Random poll about cooking

[salinea]

Poll #6485 cooking

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 31

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Do you know how to cook

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I know how to use the microwave, does that count?
0 (0.0%)

Only very basic stuff, you know, pasta, boiling eggs, frying meat
11 (35.5%)

I can do a handful of meals reasonnably well
14 (45.2%)

Yeah, I can cook elaborate meals of various kinds easil
4 (12.9%)

I'm a cooking champ
2 (6.5%)

How did you learn how to cook

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Helping out my parents / other family members cooking as a child & teen
20 (64.5%)

Reading the back of foodstuff boxes' instructions
18 (58.1%)

Recipes books
24 (77.4%)

The same way I learned everything I know: I googled it
21 (67.7%)

I took classes
4 (12.9%)

I learned from someone else than family
7 (22.6%)

Watching TV
13 (41.9%)

Trial & error, for SCIENCE!
14 (45.2%)

Asking for people's advice on the internet
6 (19.4%)

Special snowflake (please explain in comment)
0 (0.0%)

Do you have a kind of cooking that's your speciality?

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Vegetarian food
5 (20.8%)

BBQ & fried meat
4 (16.7%)

British cuisine
0 (0.0%)

Italian cuisine
7 (29.2%)

French cuisine
0 (0.0%)

Middle-eastern / North-African cuisine
2 (8.3%)

East European / Russian cuisine
1 (4.2%)

Sub-Saharan African cuisine
0 (0.0%)

Indian / South Asian cuisine
4 (16.7%)

Thai / Southeast Asian cuisine
3 (12.5%)

Chinese cuisine
0 (0.0%)

Japanese cuisine
1 (4.2%)

Mexican / other Latin American cuisine
3 (12.5%)

Salads
4 (16.7%)

Anything sweet: deserts, pies, cakes, pastries, etc.
9 (37.5%)

Roasts
1 (4.2%)

Fishes & seafood
0 (0.0%)

Stir-fry stuff
8 (33.3%)

The kind of meal where there's a lot of things cooked in a delicious sauce
2 (8.3%)

Special snowflake (please explain in comment)
3 (12.5%)

Is there any ingredient/condiment you couldn't cook without?

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That thing, how do you call it, salt?
17 (65.4%)

olive oil
17 (65.4%)

lard
0 (0.0%)

cheese
5 (19.2%)

garlic
13 (50.0%)

shallots / onions
9 (34.6%)

paprika / bell pepper
0 (0.0%)

chili pepper
2 (7.7%)

soy sauce
5 (19.2%)

ketchup
1 (3.8%)

tomato sauce. Real ones, not ketchup
5 (19.2%)

mustard
1 (3.8%)

vinegar
4 (15.4%)

butter
7 (26.9%)

cream
1 (3.8%)

alcohol (whether wine or rhum or whatever)
1 (3.8%)

parsley
1 (3.8%)

Something else I unforgivenly forgot (please show me the error of my way in a comment)
2 (7.7%)

What is best in life?

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Rice
7 (23.3%)

Bread, pasta & other stuff you get from wheat
14 (46.7%)

Corn / Maize
0 (0.0%)

Potatoes
5 (16.7%)

Sorghum
0 (0.0%)

Quinoa
1 (3.3%)

Beans
1 (3.3%)

Another kind of starch / staple food I forgot about (please explain in comment)
2 (6.7%)

If there is one piece of advice about cooking you'd give to any would-be cook, what would it be?

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(I no longer have a paid account on LJ, so you'll have to go to my DW mirror to take the poll. Sorry for the inconvenience)

Comments

[solesakuma]

Meat totally counts as a staple food. :O

[solesakuma]

This is the part where I say that meat is consumed daily in Argentina.

[eefster.livejournal.com]

Let's see how many comments I remember to add:

1) "Elaborate" and "easily" are up for debate, but I have cooked multi-course meals for medium-sized sized dinner parties without stressing too much. It isn't 'easy' in that it takes a lot of planning to get the dishes timed correctly, but it's straightforward. As long as things go right. ;)

2) I've learned to cook several different ways, depending on what the goal was. I don't think there's any one way that's better than the others all of the time, but I do think that *doing* is important.

3) Specialty - I am the go-to American Thanksgiving person. Doesn't come up often, but it's handy when it does! Pecan pie, pumpkin (custard-ish) pie, cheesecake, vegetables, roasted turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, cornbread, hush puppies, you name it I've possibly cooked it.

4) I use olive oil a lot, but I could replace it (avocado oil, macadmia oil). Same with most other things on that list. I've actually pretty much cut out adding salt, even!

5) To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women? No? Okay, At the moment I'd have to go with either eggs or leafy greens. So easy to base meals around them!

[sillymom]

Though I listed rice as the best staple food, my specialties are baking bread and making non-bread concoctions with matzah meal for Passover. I like rice best as a staple because the fewest guests are allergic to it.

If I hadn't become a vegetarian, I'm sure I wouldn't have learned to make dishes from so many cuisines.

[nicole_anell]

For "what is best" I'm a big fan of couscous as a starchy side. :D

[salinea]

Me too! But it's based on wheat so I didn't include it :)

[laceblade]

I put thyme in like, everything, so I'm commenting to give it a shout-out!

[cyclops_squid]

You don't understand how much I wish the last question had listed "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women" as an answer...

[salinea]

Hah! As if any of those things were as good as potatoes or rice. MMmm potatoes ♥ crushing enemies barely rates.

[xraytheenforcer]

this entry has made me hungry.

[salinea]

As it should!

[runespoor]

YOU FORGOT PEPPER. ordinary black pepper. unless i didn't see it? my soul, tis crushed in despair not to see pepper on that list.

My family would say my specialities are deserts/Indian food, but given that I know how to cook about five Indian dishes with the help of ready-made sauces, I would not go there. And I'd say I'm good at North-African food, except not as good as my family and I tend to confuse the names (I KNOW OKAY I SHOULD KNOW BETTER), but I can do the entrées.

[salinea]

I did. I don't like Pepper. Must have been an acte manqué.

MMmmmm Indian dishes & North-African food ♥

[q99.livejournal.com]

I can follow recipes.

[matitablu.livejournal.com]

What is best = actually a draw between bread, pasta etc. and rice, but for accuracy's sake, I eat a lot more wheat-based stuff - stereotypically, I have pasta pretty much once a day (and when it's not pasta it's rice, so)...

Thing I can do well but isn't listed - homemade bread is my obsession hobby :) also quiches and generally savory baked stuff, om nom

[matitablu.livejournal.com]

Oh I forgot the other staple: CORN. Corn makes polenta (and also good bread). asdfghjkl;;