Indeed, for the beginner, even the easiest recipes are full of subjective or unclear language, such as “desired consistency”. It was by paying attention that I learned what corners I could and couldn’t cut. For example: it’s important that aubergines are “very finely” sliced, but you can usually fudge onions – and always save the pasta water. Resist the leftovers trap According to a 2014 YouGov survey of 10,000 Britons, one of the largest ever conducted about food, 10% of us cannot cook a thing – equating to 5 million people. A smaller survey in 2018 found that 25% of respondents could only make three dishes (including boiled egg and soldiers, and porridge). Relying on leftovers is often a practical necessity if you’re cooking for yourself, but if you didn’t quite pull off the recipe, leftovers taste of failure – and if you did, you may not want to repeat it once you’ve eaten it three nights in a row. Can't Cook, Won't Cook - BBC One London - 2 January 1996". BBC Genome Project . Retrieved 6 June 2020. Since my kitchen awakening, however, I have had friends for dinner once or twice a week. I rarely make anything fancy – just a bowl of stew or pasta, or daal eaten on our laps on the sofa; delicious and nourishing – but this is something I would not have thought I’d ever be comfortable doing.

Self-help guru and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss surveyed more than 100,000 of his (mostly male) Facebook fans to discover what turned them off cooking and found an array of reasons: too many ingredients or tools, intimidating skills, different dishes finishing at different times, standing at the stove, food waste. I had accepted my limitations in the kitchen – then, last year, something changed. Now, after just a few mental shifts, I would go so far as to say that I am pretty good at cooking. No one is more surprised than me, except maybe friends who I have cooked for. For most people, the below will be obvious. For the raccoons: read on. Investigate your resistance Iyer, who describes herself as “not really a leftovers gal”, looks for ways to make them into a different meal – for instance, by turning odds and ends into a rissole. Can't Cook, Won't Cook - BBC One London - 20 November 1995". BBC Genome Project . Retrieved 6 June 2020. More important is maintaining a rhythm. Where I used to cook once and eat it night after night, I now freeze the other portions or add an element I’ve made from scratch, so as not to break my cooking streak.Either way, it is important to find a source that resonates with you. Cooks who wrote lyrically of textures and smells, or who saw every meal as a social celebration, actually reaffirmed my view that I wasn’t refined or gregarious enough to enjoy cooking. Practising my cooking felt a bit like practising my French with a native speaker who is also fluent in English: insisting on imposing my incompetence on others, at the expense of everyone’s enjoyment. Can't Cook, Won't Cook - BBC One London - 5 February 1996". BBC Genome Project . Retrieved 6 June 2020. Seeing my staples, when I look in the fridge or cupboard, means I feel more capable and inspired – and I would not have known what they were had I not been forced to find out.

It is through this freestyling that you start to develop your own instincts, says Guardian writer Felicity Cloake. “My advice is to concentrate on a handful of dishes you know you like until you can make them well, and gradually adapt them to make them your own.” Can't Cook, Won't Cook - BBC One London - 4 June 1997". BBC Genome Project . Retrieved 6 June 2020. After four months of living alone, I have learned that I cannot be without Greek yoghurt, kale, cannellini beans, peanut butter, sour cream, chilli flakes, spinach and frozen chapati breads.

Can't Cook, Won't Cook - BBC One London - 22 December 1995". BBC Genome Project . Retrieved 6 June 2020.

Part of scaling up in the kitchen, Johansen suggests, is finding “like-minded” people to cook for, who are less concerned about what’s on the menu than enjoying each other’s company. “People are generally very grateful to be fed,” she says. If the recipe calls for 45 minutes in the oven, but it looks done to you after 30 minutes, try it. If you really like garlic, double the suggested cloves and see. “It’s only through trial and error that you’ll work out how to make a dish perfect for your taste.” With attitudes to food shaped in childhood, these retrograde ideas can be insidious. The novelist Hanya Yanagihara recently said that she “deliberately never learned” to cook as a teenager for fear of being trapped in the domestic sphere; I suspect my own historical resistance was similar. But it is exhilarating to realise that your identity is not fixed. Start by deciding that you can cook, “then prove it to yourself with small wins”, writes Clear.On the odd occasion that my flatmate and I threw dinner parties, the stress of preparation, timing and the implicit expectation to impress prevented me from fully enjoying the evening. And that was with my flatmate doing nearly all the cooking. I think we always underestimate our capacity for change,” says Signe Johansen, author of Solo: The Joy of Cooking for One. “But it is life-affirming to think: ‘I’m capable of adapting and evolving.’” Raise the stakes Whenever I tried to motivate myself to cook, I’d find a recipe that excited me, then mess it up and be discouraged from trying again. Starting out, small wins are vital.