For me it was a family thing. Mama taught me at a young age how to make oats and cinnamon toast. My Aunt Jemima taught me how to make the best pancakes and cornbread. My Uncle Ben taught me how to make rice and Grandma taught me all about molasses cookies and other sweets.
Lol, funny! I actually learned to cook from my grandmother. Although my mother was an excellent cook too, I just wasnt interested until I got married. Since my grandmother and mother and husband were all born in Hungary, that is the food I learned to cook first. Later I cooked other cuisines and I turned into an excellent cook! After my husband died though I lost interest in cooking....not much fun for one and it's hot in Fresno.
Never learned. Everything I make is either burned, lumpy or greasy. I do canned food pretty well though.
I had so many funny anecdotes in my cooking adventures. My mother is a good cook but she did not teach me maybe because I seldom go to the kitchen except when it is time to eat. When my husband and I moved to an apartment, we bought a one-burner electric stove. That was the start of my crazy adventures that started with cooking brown rice, huh, brown because it was burnt, hahaahaa. Next was the fried egg that was supposed to be sunny side up but automatically turned into scrambled egg. My husband was teasing me that the only dish I could cook was... boiled water. It's nice to think that during those times, my husband and I knew nothing about cooking so our only way was to experiment. And after some time, we were able to cook decent meals for ourselves. Our first learning was how to sautee with crushed garlic and sliced onions, that's the basic step for most Filipino dishes whether meat or fish.
Some of my skills were learned from my mother, then from some friends , cookbooks, trial and error. It takes a little practice.
I watched everyone cook in my home for a long time. I was rather shy and quiet growing up. We had a store and had daily goodies like boiled peanuts, sandwiches, potato salad with tuna which gave it the flavor many families love. So there was cooking everyday and as soon as I could help I helped. Then it became second nature with me for it was a business and we had to pitch in and help. It was first with helping peel the potato for the salad then I moved on to making the boiled peanuts ready for boiling with just the right amount of water for boiling, but family would light the gas stove. My family loved to cook, so I particularly did not have to cook, but help was most needed. Luckily Grandparents love to cook and till I was in middle school I did not have to cook. Today I prefer electric stoves.
A question of necessity, really. My parents died when I was in my early teens, so I had to do some growing up a bit quickly. Most of what I know about cooking came about through trial and error. In that respect, not much has changed...
When I got married, I could make fried chicken and potato salad, hamburgers, and stew. That was it. In the summer, when I was growing up, we had either chicken or hamburger, and salad or boiled potatoes along with it. In the winter, we had soup and stew. We didn't have a kitchen stove, and everything had to be cooked in the electric frying pan or the electric stew pot. So, those were the only things I ever had opportunity to learn to cook. Fortunately, my husband liked fried chicken and potatoes. Eventually, I learned to make other things; but I have never liked cooking, and learning new things to cook and following a recipe holds absolutely no interest for me. For a while I worked at a reform school type of academy, for rich juvenille delinquents. I worked in the kitchen. It was the only job I could find. I hated it. But I learned how to cook more foods. They would ask me if I knew how to make something, and when I said I didn't, they gave me a recipe book that made dinner for a family of four. That was not very helpful, because I was supposed to feed 100 people, and convert that recipe. Since I had no idea what the finished product was even supposed to taste like; I imagine that some of my dinners were a little strange. Hopefully, the kids didn't know what it was supposed to taste like, either.
I always loved cooking from a toddlers age, my mother encouraged me and we sent for free recipe books from various food manufacturers. Most of my cooking revolved around around cake making having a sweet tooth as a youngster. My father was a cook in the army and I was influenced by his cooking as well I guess, so when I got married I did most of the cooking. I still enjoy it sometimes and cook for my daughter when she is on a long work shift, but I do find it more of a chore these days, having become lazier about life in general.