Teaching Cooking

Teaching cooking or anything, for that matter, takes patience and encouragement.  Cooking is not that hard to learn.  If my 6 year old son can learn how to make bacon and eggs and season any dish, then anyone should be able to learn how to cook.

If your student has the right attitude, they can learn anything and pick it up right away.  If your student has the wrong attitude, you will be met with resistance.  Just because you are met with resistance doesn’t mean you still can’t accomplish your goal.

If you don’t feel confident in your cooking abilities, but still want to teach your child how to cook, I encourage you to take a cooking class together.  I live in a very small town and a friend and I got the idea to teach a cooking class at a local bulk foods store.  You wouldn’t believe the response we got.  Many people were interested in learning to cook and some brought their children and grandchildren with them just for fun.

If you know how to cook and want to teach those skills to your child or grandchild, just let them be with you in the kitchen and give them little jobs to do.  The rest of this blog gives you all kinds of ideas for doing this, like having them chop food, season dishes, and stir the pot.

Think about how you learned how to cook.  Did you take a cooking class, watch cooking shows on TV, or learn from a friend or family member?  The best way to learn is in a hands on environment.  Give your pupil little things to do at first until they feel confident doing the little things.  Then show them how to do more and more tasks and gradually let them do those on their own too.  Before you know it your pupil will be able to do what you do.  Be sure to show them that cleaning up is just as much a part of cooking as mixing the ingredients so that you aren’t left with a huge mess in the end.

Teaching cooking doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult.  You just need a pupil and teacher with the right attitude.  You’ll be able to enjoy many hours together creating things in the kitchen to share with others.