What makes a 'good' cook?

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mortuseon_
mortuseon_ Posts: 257 Member
edited March 2018 in Food and Nutrition
I was skimming through the recent thread about meal prep services (Blue Apron, HelloFresh etc) and saw a lot of people describing themselves as a 'decent cook' or a 'good cook'. It struck me that I'd have no idea where to place myself on such a scale. I can follow recipes, sometimes make my own meals up, and have a vague awareness of different flavour profiles (e.g. I can tell if the dish needs some acidic brightness) and cooking techniques (I can deglaze a pan to make a sauce). I still don't know if I'd call myself a good cook, though. So I wanted to put it to you - what characteristics do you think make a good cook, and what skills could be learned to make a good cook into a great one?
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Replies

  • Crafty_camper123
    Crafty_camper123 Posts: 1,440 Member
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    I think the ability to follow recipes and apply what you learn over the years of cooking is what puts someone on the good cook scale. Bonus points if you don't have to reference a recipe every time you cook something and it comes out tasting great. What puts someone on the bad end of the scale? Inexperience combined with not actually reading through the recipe. "Winging it" when you definitely should not be winging it, such as trying a new technique you've never done before, or creating something you have little experience with. (This is how we get those great "Nailed it" Pinterest posts) Learning from these experiences and failures is what brings your cooking skills up into the good or great category though.
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,741 Member
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    JeromeBarry1 wrote: »
    "follow recipes" = decent cook.
    The other things you say of yourself put you in the "good cook" range. Creativity is the difference.

    I agree with this, completely. I'm a decent cook, not a good cook. My husband is a good (excellent) cook. He sounds more like you, OP.

    For years I believed myself to be a good cook simply because people RAVED about my cooking...really though, it was because I mostly fed my ex's bachelor friends and I made food that was always covered in cheese & butter & creamy sauces, so well, yeah...they wanted thirds. I'm just mediocre.

    I do think with baking you can be a good baker without having any special knack or skills, just sticking to solid recipes. I'd call myself a pretty good baker because my cookies, pies, cakes, and fresh bread all turn out great. But I'm clueless without a recipe when it comes to cooking. I can't make a from-scratch soup that has any pizzazz whatsoever.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited March 2018
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    Practice and experience and making failures and learning from them. I started cooking at age 9 (I'm 53 now). I cook 5/6 days a week and my wife and I are dairy/gluten free, mostly whole food, plant based. I've had to change my cooking style several times over the years. My wife used to get embarrassed when we'd go to a dinner and I'd make something and all the women would be asking me for recipes, now she laughs and takes pride in it! I love to cook for her! I won her heart in the kitchen, so why not continue that?

    It's just practice, knowing flavors, cutting/prepping fast and confidence after a long time. I still have a flop occasionally but rarely (oh, and my wife is brutally honest so when it's really good or really bad, there's no guessing). Many of the things I make are just winging it.

    Once you learn flavor profiles, cook with lots of different ingredients and learn basic techniques, it's really not that hard. My wife says all the time "it's a gift" but I just really enjoy it and do it to relax and unwind after work. I'm lucky in that I run a business from home and can walk downstairs and cook a meal in the time that most are driving to get home from work.

    My progress from my 30's to now as a cook is light years ahead. It's just being open to new flavors and constantly refining your knife skills and timing is SO important in cooking. Having an idea of how long everything takes to cook takes years of experience.
  • RadishEater
    RadishEater Posts: 470 Member
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    Being able to recognize what would be a good new recipe or a bland recipe.

    Even if you miss a step or misread something in a recipe, being able to fix the recipe through intuition
  • HappyKat5
    HappyKat5 Posts: 369 Member
    edited March 2018
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    For the record, I’m admitting, I’m a bad cook.
    I know this deep down but, I will try to mimic a Bobby Flay recipe in a heartbeat. I usually end up spending most of my time Googling measurements and “What in the hell is aioli?” See I know that BECAUSE of Bobby Flay...and yet, don’t have ANY of the ingredients to make it. So, I think a good cook is one that thinks ahead, looks at the recipe, then gets the stuff from the store, turns on a YouTube video to watch how to make it (and has to take pauses) makes it, and serves it with a hope that no one has food poisoning.
    I think a GREAT cook already knows all that stuff (and with a full spice rack) but comes to the table confident and knowing the dish will taste good.
    I think that some of the delivery services definitely give meals that suit you because you always have to take a short quiz. They know you can’t boil water given your answers. So, I think they’re good in a way because they can give some people a push to start cooking for themselves or others at home or bad, because they make people think they can cook really great because they followed a 3 ingredient recipe.
    I hope I didn’t offend anyone.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    For me good cook = don't need recipes, can creatively work with whatever ingredients are available (within reason), and the outcome tastes good. You understand what goes with what and how to improve flavor (adding acidity or the like), and will use seasoning/herbs in a tasty way, typically. You also can cook pretty efficiently and without it taking longer than the particular dish actually takes and will generally not be stressed about cooking (unless cooking for someone really important or trying something new, maybe).

    When I say I'm a good cook, I mean I think my food normally tastes good, but also that I'm a confident cook and able to figure out what to do with ingredients without needing a recipe (although I might look one up for ideas or if doing something I haven't before).
  • Zodikosis
    Zodikosis Posts: 149 Member
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    I will add to this conversation that, like most things, being a good cook takes lots of practice. Very few people (dare I say no one) is born a good cook. Based on what others have described as a "decent" cook and a good cook, the difference is experience levels. I started cooking in high school and I am self-taught. I spent many years relying heavily on recipes and googling basic kitchen skills such as proper knife technique before I felt comfortable enough to start moving away from established recipes and started developing my own. I'm now known among my friends as the good cook and feel very comfortable making something delicious without a recipe.

    I firmly believe that almost anybody who wants to put in the time and effort can eventually become a good home cook, provided they're not an under-taster, unadventurous, nor easily frustrated/dissuaded by failure. Becoming a professional is a whole other level, but that's mostly mastering speed/organization, which imho is not really that important to actually producing great-tasting food at home.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
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    Anybody can cook with enough practice since the quality of cooking ultimately rests on execution. You can have the creativity/cooking talent of a rock and still be a good cook if you know how to properly execute a recipe.

    If you really want to become a good cook, focus on learning techniques over specific recipes.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
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    Cooking is applied chemistry. While anyone (almost anyone) can simply follow directions and produce an end product, skill and experience are going to show the difference between a new aspiring cook and an award winning Chef.

    Ever just dump in ingredients and go off recipe? Try it sometime in a small batch and taste the result - there's a reason to the order of ingredients and the reaction to compounds interacting with one another produces wild differences.

    I think back to learning to bake bread with my Grandma and while I was working off the same recipe card it is difficult to put into words "desired consistency", but decades of experience and knowing how her oven performs, her pans heat up, the muscle memory of what well kneaded dough feels like.... These things you have to learn through doing.

    "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." - Vince Lombardi
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
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    My husband is a highly trained chef. He can't cook any more but when he did he would read cookbooks for ideas and then just go make the dish without ever looking at the recipe again. It was pretty amazing to watch (and eat!). Now that I do all the cooking he will sometimes supervise, which isn't near as much fun as him doing the cooking. He could throw together the most amazing dishes.

    I'd say I'm a pretty good cook - I know what spices to add, etc. But I'm nowhere near as good as he is.
  • Snowflake1968
    Snowflake1968 Posts: 6,815 Member
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    You sound like a good cook to me. I'm a "get the job done" type cook. I'll fill your belly, but if you're looking for something other than the basics you better go out to eat. I have to follow a recipe to the letter, I don't know what spices and flavours go together and would never dream of making my own recipe! I was told once that it's because I'm such a fussy eater I don't know what flavours do go together, not sure if that's the reason or not, but I'll take it.
  • Gisel2015
    Gisel2015 Posts: 4,151 Member
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    I don't bake and I don't follow on-line recipes. I may read them and then do my own thing. I don't like to cook so any recipe that has more than five ingredients, specially something that I will not use very often, is totally disregarded. I don't watch cooking shows.

    I do have in MFP my own recipes, but that is for the convenience of the ingredients, calories and macros. And they get modified all the time.

    My parents were both good cooks; my mother in law was a great cook and a baker, and so was her sister (both took cooking classes and loved to cook). I have a lot of friends that are very good cooks so I am always a little bit intimidated about their cooking skills compared to mine, but I am not interested in improving.

    My husband likes my cooking, he thinks that I mix flavors and seasoning very well. But he has a strong stomach and he is not a picky eater. I am grateful for that. I don't consider myself a good cook or a decent one. I just cook healthy meals. I cook because I have to, and I have been doing it for 55 years :s. It doesn't get any easier for me.
  • TheRoadDog
    TheRoadDog Posts: 11,788 Member
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    I love to cook. Everything about it. From designing a meal or special event. Planning it. Shopping. Prepping. Preparing it. I consider myself a good cook. Those that I cook for, love my cooking. That's why I do it. To show the people important to me that I care for them. It's one of the few ways I can be creative.
  • midlomel1971
    midlomel1971 Posts: 1,283 Member
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    To me it's someone who can go into a fridge or pantry and cook up something fabulous with whatever they stumble upon. I am not this person. I need a very detailed recipe with the exact ingredients and even then, it's 50/50.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
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    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Cooking is applied chemistry. While anyone (almost anyone) can simply follow directions and produce an end product, skill and experience are going to show the difference between a new aspiring cook and an award winning Chef.

    Ever just dump in ingredients and go off recipe? Try it sometime in a small batch and taste the result - there's a reason to the order of ingredients and the reaction to compounds interacting with one another produces wild differences.

    I think back to learning to bake bread with my Grandma and while I was working off the same recipe card it is difficult to put into words "desired consistency", but decades of experience and knowing how her oven performs, her pans heat up, the muscle memory of what well kneaded dough feels like.... These things you have to learn through doing.

    "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." - Vince Lombardi

    I think of chemistry as baking. I'm a very, very good home cook. Baker?? Not so much! Too exacting for me. My wife is a terrible cook but excellent baker if given a recipe! She'll do things like use a knife to level off flour!! Me, no thank you! Hate that exacting stuff.

    I think you'll find a lot of good home cooks that don't have the patience for baking and a lot of bakers that aren't necessarily great cooks.
  • saragd012
    saragd012 Posts: 693 Member
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    I also absolutely love to cook, especially to cook for people I care about, and I'm that host that has to triple check that you're completely satisfied and offer several more options "just in case". I don't generally use recipes, but I love reading them for inspiration. My friends and family have told me I am a great cook. I plan days, sometimes weeks, out what I am going to make for people. I love to go grocery shopping, and will happily tweak my plans if I see something at the market that I feel could make my plans even better, it's my favorite way to show my love.

    I however am NOT a good baker. Mostly because of the aforementioned aversion to following recipes. So I think being a great cook is knowing how flavors and textures will work together, and being able to get creative with those different profiles. Being a good baker is following detailed instructions to the letter, or being exceptional at chemistry. I'm always unbelievably impressed by those who can do both, but unfortunately my wife knows that dinner will be wonderful, but dessert will most likely be half cooked or completely flat. :s
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited March 2018
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    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Cooking is applied chemistry. While anyone (almost anyone) can simply follow directions and produce an end product, skill and experience are going to show the difference between a new aspiring cook and an award winning Chef.

    Ever just dump in ingredients and go off recipe? Try it sometime in a small batch and taste the result - there's a reason to the order of ingredients and the reaction to compounds interacting with one another produces wild differences.

    I think back to learning to bake bread with my Grandma and while I was working off the same recipe card it is difficult to put into words "desired consistency", but decades of experience and knowing how her oven performs, her pans heat up, the muscle memory of what well kneaded dough feels like.... These things you have to learn through doing.

    "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." - Vince Lombardi

    I think of chemistry as baking. I'm a very, very good home cook. Baker?? Not so much! Too exacting for me. My wife is a terrible cook but excellent baker if given a recipe! She'll do things like use a knife to level off flour!! Me, no thank you! Hate that exacting stuff.

    I think you'll find a lot of good home cooks that don't have the patience for baking and a lot of bakers that aren't necessarily great cooks.

    Yeah, this rings true to me. I like the idea of baking, and used to bake bread sometimes and tried to perfect my pie crust, but I only very rarely enjoy it. My preference is grab some ingredients, wing it, and enjoy the ability to be much more loosey-goosey that you get with cooking. (As stated upthread, I dislike following recipes, sucks the fun out of cooking for me, so this makes sense.)

    It worked out pretty well, since I didn't feel sad at all when I basically quit baking when I started MFP. I'll still make a dessert for a major holiday if people are coming over, but if someone else offers to make dessert (and people seem to want to make that course), I don't complain. I don't want to lose my pie making skills, but beyond that I don't care. I like the British Baking Show, but never has it inspired me to want to pick up baking again -- I just think, jeez, what a pain. ;-)

    And I HATE trying to decorate. One reason I immensely prefer pie to cake, although it's also just a taste preference.

    I do keep thinking I might do bread again -- I do make pizza crust sometimes, and I enjoy kneading (and fresh bread).

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