can't cook?  How hard can it be to read a recipe, buy the ingredients, take them home, and... follow the directions?

Mark has suggested that the problem is selecting the right recipes to cook --- recipes that are consummate with the cook's experience level, available time, and equipment.  That is part of it, I think.  But it occurred to me today as I prepared to cook dinner that maybe the problem isn't following a recipe.  Perhaps the problem is following multiple recipes all at the same time. 

I have been cooking for years.  Tonight I am making a new recipe for hunter-style chicken (chasseur, a French relative of cacciatore)  that appeared in the Nov/Dec 2005 issue of Cook's Illustrated.  (Link does not go to recipe, sorry.)  I'm also serving noodles; roasted green beans; and salad.

So anyway, when I started thinking about dinner this afternoon I picked up the chasseur recipe and thought something like this: 

How long to cook the whole thing?  5 minutes sauteing the chicken breasts on one side, 5 minutes on the other, then the mushrooms and onions in the same pan for 8 minutes (let's say 10).   Add wine and deglaze, that's about 3 minutes (let's say 5) and then the whole thing simmers for 25 minutes.  Chicken roasts at the same time for only 15 minutes.  So that takes 25+5+10+5+5 = 50 minutes.  About an hour.  So I want to get that chicken in the pan about 6:00 for a 7:00 dinner. 

I can wash the greens and make some kind of  salad [n.b. No pomegranates in this one] while the sauce is simmering --- no need to worry about that.  And the noodles just cook on the stove top.  That's no problem, because the chicken will only take one burner.

Now, what about the beans?  Can they roast in the oven alongside the chicken?  [Check recipe] The chicken goes in at 400 degrees [n.b. Fahrenheit], but the beans really need 450 degrees.  I could do the beans for longer, but would they brown enough?  Better do them first.  I can reheat them at dinner time.  They take 20 minutes.  The chicken needs 10 minutes in the pan, and I'll need some time to prep too.  So I'll heat the oven to 450 and roast the beans while I do the prep and start the chicken in the pan.  When the beans are done I'll turn the oven down to 400 and start the chicken roasting.  

Now, none of this is fundamentally difficult to understand.  I'd like to think that anyone could figure this out given detailed-enough recipes, plenty of pencils and paper, and a whole afternoon to plan it.  But who would want to?    I sure didn't do it that way.  I have a lot of experience.  It took me less than five minutes to decide, just from looking at two recipes, exactly what steps to take and in what order.  And that doesn't even include the many unconscious decisions that went into things like choosing the right side dishes; deciding that  400 degrees might not work for the beans; substitute sherry for the brandy I don't keep around; not trying to flambe the sherry; testing the pasta for doneness... you name it.

It's so easy to forget, once we've gained a skill, how much learning lies behind it.

Comments

[MrsDrP]

I've always wondered this myself. My husband is one of those amazing people who looks at some disparate items and pulls out a 3-course dinner. I need a recipe. I think most people get stuck on the "what to make." The other alternative is that people don't understand the terminology of recipes and underestimate the time and space involved. I've noticed most cooking disaster stories involve not having the ingredients/equipment/time needed and trying to make do with inappropriate substitutes.