I am very white, lower middle class, rural Australian. I thought I could cook well and prided myself on it; thought it was something that made up for (perceived) lack of other feminine or worthy qualities and would make me appealing to a partner. Then I met my now husband (who is an excellent cook also self-taught due to pickiness, like your friend) and learnt that I am mediocre at best. He's of a different ethnic, cultural and class background to me and grew up in another country, and completely changed what and how I eat. Turns out unseasoned meat cooked until it resembles leather plus potatoes and steamed veg is not what most of the rest of the world considers to be good food, and that there are much nicer things to eat! Now, he does probably 75% of the cooking and I'm much better but still not at his standard. It knocked my confidence a lot, especially because I had thought this was a strength and one of the few things that made me attractive - hard to learn that of all the things he was attracted to, my cooking was not it. (He has never been anything but supportive, diplomatic and loving - issues are my own.) I am genuinely quite good at baking and desserts though and I enjoy it and find it soothing. I also still like cooking and am very happy to do it, but with fewer illusions about my brilliance!
Oh Peta! You really made me feel! I can only imagine that moment when the thing you had most pride in did not pass muster for someone else... it's interesting though that belief too that it is something quite appealing to a partner - a lesson we are taught I think as young girls (not sure for you but definitely for me) and always a shock when it's upended! I'm sorry that it knocked your confidence... is it something you're both able to joke about now?
I think it's absolutely something we're taught as girls! I loved reading your piece because we clearly got the same message but I leaned in - it never occurred to me to resist and I love that you did! Being a good cook is not tied up in my self-worth anymore. I enjoy cooking and baking and it's a shared interest with my husband now, but if it didn't do it for me, I'd be able to own that. It's nice to see when we're gently undoing our socialisation, right?
(And yes, we joke about the food of my people. Let's just say most of your oil rig colleagues would have been very happy with my cooking skills - bland pasta and all!)
Love this essay so much. Feel like I’ve found a kindred spirit.
My father in law taught me how to cook, thank God. My mother said I never showed any interest in the kitchen bc I was always reading.
I married into a family that owned Indian restaurants. This was the secret to a peaceful life. When they sold the restaurants I FINALLY started to lose weight but unfortunately so did my kids so I taught myself how to make fried chicken and lasagna and now I add cheese to everything so my kids will eat great American food 😂
I love your post. I love to cook, but get bored with it, get too busy, get tired of my cooking. I started cooking when I was a girl because I was hungry lol. My mom was single and she worked full time, went to college part time most of my childhood. She went to work at 4 in the morning, would leave oatmeal on the back of the stove for when I got up. So I learned to cook. I called my grandmother long distance until my mom told me to stop it was too expensive. Then I called mom at work until it drove her crazy and she needed to work and screened my calls. Then her coworkers taught me to cook 😅. I did not burn the house down once:). And her coworkers loved me and we would talk recipes when I would see them. My mom had terrible guilt but it was actually lovely and fun. I cook now because I like to eat, I like different tastes, I like experimenting, trying new recipes and then riffing off the recipe to see what happens. Just like when I was a kid ❤️. And I have to feed my husband. That’s my trap. I HAVE to feed us. He does not cook, plan meals, shop. Nada. And I like to eat🤷♀️. My brother is a cook as well. He really cooks for the community. Cooking is how he connects best with people. My relationship with my kitchen is love hate. I want a bigger kitchen and nicer appliances, but what I have works. There’s always better out there.
I really resonate with that sense of the love hate relationship to the kitchen. It's a really loaded thing, isn't it - especially when you HAVE to cook - to survive! We need to eat. It's amazing that you found joy in it though, even when it was something you had to do... I think I might have learned to resent it... though it also sounds like it became a way for you to connect to others, and perhaps that way it was a portal into something else?
Desi girl here. Like Sudanese women, we are also taught to learn to cook. It is the most prized skill, a neccesity to lead the best life and become the best wife. I remember loving how to help my mum and her mum as a kid and I enjoyed cooking, especially baking. But I have spent most of my years chasing academic and professional goals... finding no time for the kitchen.
Cooking was never instinctive for me, my mum's "add a bit of this and bit of that" never really worked for me. I prefer to read out instructions and my attempts are always 50/50. My sisters and cousins are better. So with all the "YOU MUST COOK" and look how she does it, I unfortunately developed a resistance within me to cook I guess. 🤔 Now with no mum or grandma, I get sad. Coz those two didn't write their recipes down so there is no I feel like something is missing from our menu. I have a few of mum's audios. But she used to miss steps in the audios. I always found it funny. Now it's heartbreaking to listen coz I don't have her anymore to ask, what did you mean when you said this but then moved on to this? So yeah. I get where you come from and I loved reading this. I love eating and helping anyone whose cooking. I'll do the prep and set the table. But not a cook myself. At the moment, I am helping a Falsteeni chef in G promote her cookbook. And it was two nights ago when I realised why her book means so much to me. Its coz she did not let her ancestral recipes get lost in the rubble. I , on the other hand, with my rise and grind routine lost mine unknowingly, because I lost the women that carried their recipes in their hearts and hands and love. ❤ I don't think THIS is what you were expecting. But I felt like writing it anyway because you are always so generous with your stories. 🫂❤
Great essay and question! I’m from the US South from a Black Creole heritage and my stepmom’s Trini so my childhood foods are my grandma’s Creole cooking and my stepmom’s Caribbean dishes, so I crave gumbo and callallo. Outside of that though cooking was for survival so I ate a lot of cereal, grilled cheese and other random things if I had to feed myself. I didn’t grow up in the kitchen. I’d go in just to forage then return to whatever I was doing till I was called for dinner. I got into cooking because I love good food and I don’t come from a culture of eating out regularly. and now in my forties I’m all for the nostalgia dishes but cooking every day is exhausting.
Absolutely loved this post and definitely want to read more of your cooking vignettes / essays.
White, ashkenazi Jewish & middle-class. Food was a big part of my childhood - my mum is an incredible cook, though as I've come to learn more about food colonisation, I've begun to unpack how many of the dishes I was raised with as our 'cultural' foods were actually stolen. This leaves me in a strange position around cooking now, around what brings me nostalgia and now leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth. It's always been a sticky spot as well connecting with people over what I perceived as 'shared' foods, now understanding the very different directions into those foods, and the connotations of my relationship with them.
Generally, I only really know how to cook for about 10 people at a time, and get most of my joy from cooking when it's for others. Cooking is a big part of my mutual aid and community care. I hate cooking when it's a chore and get demand avoidance around it, but am lucky to live in a sharehouse where we all cook for one another. Much more I could say on the topic but thank you for asking the question!
It’s funny. I grew up in a conservative, white middle class American family with old-fashioned gender roles. I am white, middle class, progressive and I can’t stand old-fashioned gender roles. But I don’t mind cooking. I like eating. I prefer homemade meals to takeout; they make me feel better. In so many other ways, from housework to the way I dress, I rebel against BS ideas about femininity and whatnot. I hate doing dishes with a passion, doing the dishes offends me. But not cooking, and I have no answer other than I like food.
During the long school holidays in summer, my mother would get me and my 3 younger sisters to help her make things in the kitchen. Biscuits, fruit cake, fruit pudding and other cakes. We'd stir, or decorate, or cut the pieces of fruit smaller (with blunt knives). The first time I cooked alone I was probably 9 and wanted to make chocolate biscuits. I didn't know what cocoa was, but I knew what Nestle Chocolate Quick was, so the biscuits were probably inedible for anyone who wasn't a child. I asked the neighbour to turn on the oven and she supervised the rest of the process to make sure I didn't burn myself or the house. From then on I started baking. I was put in charge of dinners during school holidays from the age of 17. I started my cookbook collection about the same time. Cooking for me is a retreat. I can create something that is tasty and people enjoy. It's also an extension of the caring that I've been doing since I was 3 and a half years old. But it still makes me happy and I'll try to cook anything that I suspect I'll like. I have cookbooks from many different cuisines around the world (but not Sudanese - do you have any recommendations?) and have developed a strong critique of poor instructions as a result.
I love your writing, and this bittersweet piece on cooking grabs me. I was taught to cook our Lebanese food by my grandmother from the age of 5 in South Africa, our food was a vector for culture and identity. I love it still; as a septuagenarian, every morning I cook something good for the day before heading to my desk or garden or whatever else is happening. My grandmother comes to me in stressful or difficult moments and as I chop, stir, bake I feel her presence, a gift of continuity in my bitty life.
Thank you for your evocative written work. Living in Australia these past almost 40 years, I remember the shameful hateful treatment you received from the right wing red necks. I am so very sorry for that. I am sending you a message on Facebook messenger. Thank you!
Ooohhh I have written a long comment, lost it but oh my Yassmin, well done on the island because yes you can assemble the ingredients well, (loved the photos).
I love that you didn't really cook for your husband but I hope he enjoyed your chocolate mousse? 🤷🏼😅
I cracked up reading, then sobered up a bit because my relationship with cooking is nil & I'm staggered that since I left home I found myself in big enough households to get away with the bare minimum.
I've lived with people over the years who cook for pleasure, who cook to relieve stress rather than cooking to get even more stressed (me). Those people who cook for pleasure are freaking alchemists as far as I'm concerned.
It's like the Divine G-d took pity on me & placed me near people who weren't food restricted growing up.
(Oh how your father & his peers must have yearned for their mothers cooking while studying I'm Eastern European countries.)
Mum was a bland cook who could afford a roast for it made sandwiches. She was a science graduate who was deeply affected by the depression era - nothing was wasted & yet nothing was tasty really.
I left home not knowing spaghetti came dry and long, rather than in a can.
Food & cooking is such a fraught topic for so many so thank you for writing about it.
So many thoughts. So many good responses. Thank you.
Your no kitchen rule is one of the many iconic things about you. If I am ever to co-habit, I will for sure adopt this, even just in part. I do enjoy cooking for people, it’s very much a rare occurrence now but having spent most of my childhood forced to join my mother in the kitchen, I definitely feel a resistance against cooking as an adult.
I do hold a conflict within me- not wanting to be burdened by the long gruelling rituals of many traditional Nigerian foods that my mum still to this day will grind through and also wanting to preserve said rituals and foods for future generations. Pesto pasta cannot prevail!
Beautiful piece, thanks. And I love that you made Cullen skink! Your attitude towards the kitchen makes sense. We're all positioned differently and for many, refusing to be defined by domestic work is absolutely a wise and healing thing. Sometimes this can be temporary - when the world starts taking us seriously, and we know it won't define us, we can sneak back into domestic life.
Im a rural irish male from a v traditional background.i learned a little of cooking when young but not much. When like so many of us i went to london in the 80s ,indian,chinese ,italian ,greek food was a revelation.later i spent time in sudan .invitations to sudanese family events were amazing.tanles loded with mostly unfamiliar food.
At work fuul was eaten with staff from communal bowl every morning.supper was fuul from the corner shop.
I cooked and ate with bachelor teachers in their quarters..food was alwaysfor sharing, there was always enough..
Im not great at cooking sudani food but i learned a lot.
I am very white, lower middle class, rural Australian. I thought I could cook well and prided myself on it; thought it was something that made up for (perceived) lack of other feminine or worthy qualities and would make me appealing to a partner. Then I met my now husband (who is an excellent cook also self-taught due to pickiness, like your friend) and learnt that I am mediocre at best. He's of a different ethnic, cultural and class background to me and grew up in another country, and completely changed what and how I eat. Turns out unseasoned meat cooked until it resembles leather plus potatoes and steamed veg is not what most of the rest of the world considers to be good food, and that there are much nicer things to eat! Now, he does probably 75% of the cooking and I'm much better but still not at his standard. It knocked my confidence a lot, especially because I had thought this was a strength and one of the few things that made me attractive - hard to learn that of all the things he was attracted to, my cooking was not it. (He has never been anything but supportive, diplomatic and loving - issues are my own.) I am genuinely quite good at baking and desserts though and I enjoy it and find it soothing. I also still like cooking and am very happy to do it, but with fewer illusions about my brilliance!
Oh Peta! You really made me feel! I can only imagine that moment when the thing you had most pride in did not pass muster for someone else... it's interesting though that belief too that it is something quite appealing to a partner - a lesson we are taught I think as young girls (not sure for you but definitely for me) and always a shock when it's upended! I'm sorry that it knocked your confidence... is it something you're both able to joke about now?
I think it's absolutely something we're taught as girls! I loved reading your piece because we clearly got the same message but I leaned in - it never occurred to me to resist and I love that you did! Being a good cook is not tied up in my self-worth anymore. I enjoy cooking and baking and it's a shared interest with my husband now, but if it didn't do it for me, I'd be able to own that. It's nice to see when we're gently undoing our socialisation, right?
(And yes, we joke about the food of my people. Let's just say most of your oil rig colleagues would have been very happy with my cooking skills - bland pasta and all!)
Love this essay so much. Feel like I’ve found a kindred spirit.
My father in law taught me how to cook, thank God. My mother said I never showed any interest in the kitchen bc I was always reading.
I married into a family that owned Indian restaurants. This was the secret to a peaceful life. When they sold the restaurants I FINALLY started to lose weight but unfortunately so did my kids so I taught myself how to make fried chicken and lasagna and now I add cheese to everything so my kids will eat great American food 😂
hahaha I love this comment. marrying into a family that owns restaurants - esp Indian restaurants - sounds like the best life hack 😂 love this!!
I love your post. I love to cook, but get bored with it, get too busy, get tired of my cooking. I started cooking when I was a girl because I was hungry lol. My mom was single and she worked full time, went to college part time most of my childhood. She went to work at 4 in the morning, would leave oatmeal on the back of the stove for when I got up. So I learned to cook. I called my grandmother long distance until my mom told me to stop it was too expensive. Then I called mom at work until it drove her crazy and she needed to work and screened my calls. Then her coworkers taught me to cook 😅. I did not burn the house down once:). And her coworkers loved me and we would talk recipes when I would see them. My mom had terrible guilt but it was actually lovely and fun. I cook now because I like to eat, I like different tastes, I like experimenting, trying new recipes and then riffing off the recipe to see what happens. Just like when I was a kid ❤️. And I have to feed my husband. That’s my trap. I HAVE to feed us. He does not cook, plan meals, shop. Nada. And I like to eat🤷♀️. My brother is a cook as well. He really cooks for the community. Cooking is how he connects best with people. My relationship with my kitchen is love hate. I want a bigger kitchen and nicer appliances, but what I have works. There’s always better out there.
I really resonate with that sense of the love hate relationship to the kitchen. It's a really loaded thing, isn't it - especially when you HAVE to cook - to survive! We need to eat. It's amazing that you found joy in it though, even when it was something you had to do... I think I might have learned to resent it... though it also sounds like it became a way for you to connect to others, and perhaps that way it was a portal into something else?
Desi girl here. Like Sudanese women, we are also taught to learn to cook. It is the most prized skill, a neccesity to lead the best life and become the best wife. I remember loving how to help my mum and her mum as a kid and I enjoyed cooking, especially baking. But I have spent most of my years chasing academic and professional goals... finding no time for the kitchen.
Cooking was never instinctive for me, my mum's "add a bit of this and bit of that" never really worked for me. I prefer to read out instructions and my attempts are always 50/50. My sisters and cousins are better. So with all the "YOU MUST COOK" and look how she does it, I unfortunately developed a resistance within me to cook I guess. 🤔 Now with no mum or grandma, I get sad. Coz those two didn't write their recipes down so there is no I feel like something is missing from our menu. I have a few of mum's audios. But she used to miss steps in the audios. I always found it funny. Now it's heartbreaking to listen coz I don't have her anymore to ask, what did you mean when you said this but then moved on to this? So yeah. I get where you come from and I loved reading this. I love eating and helping anyone whose cooking. I'll do the prep and set the table. But not a cook myself. At the moment, I am helping a Falsteeni chef in G promote her cookbook. And it was two nights ago when I realised why her book means so much to me. Its coz she did not let her ancestral recipes get lost in the rubble. I , on the other hand, with my rise and grind routine lost mine unknowingly, because I lost the women that carried their recipes in their hearts and hands and love. ❤ I don't think THIS is what you were expecting. But I felt like writing it anyway because you are always so generous with your stories. 🫂❤
Great essay and question! I’m from the US South from a Black Creole heritage and my stepmom’s Trini so my childhood foods are my grandma’s Creole cooking and my stepmom’s Caribbean dishes, so I crave gumbo and callallo. Outside of that though cooking was for survival so I ate a lot of cereal, grilled cheese and other random things if I had to feed myself. I didn’t grow up in the kitchen. I’d go in just to forage then return to whatever I was doing till I was called for dinner. I got into cooking because I love good food and I don’t come from a culture of eating out regularly. and now in my forties I’m all for the nostalgia dishes but cooking every day is exhausting.
Absolutely loved this post and definitely want to read more of your cooking vignettes / essays.
White, ashkenazi Jewish & middle-class. Food was a big part of my childhood - my mum is an incredible cook, though as I've come to learn more about food colonisation, I've begun to unpack how many of the dishes I was raised with as our 'cultural' foods were actually stolen. This leaves me in a strange position around cooking now, around what brings me nostalgia and now leaves a really bitter taste in my mouth. It's always been a sticky spot as well connecting with people over what I perceived as 'shared' foods, now understanding the very different directions into those foods, and the connotations of my relationship with them.
Generally, I only really know how to cook for about 10 people at a time, and get most of my joy from cooking when it's for others. Cooking is a big part of my mutual aid and community care. I hate cooking when it's a chore and get demand avoidance around it, but am lucky to live in a sharehouse where we all cook for one another. Much more I could say on the topic but thank you for asking the question!
It’s funny. I grew up in a conservative, white middle class American family with old-fashioned gender roles. I am white, middle class, progressive and I can’t stand old-fashioned gender roles. But I don’t mind cooking. I like eating. I prefer homemade meals to takeout; they make me feel better. In so many other ways, from housework to the way I dress, I rebel against BS ideas about femininity and whatnot. I hate doing dishes with a passion, doing the dishes offends me. But not cooking, and I have no answer other than I like food.
During the long school holidays in summer, my mother would get me and my 3 younger sisters to help her make things in the kitchen. Biscuits, fruit cake, fruit pudding and other cakes. We'd stir, or decorate, or cut the pieces of fruit smaller (with blunt knives). The first time I cooked alone I was probably 9 and wanted to make chocolate biscuits. I didn't know what cocoa was, but I knew what Nestle Chocolate Quick was, so the biscuits were probably inedible for anyone who wasn't a child. I asked the neighbour to turn on the oven and she supervised the rest of the process to make sure I didn't burn myself or the house. From then on I started baking. I was put in charge of dinners during school holidays from the age of 17. I started my cookbook collection about the same time. Cooking for me is a retreat. I can create something that is tasty and people enjoy. It's also an extension of the caring that I've been doing since I was 3 and a half years old. But it still makes me happy and I'll try to cook anything that I suspect I'll like. I have cookbooks from many different cuisines around the world (but not Sudanese - do you have any recommendations?) and have developed a strong critique of poor instructions as a result.
I love your writing, and this bittersweet piece on cooking grabs me. I was taught to cook our Lebanese food by my grandmother from the age of 5 in South Africa, our food was a vector for culture and identity. I love it still; as a septuagenarian, every morning I cook something good for the day before heading to my desk or garden or whatever else is happening. My grandmother comes to me in stressful or difficult moments and as I chop, stir, bake I feel her presence, a gift of continuity in my bitty life.
Thank you for your evocative written work. Living in Australia these past almost 40 years, I remember the shameful hateful treatment you received from the right wing red necks. I am so very sorry for that. I am sending you a message on Facebook messenger. Thank you!
PS I have been a vegetarian for 50+ years and vegan for 10 due to multiple anaphylaxes.
Ooohhh I have written a long comment, lost it but oh my Yassmin, well done on the island because yes you can assemble the ingredients well, (loved the photos).
I love that you didn't really cook for your husband but I hope he enjoyed your chocolate mousse? 🤷🏼😅
I cracked up reading, then sobered up a bit because my relationship with cooking is nil & I'm staggered that since I left home I found myself in big enough households to get away with the bare minimum.
I've lived with people over the years who cook for pleasure, who cook to relieve stress rather than cooking to get even more stressed (me). Those people who cook for pleasure are freaking alchemists as far as I'm concerned.
It's like the Divine G-d took pity on me & placed me near people who weren't food restricted growing up.
(Oh how your father & his peers must have yearned for their mothers cooking while studying I'm Eastern European countries.)
Mum was a bland cook who could afford a roast for it made sandwiches. She was a science graduate who was deeply affected by the depression era - nothing was wasted & yet nothing was tasty really.
I left home not knowing spaghetti came dry and long, rather than in a can.
Food & cooking is such a fraught topic for so many so thank you for writing about it.
So many thoughts. So many good responses. Thank you.
Your no kitchen rule is one of the many iconic things about you. If I am ever to co-habit, I will for sure adopt this, even just in part. I do enjoy cooking for people, it’s very much a rare occurrence now but having spent most of my childhood forced to join my mother in the kitchen, I definitely feel a resistance against cooking as an adult.
I do hold a conflict within me- not wanting to be burdened by the long gruelling rituals of many traditional Nigerian foods that my mum still to this day will grind through and also wanting to preserve said rituals and foods for future generations. Pesto pasta cannot prevail!
Beautiful piece, thanks. And I love that you made Cullen skink! Your attitude towards the kitchen makes sense. We're all positioned differently and for many, refusing to be defined by domestic work is absolutely a wise and healing thing. Sometimes this can be temporary - when the world starts taking us seriously, and we know it won't define us, we can sneak back into domestic life.
Im a rural irish male from a v traditional background.i learned a little of cooking when young but not much. When like so many of us i went to london in the 80s ,indian,chinese ,italian ,greek food was a revelation.later i spent time in sudan .invitations to sudanese family events were amazing.tanles loded with mostly unfamiliar food.
At work fuul was eaten with staff from communal bowl every morning.supper was fuul from the corner shop.
I cooked and ate with bachelor teachers in their quarters..food was alwaysfor sharing, there was always enough..
Im not great at cooking sudani food but i learned a lot.