Why do most people view cooking as a hassle?

I actually did have depression and taking up cooking as a hobby helped me out of it

at least she cooks her own meals, not sure how many people still do that (as opposed to eating Budget Gourmet type frozen dinners, or fast food). Not sad at all, takes a lot of effort to set up your meals, but maybe she just needs to learn how to cook small meals quickly.

Thissss
There is nothing hard about buying ingredients cooking and cleaning for yourself everyday without it taking up a lot of time. You are just fucking lazy.

Cooking is a fucking chore, takes fucking time, and makes a fucking mess.
Cleaning is a fucking chore, takes fucking time, and only delays the inevitable fucking mess.

Only reason anyone subjects themselves to this bullshit is because they're not yet dead enough inside to subsist on gruel.

What exactly is it taking time away from?

Sportsball? Porn? Video games? Talmudvision?

Takes time away from not performing a rote fucking chore and making a big fucking mess.

So all of the above then

because it is a hassle. i want to eat not cook. cooking is something that i HAVE to do. also everything i make tastes worse than expected so why bother. but the real kicker is that the amount of effort i put into making a dish has no bearing on the outcome. if i follow a recipe to the letter it comes out similar to shit that i just threw into a stove and guessed everything. also nowadays ive gotten tired of eating as well its a chore and i do it because i have to

Do you not taste it as you cook it?

I always have a spoon next to what I'm cooking

>Its somewhat bland, add some salt and pepper
>It could use a fresher taste, add some Italian Herbs/Herbs D'Provence
>I want a smoother mouth feel, add some cumin
>Not substantial enough, add some garlic and onions
>Needs some sweetness, add some butter
>Needs some candy sweetness, add some brown sugar

How are you supposed to make good food if you don't taste it?

Why are you even on this board when you are such a terrible cook?

Literally the only thing I enjoy in life right now, and I hardly do it because I don't have anyone to cook for anymore and don't want to eat myself to death. Though I put in about a two year start on that anyway.

because i should be able to follow a recipe to the letter and get a good output. so i dont bother tasting if i follow a recipe. even if im tasting something while it cooks i dont know what to put in i just know that its missing something. everything i make is missing something.

because there was a period in my life where i wanted to make good food. nowadays im here for interesting stories, memes and al/ck/

Because a sizable portion of people are intimidated by kitchen appliances and think cooking is like wizardry

So you can't even cook? You're fucking cancer. And following the recipe to the letter? Lmao, unless you're baking, then you're a goddamn idiot.

I'm always surprised by the number of people who insist they're bad at cooking. They don't believe me when I say that it's a matter of experience and choosing good recipes.

ok kid

Unfortunately, that's now how it works. Cooking isn't baking. Baking is a science, so having the correct amount of ingredients is all you need.

Everyone's taste buds are different. A lot of ingredients are different too. The freshness, whether something is organic or not changes the taste. The heat of your cook surface may effect the caramelization.

I made Bolognese sauce the other weekend. It wasn't great tasting. Maybe it was bad. But then I realized that I hadn't even really had real bolognese before, so I wasn't sure what it was supposed to taste like in the first place.

Once you realize you can make things that taste good on your own, you'll like cooking a lot more.

>t. single nu-male

Are you a girl?

I find it pleasurable too, but only if I have the space and possibility to cook and prepare freely. Sadly, my kitchen is small and lacking. Most people who don't like cooking probably have a similar kitchen. Whenever I need something, I need to make room for it and/or dig it out of a cabinet. This is the hassle, and it takes the fun out of the whole cooking process, so I tend to make the same old basic things to avoid that hassle.

...

Its boring require a ton of standing, actual attention, a ton of time, cleaning, preparing, a whole bunch of shit.

>Once you realize you can make things that taste good on your own, you'll like cooking a lot more.
yeah this is a step that i was never able to reach. maybe i'll get the drive to try again in the future.

It's not that hard, but for me I find that I'm just not in the mood to clean up right after I eat dinner. I just want to sit feeling full and wind down for bed. Not do menial labour.

1. For me it's the cleaning up but I still cook 2-3 times a week
2. It's mostly normies who think cooking is a hassle, and teenagers or teenager-minded people. I think it's because they can't show off that much on social media with it. Cool people only go out to eat, and God forbid if you're a dude an you bake every once in a while. Whoever came up with this retarded social norms should be put lined up against a wall

The best setup would be to have a wife that would do the cleanup while I do the cooking desu

I too find cooking a joy.
Honestly is the highlight of my day when I come home to being able to chuck this in the microwave for 2 minutes.

* They have a Facebook and subpar sex

>because i should be able to follow a recipe to the letter and get a good output
do you have autism?

because to most people its just a set of actions they are required to perform, not something they want to become better at.

whats the point of a recipe if you have to add your own unique twists to make it good? sure if you are experienced then you can do whatever you want and it will probably turn out well. ive tried tons of popular recipes and nothing just seemed to work. did i choose the wrong ones somehow?

>did i choose the wrong ones somehow?
anyone can post recipes onlline, people do it ffor attention. No matter how shit it is. here is one that I have tried out numerous times myself, it cant be fucked up, its cheap, healthy and nutritious, it ann be made in large batches and ca be frozen for later too. I use only half the amount of rice though.
grouprecipes.com/73215/arroz-de-tomate-e-feijao---rice-with-tomato-and-beans.html

Non-cooking board tourist here.
Because it's time consuming and ideally you should do it 3 fucking times a day. That's a lot of time taken out of other things I want to do more.
That aside cooking requires to shop for fresh ingredients more often than I care to go for groceries.
Also lots of people live alone and don't enjoy cooking for themselves alone, and you can't exactly invite people to dinner every day.

All in all I enjoy cooking and good food, just not enough to do it regularly.

>Bad received with morons who give it a good review
This is why you look for a couple blogs or YouTube channels you know have good recipes and try to stick to them as much as possible
Plus if someone tries a recipe and it's shit he sure as hell will leave a nasty review so pay attention to that
>Subbing ingredients
Don't do this
>Not knowing techniques
Stick to the easier recipes then
>Using the wrong equipment
Very unlikely

The real reason you screw up a recipe is because you don't know what you are doing and you do something wrong (there are a million ways to fuck up), you solve that by cooking long enough that you learn what you where doing wrong and get better

For me I hate the buying groceries part. If I had all the ingredients I'd be glad to cook anything.

No, follow the recipe doesn't mean it should come out good if you don't know how to cook, stick to the absolute basics for now, you are clearly trying things you have no idea how to make

>Following recipes instead of just looking at what the food is made of

I couldn't cook eggs for the longest time but then I bought a fancy pan and I cook them perfectly everyday. Cooking without equipment that can hold a stable temperature is a losing game

My dad had to basically rebuild his kitchen, for a year all he had to cook with was a hot plate, a microwave and a toaster oven he stacked into a totem because he didn't have any space for them, it never stopped him for cooking, I have seen him try to boil things on that shitty hot plate Wich doesn't reach high enough temperatures to boil water, it looked like torture

My problem was the old electric stove I had. It's true - you need a gas stove if you want to even remotely engage in cooking.

If you enjoy cooking you don't belong on Veeky Forums
>t. faggot who likes cooking so doesn't belong here

When I started cooking I absolutely fucked up my pan because I was an idiot and had no idea what I was doing with it, then I fucked up everything I tried to make with it
Unless you are using broken shit you shouldn't have difficulty cooking an egg

Think of everything you enjoy that you could be doing instead of cooking. If there's nothing else you could be doing that you would enjoy more, congratulations. For most people though, cooking and in fact just having to eat is a hassle.

>like cooking
>even like cleaning up

I find both aspects very relaxing, but maybe it is just because when I get home from the worst job on earth, anything seems pleasurable by comparison.

to get good at cooking you have to do it a lot, in the beginning you're terribly inefficient, dirty and the food doesn't always end up good anyway

>cooking is something that i HAVE to do
This.
I have crohn's disease, so I can't eat 99.99% of anything pre-prepared because it contains things that no-one even thinks about that have a non-zero chance of causing me to die in agony from internal bleeding.
I HAVE to cook, because otherwise I would starve.
And just to make it even more fun the only things I can eat that don't make me ill are bland and uninteresting, so I don't even have the pleasure of eating it.
And you still have to tidy shit up afterwards.

I used to like being in the kitchen. But the magic has gone now, replaced by chores to be gotten out of the way as quickly as possible.

>cooking and in fact just having to eat is a hassle
Being made of meat is fucking tedious tbqh.

Realistically though:
>I just don't have time to cook
>spends 2 hours watching netflix

>They have anime to watch and h-manga to fap to
FTFY

It's almost like we live in a leisure society and people prioritize what they enjoy. Some people see cooking as leisure, some don't.

i have a very autistic OCD when it comes to cooking

either stay there and cook it right and realize its going to be 30 minutes

or cook something right that i can do quickly, like my normal baked thighs and mash

or something even cheaper and quicker

but i absolutely HATE relying on someone doing situation A and then half assing it, not stirring the pasta so it sticks

or not preheating the oven enough

or taking the food out "at the exact time of directions" but not actually checking it with a thermometer

wtf?

they teach that day 1 in HS cooking class

you literally just fucking pour it in and stir it, its easy

yep, but cooking at a hier level is also about knowing the effects of the heat and how to apply it and the combination of flavors and textures.
the best examples is making a roux or just trying onion in a pan. you can get a huge variety of flavors and textures depending how hot, how long and what spices you add. resting meat, washing rice or not, way kind of rice to use, brining meats, adding things fast or slow, cold or hot...
I've been watching food wars too much

You sound a lot like me as I also have a mild case of ocd, and I feel it does benefit my cooking. Also the more I see how the majority of people in there 20’s (and beyond) have no idea how to cook makes me thankful my first job was in a kitchen. Though my career is not at all culinary related I have learned things I can’t imagine I would have any other way that I will utilize for a lifetime. Something I’d be happy to pass along to my children, should I have any. I remember starting as a dishwasher thinking holy shit I could never do what those guys are doing. It seemed so out of reach. Few years later and i’m putting out better food than the lot of em while working alongside the head chef as a production manager. Early is on time. Never call off. and be reliable. I’ve learned not to underestimate myself. You can do a lot more than you realize if you put your mind to it anons

If you aren't familiar with it, it can be daunting. Seeing celebrity chefs make absurd dishes with expensive ingredients picked and caught fresh also makes it scary, when you can accomplish the same thing with off-season argentianian produce and frozen white fish from the local chinese grocer. People tend to follow recipes, and it's a big showstopper when something calls for bullshit like creme du tatar or fleur de sel or whatever for a basic-looking pastry or slice of fried meat.

Another common complaint is time, which is probably the most valid complaint. If you haven't worked in a restaurant before and seen what prep work is actually like, it seems silly to prepare stuff in advance without going whole hog like describes and cooking stuff entirely in advance, but cooking stuff in advance usually results in shitty product. A lot of people don't realize that there's a middle ground between, say, using just-add-water pancake mix and making 900 pancakes and storing them in your freezer.

2bh when I'm depressed, I too subsist mostly on frozen pizzas and pub grub. I find being able to cook for myself is a sign of recovery more than a recovery method.

>Baking is a science,
shit meme. baking is just as much a science as cooking. "bbbut muh leavening reactions" m8 I have never measured out my baking powder or soda since I was a kid and my cookies and pancakes et al always turn out fine. You probably need to know more about :^) Le Science :^) to make a good soup that isn't just "water with stuff in it" 2bh, and simmering stuff down to make sauces or successfully frying stuff without getting it too greasy is closer to lab tech work than following a cake recipe.

>stirring eggs

It's not hard, I'm just extremely lazy and don't want to clean after eating

...

>A lot of people don't realize that there's a middle ground between, say, using just-add-water pancake mix and making 900 pancakes and storing them in your freezer.
I think you underestimate just how little time regular people have every day to do these kinds of things. There's no fucking time to cook fresh food every single day, because fresh food isn't just about the 15 minute act of applying heat.

Fresh food is about driving to the grocery store or the market and buying ingredients that aren't rotten. Fresh food is about cleaning up the entire kitchen every single meal because there's only a few hours until the next meal where you need to do it all over again. Fresh food is about having the pure raw leisure time to research and experiment with new recipes. People who work for a living do not have time to do all of that unless that is literally the ONLY thing they do outside of work every waking moment.

I usually don't wash anything unless the squeamish bf is coming over.

Of all the things people want to skip the preparation for something like, for example, pancakes is the most ridiculous. They're so simple to prepare they're basically on the level of "add water to the mixture". Making mayonnaise at least requires some know-how or your liquids will separate.

yes, get a spatula, pour in the eggs and just keep moving them around until the liquid is gone

my highschool didn't have cooking or home ec

You fucking IDIOT.

you mean the necessary step to make scrambled eggs? yeah, craaaazy.

nobody has time for that bullshit just scramble them

>implying that's the only way to make eggs

Scrambled is actually far more technical to get right if you don't want to eat rubber. They do come in a lot more variants and approaches, though. Steamed scrambled eggs drenched in butter, for example, take fucking forever to make.

>What is canned vegetables.
It takes half an hour to boil up a pot of pasta and added jarred sauce. It takes an hour to make a big pot of soup.

If people can't spare the equivalent of a Walking Dead episode, they're either overscheduled or have disordered priorities (basically the same thing). There's no time? That's because that thing isn't a priority, so time isn't getting made for it.

>What is canned vegetables.
Possibly one of the most disgusting things mankind has ever produced, your point?

fucking stir them in a bowl and pour into a buttered pan and stir with a spatula until all the water/moisture that you'll see shiny on them is gone

>canned

at least get flash frozen vegetables

>until all the water/moisture that you'll see shiny on them is gone

Jesus christ you can't even do scrambled eggs right. You're supposed to take them off the heat BEFORE all the shiny is gone otherwise you've overcooked the fucks.

>doing the austic ramsay method of moving and removing the pan over an over

just fucking stir until the moisture is gone then scrape it on your plate

its not just going to fucking sit there and keep cooking

>implying there's only one correct level of cooked for eggs
some people like them more watery or more dry.
also, please, no more. I'm running out of gifs

>getting everything out
>preparing everything
>cooking everything
>hope you don't fuck up
>cleaning dishes

Imagine you spend $10 on stuff to cook with, and you spend 45+ minutes cooking it and then washing dishes and at the end of it all it's mediocre or shit. Was this a good use of your time and money? Or should you just have went to McD's next door and spent $2.14 on some McChickens?

>Fresh food is about driving to the grocery store or the market and buying ingredients that aren't rotten.
It takes no longer to buy fresh stuff at the store than ready-to-eat stuff.

>Fresh food is about cleaning up the entire kitchen every single meal
Throw some dish soap in the pan while it's still hot and run hot water over it. Instantly 90% clean (if damaged (but modern non-stick pans are basically disposable)). If you have to clean the rest of your kitchen, something has gone terribly wrong and you are probably retarded.

> Fresh food is about having the pure raw leisure time to research and experiment with new recipes.
You don't need to "research" how to fucking eat, if you've ever eaten before you should have a good idea of what things taste good.

>there's only a few hours until the next meal where you need to do it all over again.
how fat are you that you eat a full meal that often?

You're American, aren't you? Americans are such a loathsome people.

>pancakes is the most ridiculous.
that was the point it was an extreme example but a valid example because of retards like

>you spend 45+ minutes cooking
you have brain deficiencies

>all meals take less than 30 minutes
This is simply not true.

Yes. You got some experience and learned what not to do. You only get good at shit by practice.

Imagine spending an hour getting your McChicken and on the way there you get raped when you get a flat and it costs you $2 for McChicken, $209 for a new tire and $7 to replace your torn underoos when you get home you realize the McChicken wasn't good. You could have saved time and money by not eating

>hour to get to McDonald's
Wanna know how I can tell you're not American?

the best are people who talk about how much they value their time by the hour and how cooking is beneath them since it doesn't represent a profit v/s eating out. i'm a complete free-market capitalist but this kind of materialism really gets my goat. don't cook if you don't like it but don't make it a class thing.

make a stir fry then. stir fries are fast. or burgers. burgers are very quick and probably take less time to make than oven fries.

>implying it doesn't take an hour to get to mcdos in america because there's no commercial zoning within 200 miles from a normal home

>"oven fries"
>hey guys I'm american

>>"oven fries"
I'm sorry. McCain™ SuperFries®

Yes I do

McDonald's are never farther than 20 minutes away, even in the most desolate shitholes in the US.

This and fearing you will be fucking raped on the way to get a McChicken.

You can watch Netflix while you cook

Wrong again faggot. Try getting out of the big shitty

>From the "McFarthest Spot" the distance to the nearest McDonald's is 107 miles as the crow flies and 145 miles by car.

telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6380193/McFarthest-point-in-the-US-from-a-McDonalds.html

I live in Atlanta Idaho, it takes two and a half hours to get to the nearest McDonald's in Mountain Home