Ask Lemmy

Gen Zers that i know all cook way more than i did at their age

Gen Z has a basic competence issue apparently because everyone complains about their ability to do everything. Weaponized incompetence or whatever they are calling it. The good news when it comes to being able to cook is that anyone can figure it out for themselves. If you can make instant ramen noodles then you can cook.

I highly recommend anyone who wants to learn to cook get a hold of the Fannie Farmers CookbookFannie Farmer Cookbook find a used copy somewhere because $50 for a book first published in 1869 is friggin ridiculous.

This book is basically a reference book as well as a recipe book. It explains just about everything from measuring to prepping to storing things in your pantry. It is stuffed with recipes for basic things and then a bunch of recipes that build on those basics.

My mom was a lifelong food lover and taught herself to cook because her mom couldn’t. She had a library full of cookbooks from all over the world and through the ages. The only cookbook she gave me when I moved out was the Fannie Farmer Cookbook which is a tome to be sure. She told me it was the only one I would ever really need. Everything else is just recipes.

Gen Z, millennial, Gen X it doesn’t matter who you are it is flat out cheaper to cook your own food. If you are single then soups and casseroles are your buddy. If you make a different one every other day and freeze the rest you will have a constant supply of a variety of meals you can reheat at will so you don’t get burnt out. If you are a couple just about every meal feeds four which is dinner plus leftover lunch for the both of you.

I live in Houston, TX which is one of the most diverse food scenes anywhere with some of best restaurants for every kind of food and I can’t find a steakhouse that consistently makes a better steak than me. The closest I’ve come was from a guy selling steaks at a bar I used to go to 15 years ago. No one makes better pancakes than I do. I’ve never been hesitant to order pancakes when I’m out but I’m always disappointed and feeling ripped off. The difference is staggering. Pancakes are cheeeap and making them better costs next to nothing. The only restaurant food I buy is food I don’t make yet.

Stop giving your money to people who really don’t deserve it. Learn to cook. One thing at a time. Every success leads to more success. The knowledge you gain is for life. You pass some of it on and one day far in the future every human will be a master chef because what else is there to do?

I'm gen z. Cooking is difficult. I do it sometimes. My trick is throwing things I like into a pan and hoping they get better. It's easier with some things.

One tip I have is: Do not do thing concurrently. You will fail. Everything I do takes very long, and if I do two things at once it will be a Desaster.

A trick to make it more fun is listening to music or a podcast while you do it.

Also, many things you can get at the supermarket have instructions or suggestions about how to prepare them.

You don't have to do a whole range of things. It's okay if you can do one recipe and that's it for a start.

Time is also an issue, people are working 2 or 3 jobs now that include weekends who don't have anyone to help.

I wouldn't qualify it as a Gen Z thing. As a Xennial, I have a quite a few Gen Z coworkers and most of them actively talk about recipes and meals they're making and they are not just slapping some Mac and Cheese together and calling it. Some of the meals they're talking about cooking are fairly advanced. At least two have dedicated pizza ovens and make their own dough. A number of them are cooking involved multi-course meals I'd never have tried until I was in my late 30's... Hearing their recipes and such I'm fairly impressed on a regular basis.

I think it's more related to experience and available time and CASH. One of them has fallen a bit back into hello fresh, a few times a week, but they just had a kid, so no blame there.

maybe the ones that are still living at home and parents are cooking all thier meals? its a notable increase thats for sure.

Gen Z is not specific enough to be a useful demographic cluster. You have to overlay it over another specification or it's trying to pretend someone who is somewhere in an ill defined age range, living in Shanghai as the child of a politician is going to have something relevantly similar to someone of a vaguely similar age, though with possibly a full 10 years difference, from Nunavut, put into the foster system.

I don't think it is a "idk how to cook" more than "i don't need to cook" problem. You don't need to know how to cook to survive when food delivery services is just one click away and if that is not your thing you can always takeaway or dine-in at the restaurant/shops instead.

I can cook, i enjoy cooking, i prefer cooking but sometimes i am lazy so i do takeout or dine-out instead. Most of the people i know don't know how to cook (by that i mean anything more than reheating precooked food, frozen food etc) if anything i am in the minority.

I'm a young millennial (31) with some old gen Z friends (mid to late 20s) and the cooking thing is all over the place with us. The biggest cook is the oldest Gen z guy in the group who loves cooking. Me personally I don't care to cook. Cereal for breakfast, a microwave meal or sandwich for lunch, then a frozen pizza or frozen chicken for dinner is good for me.

Gen Z is 14-29 year olds. Most of these probably still live with family so yeah, how often do you expect them to cook?

I know a couple people at work who consistently bring trader Joe's microwave food, the rest bring stuff from home.

Is this more of a white people problem? I feel like most of the other Asian kids I grew up with learned how to help in the kitchen before they could really reach a stove top without a step stool. This might just be an immigrant family thing though.

Learn how to cook a couple new recipes a week and eventually you will be good at cooking

They're fine. We talk about cooking before class on occasion and my students tend to be pretty on top of that, and baking. This is especially true of women who take care of their siblings. Honestly, it's on par for the age, but there is one more unique aspect and that's reliance on Tiktok or IG for recipes.

That means that I'll sometimes run into people who love cooking but they're often making what's popular at the time. But... my cohort, millennials, aren't too different in using our online recipes. They're just a little less... creative, compared to what you see on Tiktok. Plus, video format is trash for cooking, but that's my own opinion.