how old when you learned to cook

I could bake bread, make buns and peppermint creams when i was 3 years old.
I used to go to my nans every day and her and my aunty Lucy were always baking.
I still prefer the bread making by hand no and i am 38.

My mum taught me to bake from a very early age and I still love it. I only really learned to cook, however, when I got married and had my own kitchen. It seemed like too much hard work when I was at home -that was my problem, not the way I was taught.

I have taught my own children to bake and cook, mainly from the point of view that it is an important life skill. They also clean their rooms every week. We're not so hot on them doing the washing or mending but maybe I should teach them. DS learns DIY from helping his Dad but DD doesn't take kindly to being shown how to use the sewing machine.

Like mother like daughter eh?

Never thought about this before really. I can't remember a time when I didn't bake.

Remember going to grans and her getting the big glass flour jars out, red top for plain, blue top for self raising. She told me I had inherited her touch with pastry .

Mum worried about us using the cooker though so didn't do much other than toast or tea till school lessons at 11.

DD1 loves baking and cooking. At 3 I found her in the kitchen trying to make cake mix. She had put 3 eggs (cleanly cracked) butter, flour and sugar in a bowl and mixed it up.
It seemed a bit runny so to avoid wasting the ingredients I added some more flour and baked it anyway. It was really nice!!!! So she must have measured pretty well by eye lol.

Spent a lovely day at half term with DD1 (age 6) and DD2 (aged 18 months) stood on stools making biscuits and cakes, very messy but soooooo funny. Its moments like that that make me feel really mumsy somehow rofl.

ali x

Have always cooked as my late Mum was a canny wee scots lady who knew the value of a bawbie.
My youngest granddaughter has never wanted to learn but recently got a job in a cafe for the summer before going to college, and now all we hear is 'Oh I made this at work' ,or 'my boss showed me how to do that' So I'm really pleased and hope her boss keeps up the good work Cooking is a skill that can be learned as well as any other skill.I once learned how to tile my downstairs loo when my late husband was working in Africa and only came home on leave about twice a year.I had a book from the library in one hand and a trowel in the other .Shot myself in the foot doing that though, as when he came home he said that as I had made such a good job of papering,painting and tiling I had better carry on as it was better than he could do it lol
I am always suprised at how few people can actually cook a 'proper ' meal though considering the amount of food programmes on t.v. and the availability of fresh food .When I was little everything was rationed, so you had to streeetch things out a bit to go round.
My Mum, bless her, could make one banana do the job of four with a bit of imagination

My widowed gran moved in with us when I was about 4, and took over the kitchen. My grandparents had run a bakery, and she'd also been a cook/housekeeper, so I learnt a lot from watching her - although it was very much "her" kitchen, so you got in her way at your peril.

I must have learnt to make soda bread at about 6 years old. Since we had a lot of country relatives, I also picked up things like gutting fish, preparing some game (mainly pigeons..) which haven't been a lot of use since!

I dropped out of home economics (in my day, domestic science..) after one year at grammar school and did Latin instead, the food I was learning to prepare at home was much more interesting!