SuppliedI don’t know when it happened, but somewhere over the last couple of generations, not knowing how to cook became cool. It’s one of the hallmarks of being a successful television character (I’m looking at you Scandal, and West Wing).
Culinary incompetence shouldn’t be a mark of pride. Every time I bring this topic up with friends, the three same excuses always arise. Cooking is too complex, they don’t have time, and they don’t have the money. All three of these reasons have the same common ingredient. Bullshit.
Why? Because cooking is easy.
It’s so easy that there are whole toy lines dedicated to it. The easy-bake oven is marketed towards children but I wouldn’t be surprised if some adults couldn’t figure it out. Follow the instructions printed on the back of the box and that’s it.
It’s so easy that there’s an entire industry built around writing down how easy it is. Books and entire sections of books are dedicated to breaking down processes into simple and easy-to-follow steps for any type of food you could imagine. Guy Fieri, the living embodiment of gluttony, the caricature that North Korea could use to represent the decadent west, has his own cook book. If that walking heart blockage can write a book then you should be able to follow the instructions, which generally boil down to adding heat, and cutting stuff up.
People who say they don’t have time have poor time management. If you have time to binge-watch The Bachelor, or can justify spending half a day playing League of Legends, or if you have time to sit on Snapchat, or complain on Facebook about how hungry you are, then you have time to learn how to cook.
You say you don’t have the money. Again. Lies. If you are a university student, then more often than not, you can’t afford not to cook. It’s one thing if you’re a yuppie with a demanding career, it’s another thing if you’re a student who has to scrimp and save by February to pay rent and survive until the spring. When money is tight then all it takes is a couple of keystrokes to access a dozen websites that tell you what you can cook for cheap.
Cooking actually couldn’t be any easier. If the instructions can fit on the side of a box then you can figure out how to do it. Just because you’ve always relied on someone else to hold your hand doesn’t mean that you have to keep doing so.
