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I don’t think it’s generational in a way that GenZ is any different. This is an age thing.
Most people never need to cook before they’re 18. They just got fed at home. When people first start to move out, things start to shift. Some people get into relationships where the other person cooks. They’re still being provided for.
Others learn a bare minimum of things to cook and do it badly. They do feed themselves but self describe as “can’t cook”.
And some step up and learn the things you need to know to cook that isn’t taught in school.
Time goes by, and more people find themselves in situations where they now need to cook. The population of cooks grows and the non-cooks shrinks.
Whether it’s because of changing interests, financial pressure, divorce, whatever, people need some pressure to develop the skill, and over time they do.
Is this a western thing? I was taught to cook when I was old enough to handle the stove.
No, it is a culture thing, most likely. From Finland here - we are taught some basic cooking, household keepint etc., in school even.
Westerner here (US-Am). This is not ubiquitous, but I was never prompted to even chop vegetables, let alone actually cook meals as a kid. I learned how to cook in my early 20s during quarantine due to wanting food that I like that fits my dietary restrictions, and because I was unemployed for a couple years and cooking your own meals is generally much less expensive.
Now, while I don't "enjoy" cooking — sometimes it's actually quite stressful, though much less now than when I started; following recipe instructions initially led to burned onions or garlic, over- or under-seasoned food, concern over the caramelizing taking thrice as long as the recipe said it would, etc. — I rarely dislike my own food, since I generally know how I'm going to like it. Plus, my family enjoys it, which is almost as nice as me enjoying it, lmao.
I do wish that I'd been taught how to cook when I was younger, but tbh my dad very rarely cooked — he wasn't taught how — and my mom's cooking was a lot of stereotypical white Midwestern-type tuna casseroles, spaghetti with canned marinara, etc. We had a lot of frozen microwave meals.
Netherlands, born in the 90s. My mom tried to teach me (maybe at like 15? Idk) but I basically refused because she had always done it and I didn't want to
Not saying I'm proud of that, just giving the data point you asked for exactly as it happened! I know that many other families handled this very differently, but that's what it was like for me
Of course, that meant catching up once I moved out ~4y later. Still hate cooking (and my gf hates it even more than I do, so the task falls to me) but I've only got one life and I have yet to find a place that sells healthy food that you can just shove down the gastrointestinal tract as-is... ^^'
My family believed that men do not belong on the kitchen, so I wasn’t taught how to cook. I was later taught the basics by my at-the-time-girlfriend and then learned the hard way when I started living alone
I think this is mostly correct, but there are also more and easier options to have food delivered than there were historically. So more ways to continue to avoid cooking means there is a longer delay before learning to cook.
Although maybe the increasing costs of these convenient options and slow wage growth in most countries means people will start opting out of convenience, so it could switch in the other direction.