How old were you when you learned to cook?

It reminds me of the old Carl's Jr commercial where there's this man standing with the frightened look on his face in front of a meat display and pokes a raw steak in wrap and then he just staggers away and the commercial ends with "If it wasn't for us most guys would starve"...

I think (after one bad mistake) I was cooking at 11 or so. Just basic breakfast. Lunch was sandwich and soup. Mom was a short order cook from years past, so dinner was always good.
 

I learned standing on a chair in my grandmother’s old kitchen.

I was very fortunate that she had the time and patience to include me in everything instead of just parking me in front of the television.

When I was in 6th grade, around 11 years old, it was my job to get dinner started so my stepfather could eat as soon as he and my Mother got home from work.

I enjoyed cooking for others but I don’t cook much anymore, when I cook I tend to eat too much! 🐷🐷🐷
 
I think I was 4 or 5 when I was making French toast/ it seems like I was kneeling up on a chair with my father or mother next to me. I remember using the egg beater the old fashioned kind where you turn the crank and the mixers mix up the eggs with the milk.

I don't remember if I turned them over in the pan by myself but I remember cooking them.
 
@RadishRose ... I still have one of those from my grandmother's kitchen ...
Might be about 75yrs old or so now :oops:

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Mom worked all day at the logging camp. Before I started school, and during Summer I was on my own for meals. Sometimes I could cage a meal from the camp cook but when he was in a bad mood (which was often) and chased me out of the cookhouse I mustered up whatever I could find.......often just toast.

I must have been around six when I got brave enough to use the stove. I remember one of my first ventures in cookery was frying a whole pound of bacon (I was a hungry kid) at one time in a cast iron frying pan. Somewhere between burnt and charred I decided it was ready to eat.

The smell of overcooked bacon still lingered in our cabin when Mom came home that night. Then and there she decided I probably needed some cooking lessons. She improved my culinary skills from "burn down the house" dangerous to basic survival which is where my abilities remain to this day.
 
Not until I was married and received a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook as a wedding gift. My son’s father was second oldest of eight so he taught me a lot.

I was better at turning wrenches. Back when many of us were young, shade tree mechanics prevailed. I could change spark plugs, oil & filter, and a few other ”outpatient “ mechanical things.
 
My mom was an excellent cook, but she never wanted me in the kitchen making a mess, so I never really learned much as a kid. I get recipes off the Web and sometimes I even make up ones that actually turn out almost edible. Most of the time, especially in hot weather, I lack the ambition to prepare elaborate foods, so I live on bagged salad mix and cold cut and/or cheese sandwiches.
 
Mom started showing me stuff around 8 years old. Mostly what not to do in a kitchen.

By 14 I could fry chicken, prep a meal. But I never learned how to bake a cake/pie/bread.
Is ok, I didn't learn how to use a dishwasher either. ... :ROFLMAO: ... can use a washcloth though.
One day I learned how to break the ringer on her tub washer, I never learned how to wash
clothes in it either. I'm good with my commercial in-house washing machine though.
 
The Boy Scout troop went on a camping weekend. I was the only one with a mid-sized cast iron fry pan, bacon / eggs & potatoes.
Fed everyone, given a troop badge for camp fry cook. Lol Troop leader was happy! It was sort of cold that morning too.
 
I learned how to cook breakfast items at about age 12 or so as I could not stand my mom's fried eggs. So I would make omelets or hot cereal that had an egg in it. As long as I got my egg, milk, and fruit or juice, my mom was ok with it.

When I got a little older, I tackled fried fish, using recipes from the outdoor magazines I subscribed to.
 
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Around the age of 6 I was expected to help, snapping peas or stringing beans while sitting on the back porch steps. By age 8, I started supper by peeling and boiling potatoes, browning ground beef and the preliminary stuff for it to be ready for my mother to finish when she got home from work. By age 10, it was all on me except when it was something made in the pressure cooker. I was scared of that thing...because my mother was real good at forgetting about it. It wasn't unusual to spend an evening washing spaghetti sauce off the kitchen ceiling. I didn't "graduate" to making bread until I was about 12-13 but did bake cookies and cakes and make puddings.
 
@Kadee I forgot about lighting the fire. Our kitchen stove was gas-burning on one side...the burners and the oven...and wood-burning on the other. By the time I got home from school, the fire was out, of course, so I had to get it going. We kept a big kettle of water on the wood side, and it had to be hot enough for washing dishes after supper.

We did our wood chopping in the summer and it was stored in the basement so none of that except to go down to get it.
 
Georgiagranny said:
@Kadee I forgot about lighting the fire. Our kitchen stove was gas-burning on one side...the burners and the oven...and wood-burning on the other. By the time I got home from school, the fire was out, of course, so I had to get it going. We kept a big kettle of water on the wood side, and it had to be hot enough for washing dishes after supper.

We did our wood chopping in the summer and it was stored in the basement so none of that except to go down to get it.
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I’m sure you are aware I’m Australian ….and it was the thing summer and winter light the wood stove to,cook meals light the copper to boil water for a bath ….or do the washing ….

where I grew up it was very hot and dry ….and it wasn’t unusual to have day time temps of over 110f …phew …..
We never had snow ..to warrant storing wood

As a result living in desert like conditions ....for my first 25 years …..I love greenery ….plants / trees …opps getting off topic …
@Georgiagranny
 
Muskrat said:
My mother had us all cooking early…as she worked. By the time I was about in junior high about all the guidance i could expect was a note…”fix the chicken” or whatever. Glad I learned…
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PeppermintPatty said:
I learned to cook early. We were latch key kids and I left home at 16 years old. I HAD to learn how to cook or I wouldn’t survive.
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At nine years old learning to cook was imperative. I was the oldest of four siblings, in our very early years we were all separated until the youngest was school age. Our mother passed away aged thirty-six. Dad was left with an awful lot to do, but we all learned, we learned that if we washed the laundry we would have clean sheets and clean towels in the bathroom. We learned the art of cooking, we learned that a home needs more than just a vacuuming to keep it clean, dusting and polishing were just as important. We grew up fast, we had to.
 

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