Okay maybe this isnt the best demographics here but like I mean as in if you know someone who’s Gen Z, do they have a “idk how to cook” issue?
(Please don’t be like “omg its easy, how could you not know” in the comments, be nice in the comments okay 🙈)
I am a litteral self taught cook. Cooking all from scratch and can tell you how to exactly cut appart and use every part of a bird
The first few zoomers I think of cook just fine. Although, there’s one that undercooks everything, because she’s impatient. A couple are actual foodies who will put serious effort in.
What exact age group are you thinking of? Teenagers haven’t really had much time to learn.
Yes, it’s universal. There isn’t a single millennial or gen Z person that knows how to cook in the entire world. This will finally put an end to our species.
On our tombstone it’ll say “here lies humanity, fallen victim to shitty parents who didn’t think to teach their children how to cook.”
Reject Cooking. Return to eating tree bark.
Return to raw berrys
So cinnamon rolls without the roll.
Disagree on the shitty parents part. For some, yes, but for others they are probably shitty cooks too. If my culinary education is any indication of that, there are ~20 family recipies that I have notes of or have done myself and my folks keep a small box of note cards written by their grandparents in the “we will run into a burning building to get this” box. They are instructions, not study material, and thats how I learned a patchwork of skills, but nothing formal.
I was never taught the science of “how the fuck to make bread” or “what alchemy mayo is”, that is something ive had to actually study myself (thanks anerican schools). I feel the defect is education on why we cook things the way we do, the basic building blocks are not taught by default to a level where people are confident in building something on their own.
I had a friend who was completely incapable of doing pretty much anything for themselves because their parents always insisted on doing everything for them, and berated them when they tried for themselves. They’re now in their 30s and have a breakdown any time they have to do anything, and frequent depressive episodes because they lack agency and self-worth. So there definitely are parents out there who completely fail their kids.
My mother was a terrible parent in the other direction. The expectation was on me to do everything as soon as possible. I was cooking full meals on my own by six, and when we moved countryside I was the firekeeper, in charge of the entire supply line of stacking, chopping, and transporting wood, to cleaning and ensuring the fire was kept in our boiler by eight.
I don’t think parents need to teach about gluten formation, how it traps gases and makes the bread rise, or emulsions. Just foundational knowledge so that they’re able to explore that and take a keener interest should it strike them.
Idk if it’s Gen z. I’m millennial and I didn’t really know how to cook when I was younger. I eventually learned from YouTube and recipe websites.
Anecdotally, one of the best cooks I know is gen Z. In general though, I think this is part of the predictable result of not teaching anything like home ec anymore for decades.
I don’t meal prep because the meals are rarely as good after 5 days lol. I try to cook simple foods for breakfast (oatmeal, or bagel and cream cheese), and make sandwiches to take to work for lunch. Dinner is something like pasta with sausages and a side of veggies (99% of the time for me, that’s garlic and kale fried together in a skillet).
I mean, I’m Gen Z and I’ve pretty confidently cooked my entire adult life. I realized pretty young that dad wasn’t gonna cook for me forever and started helping with dinner sometimes to learn how. One of the best decisions I ever made.
Older millennial here, I have been cooking since I was in my early teens. But I also know people my age that would struggle to boil water. It isn’t an age or generation thing, it is something else.
So like I know how to cook. But I don’t have the energy for it anymore. The world around me has pushed soo many task off to me in order to maximize profit I just have a ton more to do than I did 20 years ago. And the frustration of doing even simple stuff due to corporate cuts saps more energy per hour than anything used to.
I think my secret is to do simple meals in batches. That way you only really cook once or twice a week.
For instance, my favorite meal is a tomato pasta thing, don’t know what it is called.
Dice up as much garlic as you want, fry this in oil, add 4 cans of crushed tomatoes, as much black pepper as you want, bay leaves and then cook until boiling. Remove bay leaves and add to pasta. Boom! your done. Can feed me for a week and for about $5-$6 of ingredients. I also add nutritional yeast for extra pep to it, but you can just do cheese if you roll that way.
Home cooking doesn’t have to be complex but it does take motivation to get started.
I don’t think it’s a generational issue, just young people. Once you get kids you’ll learn to cook.
Maybe there are more singles and child free people or they take longer to settle down or whatever.
I went through the pandemic and came out with a passion for making tasty things. It is probably a result of the combination of my being cheap, hungry for tasty things, and hungry to understand how things are made. But yeah I can cook.
Learning to cook takes time, energy, and willingness to endure repeated failure (or just a sub-par result). In contrast, packaged food requires only money and has the bonus to some of being approximately the same every time. One also needs a kitchen to muck about in, and a lot of my peers haven’t had access to that after moving out and may not have been too involved with cooking before that.
I’m a single, Gen-x male and I despise cooking. Twenty minutes to prepare something, five minutes to eat it, and then another 20 minutes to clean up afterwards is, IMO, the most insanely inefficient use it my time.
Frankly I have better things to do. when a pill comes out that I can just pop in my mouth a couple of times a day I will be the first person in line.
For now, sadly, the best I can do it keep things as simple and as easy as possible prep wise (or order in… which gets to financially prohibitive sometimes)
I really wish cheap public cafeterias were more of a thing. We don’t spin our own clothes, or weave our own baskets anymore…
Huel and similar is as close as you get to your pill now but you can skip cooking entirely
They sell huel black at Costco now. Chocolate flavored vegan soylent 🤤
From my own experience, I had to learn it all by myself, mostly online videos and recipes. I very vividly remember living on my own for a couple of weeks and deciding to cook some fresh food instead of frozen dinners and pizza. I actually called my mom to ask how to cook broccoli cause I had no clue.
You just boil that shit how did I not know? I was never told
I like to think I’m a pretty good cook now. YouTube really is a invaluable source of cooking info
Some microwaveable/airfriable stuff is really nice. A lot of us gen z is living alone for the first time these skills take time to develop. I love cooking myself but please I could NOT do to every day not with depression
Not the depression 😭
No, we personally love cooking tbh and a lot of our other friends can cook really well. Our partner can cook somewhat too but they put their skill points into other things than food :3
I eat dirt and drink rainwater.
When looking at younger people who don’t know how to cook, it’s not about them being stupid - someone failed them. Yes, to your point, cooking is easy. A rice cooker, a single pan, you can make a great meal…
But no one ever mentioned what temp to cook chicken at. What the hell’s a 4 (out of 10) and how much oil (or how little) should I use? Rice cooker comes with instructions and lines but that just makes plan rice - at least Zatarans has some flavor.
I learned how to cook a grilled cheese as a kid… And I hate cheese.
Then I was working in kitchens for seven years. So, yeah, I’ve got a leg up on people who’ve literally never cooked a meal for one, let alone 1,500 over a lunch period. It’s hard to ‘learn’ to cook entirely by yourself because fucking up your meal means not having anything to eat.
It’s not just Gen Z because no one taught their parents and Gen Z will probably fuck up their kids the same.
Cooking doesn’t scale well until you are cooking for at least 2 people or batch prepping.
fucking up your meal means not having anything to eat.
You gotta fuck up pretty bad to have something literally inedible.
And you’ve never seen someone almost burn down a dorm because they didn’t put water in their instant noodles? People royally fuck up all the time.
Oh yh, you have a point tho
