My Mother was a very stereo typical United States mid-west housewife cook. She could cook a protein, a vegetable, and a starch and get it on the table. Everything would mostly taste OK, but outside of salt, pepper, and the occasional herb, the flavors were all the same. She did do a couple of things pretty well. Her meatless lasagna was actually really good.

My Dad could cook pancakes and he did the grilling. That’s about it.

My mom is an awesome cook.
By dad used to be pretty good at “improv-dishes”, but his effort had been lacking for the past decade after he died.

I learned how to cook out of self defense…

True story… my sister and I were at our grandparents house and gramma was in the kitchen peeling potatoes.

My sister, six years old, goes “Oh! What are those?”

Me: “Those are ‘potatoes’, that’s where french fries come from…”

Yeah, mom didn’t cook. Dad literally couldn’t make toast. The only reason we had ice cubes was because the recipe had been handed down from father to son…

My mom is a great cook. In fact, as I grow older, I realized that my taste & preferences in food are greatly influenced by her.

My father could cook and well.

My mother relied on shake and bake. She once tried to bake a stew.

Dad is bad. Mum is good.

Do you cook?

My mom was always on weird diets growing up and never let us have real butter and she never seasoned anything. Now my sister and I, adults, have adopted a French-level respect for butter in all things. I am fat but enjoy my food a lot more now that it tastes of food.

My mom wasn’t a great cook, but I didn’t realize that until I grew up and started cooking on my own.

My dad loves to experiment in the kitchen so I take after him more.

And my wife isn’t a great cook so loves that I’m able and willing to.

Both of my parents were inconsistent.

My mom was Italian and made great pastas and a number of other dishes.

My dad had a signature chili dish and a bunch of others that were great.

But most meats either if them cooked (other than poultry) turned out dry and chewy. My dad liked his steak well done, or medium-well at the rarest. To be fair, I’ve since discovered how easy it is to overcook meats. But I’ve also put effort into understanding how moisture can work in various dishes and make great ribs, like the kind you can just pull the bones out of (the secret is to poach them for about 10 minutes before roasting or grilling them).

But growing up like that has left me mostly uninterested in things like steaks and pork chops, even though I know restaurants can do a better job at cooking them.

My dad had a similar dislike for anything boiled because that’s how his mom cooked everything (and yeah, if I stopped after poaching those ribs, I bet they’d be kinda gross).

Well yes because they are dead.

My dad was a pretty good but infrequent cook, my mom was a frequent and uninspired cook (we got spaghetti, chili, grilled cheese, sort of bachelor cooking but with occasional seafood boils too). They were both busy people.

I am a good cook but it’s from years of experimenting and making mistakes. My kids, 3 are good cooks already, 1 is not and none of my step kids are.

But again, I was not a good cook when young. I don’t really understand how one can keep making mistakes without learning from them though. My ex was an absolute terror in the kitchen, worst cook I have ever seen, literally burned water once, and he learned and ended up running a little kitchen in a health food store, very successful at using what was available to make interesting food that sold well so I firmly believe anyone can learn if they want to and if they just keep going.

I am a much better cook than my parents barring two exceptions, my mother is an incredible baker and my dad is a master with an old school barrel smoker (his smoked salmon/trout and ribs are amazing). Outside of those two specialties though neither can cook for shit, I legitimately though I hated pasta and steak until I started cooking for myself at 15.

My mother has been dead for many years, so now I can safely say that she was an awful cook. I still can barely eat vegetables.

My mom is amazing. My dad eats tomato soup out of the can, cold.

I didn’t think so when I was growing up, but when I moved out I realised that it was extremely plain food.

My parents were in their formative years in Britain in the '70s, so they grew up living on tinned food and I guess they just never moved away from that. That said, Sunday dinners were always made fresh - they were the best!