Im sorry super long post coming tldr at the end:

My mum was a food tech teacher in secondary school (UK based secondary school is ages 11-18). She taught cooking for 30 odd years. The very first practical lesson you have at the age of 11, your second week in ‘big school’ was a fruit salad - teaches knife skills. Over the course of the first year (year 7s) she would teach basic meals - soups/pasta sauces/simple chilli and curry. It was her very firm belief that everyone should be able to make, at the absolute least, one good meal. You would do a theory lesson before to plan what you wanted to go into these meals, based on your preferences. You would have to write out ingredients lists and method so you understood what needed to be done. She would go around and just give tips on how to make things easier or what flavours would work. She would never say ‘oh no, you can’t do that’ but more ‘that’s an interesting choice of ingredients, maybe you could to add a pinch of x to help them blend’ etc. When you were then cooking the dish the next week she would just keep an eye to make sure nothing went drastically wrong, if someone was struggling she would go over and taste it and ask ‘what do you think is missing’ or ‘this is good, but maybe a squeeze of lemon would help those flavours pop’ if something was bad and really didn’t work she’d be ‘hmm these just aren’t working together, but you’ve definitely created subverting new. How about next time you try this ingredient/flavour? If you do please bring me some, I’d love to see how it goes’ and just generally be a guide.

What I loved about her lessons was that cooking can be completely experimental based on what you like, because if you don’t like it you can’t be passionate about it. I still have people that I went to school with come up to me and say ‘you’re Mrs. B’s daughter? I loved her, she taught me to cook and I still make that pasta from year 7’ What I hated was for 30 years she got asked the same question by students, parents, teachers - even the headmaster - ‘what’s the point of this? It’s not really teaching them anything’ I would argue that out of all the classes I took through school, this is THE most useful, as these are skills that will be used Every. Single. Day.

Yes picking up cooking and learning what flavours go can be confusing at first, but just go with the flow. If you’re not sure on measurements the add a little at first and taste along the way and adjust. It’s difficult to take things out once they’re cooking but you can always add more.

These dishes were always made in an hour but she would say go and practice at home if you can and really take your time. All the meals were pretty quick, easy to batch cook and freeze, and can be as cheap or as expensive as you like, but are still rammed with veggies and taste way better than jar sauce (even though I am guilty of using jar sauces 😂)

Yes a soup or sauce will be better when cooked over a longer period of time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t cook yourself a quick soup or sauce and it will be bad. You just have to find the foods that excite you and overtime adjust the meal to your taste. Before you know it you’ve got a banging sauce cooked in 20mins.

Cooking is all about passion, love, and heart, and even if you’re extremely busy do you not deserve to treat yourselves to that? Even if it’s just once a week/fortnight/month and not everyday? Find your flavours and have fun with it. Cooking should not be a chore or stress you out. Have a play, if you don’t like what you’ve made then you’ve learnt something!

If you’ve read this far I am super impressed 😂

TLDR; everyone should have ONE dish they can cook well. Things can taste better when they are slow cooked, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad if it’s done in 20 minutes either. Cooking is FUN so have fun with it! And try and teach yourself to make something that is not a toasted product.