Learning to cook means starting with the basics. When it comes to cooking, it is important to keep in mind that everyone started somewhere. I don’t know of a single person who was born with a wooden spoon and ready to cook up a storm. There is a fair amount of learning involved to become a great cook and even then, there is always room for improvement.
Not only do you need to start with the basics when it comes to learning to cook, you almost need to start again when learning to cook a new type of cuisine such as Chinese, Thai, or Indian food.
This is why at any time while you are still learning to cook, there is always someone, somewhere that is better or worse at cooking than you. Even the best cooks have bad days when it comes to cooking, and are also continuosly learning.
Many people cook for different reasons. Some cook just to eat and survive, some actually enjoy the process of cooking, and some cook to please others and show off their skills. Sometimes people will cook during times of emotional upheaval and others cook out of complete boredom.
Whatever your reason for cooking or learning to cook you should always begin with the basics.
Cooking Terminology
The first thing you will need to know is the different cooking terms used in many recipes. There is a lot of different terminology used out there. The “French” language is often used and is the most common. For example ‘a bouquet garni’ is a French term and means a bundle of herbs tied together using string or traditionally, Leeks.
These terms can mean the difference in recipe success or failure. There should be a section in most good cookbooks that explains the different definitions for unfamiliar terms. If you aren’t sure what is meant by ‘Slicing Julienne’, Google “cooking terminolgy” and you will find many lists with everything you need to know.
Keep It Simple
Another thing to consider is when it comes to the basics is to try simpler recipes for a while and then experiment with your more complex recipes. Most recipes will have a little note about their degree of difficulty and you can read through the recipe to see whether or not it is something you are interested in preparing or confident that you can prepare. Remember Rome wasn’t built in a day and it will take quite some time to build a reliable ‘repertoire’ of recipes to work into your meal planning rotation.
You will also discover as your experience and confidence grows, that you will find yourself more and more often improvising as you go and adjusting certain recipes to meet your personal preferences. If you like more or less of an ingredient, or you want to make a recipe with a little more spice, you can make simple adjustments along the way in order to achieve this. In other words you will, in time, create recipes of your very own. And that is something you won’t necessarily learn at the beginning with basic cooking skills, but you will never learn it if you don’t master those basic cooking skills first.
The good news is that once you’ve learnt the basics of cooking, it is unlikely that you will ever need to re-learn them. This means that you can constantly build up and expand your cooking skills. As you learn new recipes and improve your culinary skills and talents you will discover that preparing your own meals from scratch is so much more rewarding than preparing prepackaged meals that are purchased from the shelves of your local supermarkets.
