Cooking, like any skill, has nothing innately to do with one's gender or queerness/lack thereof. Societal factors sometimes dictate that 'straight men' are not taught how to cook, because it is seen as 'women's work.' It also seems to be a symptom of modern society in which people have largely given over the task of cooking for and feeding themselves and their families to major corporations. I was raised in a somewhat traditional southern culture, but there was still a heavy emphasis on cooking from BOTH of my parents. I watched them and began helping them in the kitchen as soon as I was old enough to walk. I did not realize until much later that so many other kids, even in my own town, did not have the benefit of such education. I'm not saying everyone needs to be a super chef, but the ability to cook basic meals for oneself is an invaluable life skill that everyone should learn.

I (female, not that it matters much) learned to cook by sitting on my grandmother's kitchen counter, with my feet in the sink playing in the water when I was 2. I watched her and my aunt cook and learned a lot, even though they never let me cook with them as I aged. Today, I have a 12 yo son, who is on the autism spectrum that's been in the kitchen cooking with me since he was 4. I'm disabled, my whole spine is coated in arthritis, I can't stand up for long. I can't even tell you how many times he's come in from his room saying "Mom, you're hurting too bad, I'm cooking dinner tonight." He's great with the George Foreman grill or anything in the microwave, he's still hesitant with the oven as he's given himself a few very minor burns pulling food out, but darn he tries. On days that I can stand longer, we cook together, he loves being "navigator" meaning he reads out the recipe while we both work in the kitchen, and he's learned to cut up all the veggies, which is his favorite task.

Getting pretty frustrated at these people who seem to think masculinity = poor cooking skills

I had a friend from Nigeria. He was young, but rich, and already had two wives. When he came to uni he left them behind. After two days he turned to the rest of us housemates tearfully and begged us to feed him. Turns out he had never been food shopping in his life and wasn't even allowed in the Kitchen in his own house (exclusive women's space), let alone to cook. He took to it well and was cooking for us before long, although he was always very confused by the concept/point of toast.

My ex didn't know how to boil water until I taught him; his mom didn't know how to cook, so he grew up on cereal, frozen pizza and ham sandwiches. A 25yo friend of mine wants me to teach her to cook. It's not their fault... My son is 11 and took a cooking class over the summer so he knows the basics. I also have taught him a few simple recipes and we have decided that one night a week he is going to pick a meal and learn how to make it with me so he will have the skills in the kitchen to make himself a good meal. And thankfully now I'm with someone who is a wonderful cook so that's something we do together.

It's not just cooking. Laundry. House cleaning. I mean, it's epic what people aren't taught by their parents. Or if they hate doing it, they just don't bother to take care with it. E.g., my MIL boils everything, regardless of what it is, for 5-10 minutes. Anything uncooked after that, oh well, eat it, it's on your plate. The end. (Or, y'know, the beginning of food poisoning in some cases....)

My first wife didn't learn much cooking growing up as her mom could barely make boxed dishes and her dad could only grill a burger. One time she put a pan of water on the stove to make tea but forgot about it. A few hours later, I come home and find the pan on the stove about half full of brownish water. Either the water had condensed to the point where things precipitated out or some metals from the cheap pot had leached into the water, maybe both. The effect was it looked like she managed to burn water.

I've never encountered someone who was a bigger cooking failure than me. I almost burned the house down while trying to make popcorn, and once managed to make a pastry from a national cuisine (which would usually melt in mouth) rock hard, and some other things, but hey, I'm still alive. I've encountered more 'strange combo' eating failures, eating pasta or a pie also from national cuisine (dough filled with meat, cottahe cheese or vegetables) with bread.

I have had MANY cooking disasters. I made a cottage pie that was more like cottage soup. I have burnt a roast chicken on the outside whilst it was raw in the middle, I have burnt asparagus because I forgot to put water in the pot and that is not even half of my disasters. I am 33 and still don't know how to cook a perfectly boiled egg.

funny stuff

My sister in law blonde of course, had me go to the supermarket when she married my brother who was a good cook. We went up and down every aisle some 2x I asked her what was she looking for, she said SCRATCH, I said come on and we headed over to the Cleanser aisle and looked high and low for SCRATCH. I said well you could use comet etc, she said what, I said well you wanted SCRATCH...She said no your brother always said your mom cooked from SCRATCH. She had us all come over for a spaghetti dinner and we were all so hungry, she had a nice salad on the table and the pasta was broken in half, served raw with RAGU right from the jar on top, not heated and pasteurized american cheese food for the cheese. We all left and went to Dennys, incluing my brother her hubby, she stayed hom.

I am always amazed at the women who are my age (40ish) that cannot cook. I understand that not everyone had a grandmother like mine that taught them everything, but the ones that aren't able to do the basics like make pasta or fry eggs.