How Intellectual is cooking?

DrivingsCool

How Intellectual is cooking?

Ask any guy or girl in their late 20s, early 30's what's their favourite food and they will list off a long line of tasty and tantelising dishes!
Ask how many they cooked, and they will frown and lie to cooking half!

Our conservative generation that born the 1970's and early 80's have lived a fantastic life especially in our capital as restaurants and cheaper eateries waved on to the city streets leaving mums old cooking habits behind and the dreaded frozen micro meal.

Recently I noticed in a local school advertising night classes,
a topic which you can receive a fetac qualification is cooking!
Have we become so engrossed in our materialistic and motorway lives that now you need a degree to cook!?

As job losses soar and dole que's become longer, how long will it take us to get back to reality? Thats if you, like me, see bacon and cabbage as life and not as something your granny ate!

CJhaughey

DrivingsCool wrote: »

How Intellectual is cooking?

Ask any guy or girl in their late 20s, early 30's what's their favourite food and they will list off a long line of tasty and tantelising dishes!
Ask how many they cooked, and they will frown and lie to cooking half!

Our conservative generation that born the 1970's and early 80's have lived a fantastic life especially in our capital as restaurants and cheaper eateries waved on to the city streets leaving mums old cooking habits behind and the dreaded frozen micro meal.

Recently I noticed in a local school advertising night classes,
a topic which you can receive a fetac qualification is cooking!
Have we become so engrossed in our materialistic and motorway lives that now you need a degree to cook!?

As job losses soar and dole que's become longer, how long will it take us to get back to reality? Thats if you, like me, see bacon and cabbage as life and not as something your granny ate!

I can't make sense of a lot of your post, however the FETAC award for cooking probably relates to cooking as a profession.
Now you may be happy with Bacon and Cabbage but not everyone that frequents a Bistro would be happy to be served Boiled Pigs ass and cabbage
Some might demand other cooking techniques as well:)
Things like using a blowtorch on Créme Brulees to caramelise the sugar etc


The FETAC course most likely trains an individual to not only cook but also use safe food handling techniques (HAACP).
This may be old news to some but not everyone grew up in a house that cooked.
A FETAC award is not a degree.

Mellor

As somebody in their early 20s, living away from ireland, I am often shocked at how bad some people are in the kitchen. I am pretty good in the kitchen, but if I was going to work in a professional kitchen, I'd probably do the above course.

OP, I think you didn't understand the point of the fetac course, it doesn't teach you how to cook dinner for the family, it teaches you to cook for others.

The Sweeper

You think you can cook.

Then someone gives you Larousse Gastronomique as a gift.

And you realise you are but a child, playing with a pebble on the beach, etc. etc.

Eoineo

It seems there's a return to basic cookery skills which has come with the recession. A lack of funds means that people are more inclined to entertain at home and want to make the most out of their budget.

A FETAC qualification is hardly a degree. FETAC recognises that you have achieved a standard. It's likely that the course is similar to that of an old Home Ec class. What's important is that a course having a FETAC cert at the end gives students confidence in the course and the skills that they are going to learn.

Personally I learnt more at my grandmother's & mother's knee (so to speak) than I could ever learn in a cookery class but I know that I'm very lucky to have had that experience. Not everyone has had that though. A relative of mine has her cookery skills fondly remembered as the ability to "burn water".

restaurants

Ad one who went to school in the days of the 3 R's, I would love to see basic cooking as a subject at junior level.
Reading and writing, etc are very important and I believe it is still compulsory to get a basic to get a basic education.
As one who grew up in a large family, I learned how to cook at an early age, but I see lots of people my age who cannot boil an egg.
Surely, this is an important basic skill.

Dizzyblonde

I learnt to cook at home with my mother, and now I've been cooking for my family for 27 years. I believe you're only a good cook if the people you're cooking for love your cooking - be they family, friends, or the public if you're in business.
As a nation we've become much more adventurous with regard to food and that's wonderful, but it would be a shame to let traditional recipes get lost in our quest for the new.

olaola

It's all about timing and figuring out how things will turn out. And a lot of people just can't get their head around it. My husband, who would be fairly smart in other realms completely falls apart at the thought of cooking. He cannot grasp the concept of starting things at different times so they'll all come together at the end. I have to say, I don't understand why he can't understand. Maybe he's just putting it on to make sure I do all the cooking?

Working in a professional kitchen involves mega-multitasking, while under pressure to keep things on time and to a standard.