Ask Lemmy

I'm personally a kind of mid-to-younger millennial (and a pretty damn good cook if I can toot my own horn)

I have a few friends who are a bit younger than me who are older zoomers. Those friends are all at least competent cooks, not necessarily amazing chefs, but capable enough to follow a recipe and feed themselves.

But the catch that should probably be mentioned is that most of those friends are guys I was in scouts with. They were the younger kids in my troop as I was aging out.

So, I (or one of my millennial peers) are at least partially the ones who taught them how to cook

And learning to cook in scouts is sort of a trial by literal fire- if you can make breakfast over a campfire, bake a cake in a Dutch oven on hot coals, etc. cooking with a regular stove or oven is kind of easy in comparison.

But anecdotally, my gen z coworkers do seem to be pretty clueless about cooking. But then again, I'm a poor judge of that because I do cook at a pretty high level and a lot of people seem kind of clueless to me in general, so I'm probably not the best judge.

The Zoomers i know are either amazing cooks or can cook 1 meal but eat out 90% of the time. But for every one that can cook there are 3 that dont cook. I dont know a single millennial or gen xer who cant cook or couldnt cook at 16. I dont think the problem is universal to gen z. Its just an issue in wealthy urban populations.

Im not good with meal prep so I just heat up a frying pan throw some meat in, throw some veggies in and season it. Its quick, tasty and cheap. I rotate the meat and veggies so im always eating something different. I buy the veggies frozen and presliced so no prep or wastage.