Teaching Someone How To Cook

[Jaymes]

Many people have suggested that you start by asking him what he likes to eat that he might also like learning how to prepare.

I'd suggest that you back it up even further and really quiz him about how motivated he is to learn anything at all, before you knock yourself out trying to teach him something of value.

It'd be one thing if he lived close by. But it sounds like he lives halfway across the country. If he's not pretty strongly motivated to do this, enough so that he will follow through on his own, I suspect that once he gets back home, and away from his mum and you, all your best efforts will be for naught.

So I'd find that out first.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Jaymes (log)

[huiray]

Many people have suggested that you start by asking him what he likes to eat that he might also like learning how to prepare.

I'd suggest that you back it up even further and really quiz him about how motivated he is to learn anything at all, before you knock yourself out trying to teach him something of value.

It'd be one thing if he lived close by. But it sounds like he lives halfway across the country. If he's not pretty strongly motivated to do this, enough so that he will follow through on his own, I suspect that once he gets back home, and away from his mum and you, all your best efforts will be for naught.

So I'd find that out first.

Especially as he is in his late 50's? And therefore possibly already set in his ways even if he may say he wants to learn?

Edited February 6, 2014 by huiray (log)

[Plantes Vertes]

Today my housemate and I discussed sauteeing and reducing sauces. He had never heard of the second one so we did an experiment tasting the sauce several times as it reduced and he was amazed. It's so gratifying to explain something and see the other person enjoying it so much.

 

He made pasta with sauteed vegetables and a wine and cream sauce. He ate two servings and complained that he was super-full but didn't want to stop eating.

 

 

ETA I am also learning a lot from cooking with my housemate. Although I don't make much of an effort to study cooking, I pick up new ideas from reading about food; now I've had to research a few things more thoroughly so that I don't dry up when I introduce him to a new method. I am also more and more grateful to my parents for teaching me how to cook. I notice there are many processes in cooking that are hard to explain satisfactorily but which one acquires easily through practice, like listening to the food while it cooks to see if it's at the right temperature. I never do that consciously but it's essential when you have something on the hob. I got those instincts when I was young because my parents allowed me in the kitchen with them.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Plantes Vertes (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

When my elder son was learning to cook he did not have much patience with my advice.  I recall him picking me up (I am not small) and placing me outside the kitchen.  It's only been in the past couple years I've gotten the last of the carbon off the pot.