What started you interest in cooking?

Hunger.

Tired of restaurant food and waiting for somebody to bring me something lousy.

when a wee lad, I was around some of the best cooks in the world. My Grandmother, a few aunts, and other farm women. Cooking was a daily thing, and as I love to eat then (as now), I was always hanging around the kitchen.

When I was @ nine my Mom went to "granny" her sister's first kid. Gone two weeks. Pop could make coffee and fry bacon and an egg. I durn near starved to death. Swore that would not happen again. In the two years between my cousins births I learned to cook. First off was biscuits.

When my first wife left me, I learned to cook for myself out of necessity.

I'm still no great cook, but can "fill myself up" (GRIN!)

Virgil B.

I find cooking, + a glass of red wine, the bestest therapy for my stress filled work hours !

Get home, kiss the missus, pour 2 glasses of wine, start preparation, while engaging in conversation with my best friend.

Get it done & everyone is happy (usually) !

Same here!! I also learned to grow, prep, can, preserve and clean correctly. And it all started on an old wood stove at my great Grandmother's home.

All helped me greatly during my restaurant ownership years. BUT that was work. For me cooking is now therapy and a way to get the girls!!

Especially, at the BBQ competitions. Cookers are king!!

same life experience here David. On the farm, up in SW Virginia, we were self sufficient for the most part. Hogs, cattle, garden, gathering, canning and preserving, Virginia cured hams......
Yep, wood stove in my early days as well. Tubs of honey, a room full of shelves, stacked high with last year's bounty.

Most of my working career was owning or managing restaurants. Never went to cooking school, but really did not need to. I sure trained a boat load of line cooks though.

Older I get, the less I cook. Partly because much of the time it's just me, and cooking for one is a pain. Age, aches and pains also figure in. Still love to make stuff though. Made a Spice/Pumpkin cake yesterday, with cream cheese icing. Just wanted something sweet to chew on while reading.

I was always finding myself hungry as a single digit aged kid. Mom was/is a great cook but was also a working mother of 3 boys. I think I was 7 when I fried my first egg[unbeknownst to anyone else in the family] and it was on!

I was homeschooled until High School and we didn't have much money, so we raised/made pretty much everything we ate. Being home every day gave me a lot of time in the kitchen with mom and grandmas. I started making sausage with my grandparents around 6 years old, skinning deer on my own while dad was at work by 8, and baking bread and buns every week by 9. I guess it was an informal "home-ec" class. At the time I just saw it as chores but it sure came in handy later in life.

SS

Control. I get what I want, the way I want it. Kinda like handloading.

Plus, Dad was the cook, and he's been my hero since I could crawl. Cooking, shooting, hunting... I enjoy most of the same things that he does.

FC

When I was a wee lad I was enlisted to help my sister when she'd cook, that was the start. That and a few cooking shows, Friedman Paul Erhardt (Chef Tell) and Martin Yan set the hook.

That and I've always enjoyed eating. My mom was a very basic simple cook, but we'd eat out a couple times a year at nice restaurants which gave me an education on good food. You gotta eat, so might as well eat well.

Having the means to obtain some decent primary ingredients is also a decent motivator.









They don't cook themselves...

As my friend Ingwe would say;

YOU SUCK !

Same here Sam,my grandma and mom laid the ground work and then I ran with it.....Always figured if I could cook that would be one less thing to find in a woman,she could have other "skills"

Actually wanted to go to the American Culinary Institute but my mom said "I'm not sending you to private school to be a cook"

My father taught me to cook. He thought every man should be able to provide a good meal for others and himself.

Me too. I even entered the 25k Apple Pie contest.

I've debated culinary school as well as opening a restaurant. I figured if I did it as a profession I'd hate it.

With a mother, grandmother and good friend for inspiration, it became my favorite hobby.

And you would be correct. I loved it for many years but as the days grew long I washed more dishes than the dishwasher.

Also, the catering...both corporate and social really started to take it's toll on me. BUT I still loved it. Just grew old.

No regrets either way.

At this point a simple pub would be fun!!

Interested as a wee lad in knowing how to cook, mother, aunt and grandmother got me started. In school my cousin and I asked to go to the home ec class to learn even more cooking skills. The principal would not allow it (you also had to sew in home ec) we said wouldn't hurt us.

But no go, finally they created an "institutional cooking for boys" class. They had to add more classes because of all the boys enrolling.

I started outside on my round charcoal grill.....it wasn't even a Weber...just a Kmart special. I switched jobs to one that involved extensive travel and ate in restaurants 3 times a day for 5-6 days a week. I started to crave the simple MN hot dish my mom used to make so I started with that. It is also a way i can relax and not have to think about other "stuff"

My parents were both Italian speaking zero to little English until 3rd or 4th grade. Need I say more?

This is a very good thread!!!

My story matches many others. Always loved to be in the kitchen with mom and both grandmothers, or out at the grill with the "men".

Omelets, hash browns, sausage/bacon by seven, five course Chinese by twelve, burgers, steaks, chicken by high school.

Okie and Texas grandmothers sure could feed a household!

Combine all that and a love for cooking shows. Julia, Yan, Frugal Gourmet Jeff Smith ( later, frugal fondler ), anything PBS had on.

An employers friend once asked me why I was mechanic and not a chef. Told him I used to like working on cars, I still liked to cook.

My very first job was cracking eggs for a mom and pop pasta shop.

Id go in and crack 210 dozen eggs, wash dishes, and do the floors. A bit later on I got to run the pasta machines making different noodles and stuffed pastas. Making sauces, fillings, sausages, etc...

It was a great job with great people.

I figure about the only thing that might be "fun" would be a food truck and just do lunches. Prep work, mad rush for ~ 1 1/2 hours then clean up.

I'm thinking a you tube cooking channel would be more my pace.

I spent the better part of my adult life owning and/or managing restaurants.
Good times, but hard work. After selling the last one, there is no way I'd go back to that life.
Did help my Son get another restaurant started this year, and it's doing well. Still do some consulting when asked. Menu fixes, recipe tweeks, things like that.