Anyone Can Be A Good Cook
By Janet Peterson
A person who sampled a dish I had prepared remarked, “You’re such a good cook!” I was pleased this friend liked the food and was complimented by this comment. What I wanted to respond, but didn’t, was “Anyone can be a good cook.”
Cooking is not a talent sprinkled among the population like singing well or the ability to draw. Even then, artistic skills have to be developed and trained. A friend of ours, who is often the featured soloist for the Tabernacle Choir, was blessed with tremendous vocal talent and a keen ear for music. Nevertheless, she has spent years studying voice and practicing innumerable hours.
Cooking, however, is a skill that can be learned by anyone who can read. Cooking is not that hard, especially when cooking in today’s fantastic kitchens with their myriad appliances, tools, gadgetry, and spaciousness as well as the amazing array of foods available at any supermarket.
What cooking well does require is a willingness to do it, a little time, an adventurous attitude, and some attention to detail – and the ability to read.
When people pronounce that they don’t or can’t cook, you want to look at them and say, “Are you illiterate?”
Cooking is a skill that has to be learned. I wasn’t born a good cook – or any kind of cook, for that matter. In fact, I was a late bloomer on the cooking scene. When I was growing up, I hardly ever cooked in our home. When I took a 9th grade foods class, the teacher required us to try out on our families what we had made in class. I believe as a Beehive and a Mia Maid I ventured into the kitchen with recipes we had made at YWMIA activities. I particularly remember Sister Sutton’s “Hello Dolly” bars – layered graham cracker crumbs, chocolate chips, coconut, nuts, and sweetened condensed milk.
My mother worked full-time, and our meals were simple, prepared after she came home. I certainly could have helped a lot more than I did and would have gained cooking skills while doing so. When I went off to college and lived in a dorm apartment with five other girls, I was really nervous about preparing something edible for my roommates. One of my roommates commented after several months of eating my offerings that I could follow recipes pretty well but for anything basic and not out of a cookbook, like making gravy or cooking broccoli, I was sorely lacking in ability. Fortunately, my roommates had more cooking experience, and I learned a lot from them. However, neither they nor I knew what to do with the goat and elk that a roommate’s father donated to us. We liked to have guys over and tried hard to make decent Sunday dinners for our friends.
When I got married my senior year at BYU, I had had several years of cooking experimentation and had become quite interested in cooking and collecting recipes. And, of course, I wanted to impress my wonderful husband. As students we had a small food budget and because I was going to school full-time and working part-time, our dinners were often one of the 101 things to do with hamburger. Rarely complaining, my husband ate what I cooked – I’m sure partly because he was very hungry after a full day at school and a physically demanding part-time job and partly because he wanted to be very nice to his new bride.
We’ve now been married 38 years and I’ve become a “good cook.” Cooking for six children, five of them sons, gave me lots of practice (which developing any skill requires). Our family jokes that my cooking must have improved over the years because our oldest son is only 5′ 11″ tall and our youngest son grew to be 6′ 5″ tall. He must have been fed a lot better!
My children didn’t always like what I fixed for dinner (and sometimes I didn’t either). They were not shy about saying “Oh, yuck,” or “Why can’t we order pizza tonight?” We usually went out one night a week or ordered pizza or got hamburgers. Taking eight of us out nightly would have broken the bank, and I’m glad now that we ate most of our meals together at home. Not only did it cause me to develop my cooking skills. More importantly, we spent that time together as a family.
Maybe because I graduated in English and love to read, I love to read recipes. I’ll sometimes curl up at night with a cookbook and read it as if it were a novel. I still am a “recipe cook,” in that what is served at our dinner table was created by reading someone’s recipe. My friend, Pat, on the other hand, is an “instinctive cook.” She creates her own recipes by using certain herbs, adding this or that to her dishes, and her creations are delicious.
I’ve expended effort over the years in improving my cooking abilities and in being willing to experiment – which anyone else can do as well. And I still have much to learn about cooking.
One of the best resources for recipes I tapped over the years was Relief Society. Recipes from homemaking (now enrichment) meetings are some of our all-time favorites. I have a small collection of cherished and well-used Relief Society cookbooks from my own ward as well as other wards.
Other recipe and cooking skill resources include:
Classes
Community education classes are usually inexpensive and offer a variety of cuisines. Many cooking supply stores offer classes featuring expert chefs who teach the latest in food fads and tools as well as sophisticated cooking methods.
Friends and Family
Probably the majority of favorite recipes come from friends and family members. Asking, “Could I have that recipe?” after having eaten a wonderful dish is a compliment to the cook and a good way to add to your recipe collection. Often a sister or friend will hand you or e-mail you a recipe, saying, “You’ve got to try this.”
Magazines and Newspapers
Women’s, cooking, travel, even decorating magazines publish lots of new recipes each month. Most newspapers have a weekly feature on food, chefs, cookbooks, and recipes. Since newsprint deteriorates quickly, copy the recipes you try and like or print them from the paper’s website. Many of the magazine websites offer more recipes than can be printed in a monthly issue.
Collecting cookbooks
Cookbooks abound! Any bookstore will have a large selection of cookbooks. Buying a few general cookbooks that provide tips and cooking instructions as well as recipes is helpful. There are cookbooks for every kind of cuisine imaginable. Spend some time browsing through ethnic or speciality cookbooks. Be daring! Try some new foods.
Television
Cooking shows are popular. You can learn a lot of technique by watching the experts and be introduced to a wide array of dishes. Many local news shows also offer a cooking segment as well. Nearly all television features have websites to obtain their recipes.
Internet
Internet sites provide so many cooking helps from finding recipes, to making shopping lists, to adjusting size of recipes, to giving glossaries of cooking terms, to having Q&A sections, and chat rooms. Internet cooking sites offer user-friendly helps, such as searching for recipes by ingredient or ethnic cuisine. Several summers ago I was responsible for planning the menu for our ward’s Caribbean party. After typing in Caribbean, my search yielded an array of enticing and unusual recipes. Most recipe sites offer glossaries, cooking helps, and shopping lists.
Yes, anyone can be a good cook at any age or any stage in life.
