What has happened to people cooking!

MrsTinks

I went to Mr T's this lunch time to buy fruit for the office and a few bits for me (juice, puffpastry and cat food lol) and as I was stood in the queue waiting to pay I looked round like I always do and found in front of me was a lady of the "ration" generation (sorry if that offends anyone... just mean that she certainly should know how to cook from scratch... ) and her shopping was mainly ready meals or sauces etc... I was actually baffled to see not ONE raw ingredient in her shopping...
Thinking to myself what a shame this was I looked one till over from me and all I could see was this 20 something year old girl stacking up ready meals from the fresh and frozen sections and loads of biscuits and hobnobs etc and then one little lonely broccoli (they are half price in Tesco at the moment)... I found myself wondering if she even knew how to prepare it...
And then it dawned on me... when I was single and living in a tiny flat without a proper kitchen then my shopping probably looked much the same. Yet now if I look in my freezer you won't find a single shop bought ready meal! Yes I have a couple of sauces in the cupboards but mainly so that OH can cook the occasional meal and it's edible...
Tonight we're having chicken and mushroom pie with left over chicken from last night served with home made potato wedges. (Hence the puff pastry... I just can't be bothered to make it myself )

Have others have the same sudden realisation when stood at supermarket checkouts?

T

Tam_Lin

My Mum lives on ready meals in the evenings on the grounds that she cooked for Dad for nearly 40 years, and now she doesn't have to. Mind you, she always hated cooking, and now she can please herself.

Me, I've gone the other way like you; pretty much everything's homecooked now.

jovichick123

I grew up living with my Nana and Grandad and Nana ALWAYS cooked home made meals... When I moved in to my Mum's (at the age of 12), it was mainly shop bought meals with veg added to bulk them out. I learnt everything I know how to do in a kitchen from Nana, Mum still buys the ready meals!

I have to confess though, I went through a phase of buying ready prepared meals (like the fresh ready prepared chicken meals) and then adding veg, but have found it cheaper and tastier to home cook everything (this change of ways only really came about after having DS two years ago tho!). I like the feeling that I know exactly what has happened to my food in the process of cooking... and I know that there are no nasty additives lurking in it for DS.

Sarah xx

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi Tine

I have noticed this too. For instance, my folks bought my sister and I up on fresh fruit veg, organic meat, wholesome food.... blah blah blah...and now, you go to their fridge/freezer and most items are ready meals from M&S. Maybe its just because its the 2 of them, but I have suggested they cook more and freeze surplus.

Mum thinks Im saying this to save money (they are well off so not relevant) but its because she will know what ingredients she is eating She does pad their meals out with salad, but even the veg they now use are those frozen steam things that taste like mush:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: ....I just dont understand it. When my sister or I cook they love it and always say it tastes better than ready meals...so why arent they bothering?

It does worry me and I have even suggested her paying someone to do some batch cooking once a week if she cant do it herself(she has health problems). The ready meals are normally very rich food. They have Fish & Chips on a Friday...we had this once every 3 months when we were young as mum said it was bad for you What she spends in M&S weekly, I could feed us for a month.

PP
xx

mto

We have a microwave at work and a Tesco Metro next door and probably 80% of the people i work with have either a microwave ready meal for lunch or buy a sandwich from Tesco. I mean how hard is it to make your own sandwiches or cook a bit extra the evening before and have left-overs . The worst offenders always seem to be those that complain they never have enough money as well - no wonder :rolleyes:

tiff

My Mum is 58 and I dont think she has ever cooked meals 100% from scratch. She has always used Bisto gravy granules, and jars or packets of sauce. When she makes spag bol she always uses a packet sauce which I think is bizarre really. She doesnt buy ready meals though.

grannieannie_2

But if you scrub veggies, you don't have to even peel them! Most of the goodness is in the skin or just below it!

I've always cooked, my Dad was a brilliant partry cook, and my Mum cooked proper food, even though when I grew up I realised it wasn't very good!!!! lol

but now all OH and my children eat a lot of ready meals because they are just too lazy to do much else! We went over OH's youngest son's to look after the place while they were on holiday once. There were potatoes in the cupboard and yogs in the fridge for the children and other stuff that was out of date, and as well as the ready meals in the freezer, there were frozen MASHED potatoes!!!! I'd also given them a big bag of runner beans from my garden, and they'd just put the whole bag of whole runner beans in the freezer, I had to throw them away.

Now I'm not working at the moment, I grow most of my own veg and freeze what's surplus. Last year alone I froze over 80lbs of tomatoes, no tinned or jars of pasta sauce in our house!

Something's gone wrong, but how do we persuade other people to get off this junk food roundabout????

Lyndsay_21

there were frozen MASHED potatoes!!!!

:wave: forzen mash here too im afraid, the one thing i can never make and have given up wasting potatoes to even try.

Moneybubbles

I am always looking in other peoples shopping trolleys

Funny you say about parents, we were always taught how to cook from scratch and I'm the only one who has carried it on. My 2 sisters have a freezer full of microwave meals and fridge full of allsorts that doesn't look great. Mum and dad also seem to live on pre preparred meals (chopped carrots, !!!!!!!!!) blimey

My other thing to do around the shops, check out who's reusing bags now lol dh gets very embrassed and I now go shopping by myself (much better that way):rotfl:

TKP_3

I make pretty much everything from scratch. The main reason is taste - my food tastes SO much better than ready meals, and often takes the same amount of time. I batch cook to make "takeaways"
I can control the fat, sugar and salt contents. We do not have any E numbers or weird chemicals.
My Mom always cooked from scratch (there were no ready meals), and I have learnt the same.
I am now (for the first time) growing my own veges :j . i have had rocket from the garden, and can't wait for the rest to bear fruit (or veg).

My OH knows how to cook basic stuff, but won't lift a finger if it's just himself. He'd rather have a ready meal as he claimes it's easier than making something, even if it tastes foul. Go figure...
He will defrost and mw one of my frozen meals though (just as well, as I WON'T buy ready meals!)

balmaiden

I would imagine most people of the "ration" generation like my parents who are both 81 have health issues that may prevent cooking from scratch i.e arthritic hands or like my Mum osteoperosis which gives incredible pain at times and she just doesnt feel up to cooking or she has had a bad night and is feeling tired, then a frozen pie and veg can be a Godsend.

That is not to say that she doesnt still cook but some people of that generation just are not able to,they have not forgotten how and I am sure they are not being lazy.