My Mother was a very stereo typical United States mid-west housewife cook. She could cook a protein, a vegetable, and a starch and get it on the table. Everything would mostly taste OK, but outside of salt, pepper, and the occasional herb, the flavors were all the same. She did do a couple of things pretty well. Her meatless lasagna was actually really good.

My Dad could cook pancakes and he did the grilling. That’s about it.

They’re both terrible at it.

My mom is great at just about everything, except her chicken is always bone dry. She likes it that way apparently.

No. I would say not.

My father was not the greatest cook. He could bake pork ribs or chicken legs fairly compentantly, and he could boil potatoes or pasta. But that was the extent of his skills. Anything fried in a pan was cooked beyond recognition. I was in my 20s before I realized steak didn’t have to be the same consistency as shoe leather. A common dinner he’d make was mashed potatoes with margarine, topped with macaroni mixed with Catelli meat sauce. It took me a number of years to undo all of that and learn to cook properly.

Do you cook?

My mom is an awesome cook.
By dad used to be pretty good at “improv-dishes”, but his effort had been lacking for the past decade after he died.

I learned how to cook out of self defense…

True story… my sister and I were at our grandparents house and gramma was in the kitchen peeling potatoes.

My sister, six years old, goes “Oh! What are those?”

Me: “Those are ‘potatoes’, that’s where french fries come from…”

Yeah, mom didn’t cook. Dad literally couldn’t make toast. The only reason we had ice cubes was because the recipe had been handed down from father to son…

My mom is a great cook. In fact, as I grow older, I realized that my taste & preferences in food are greatly influenced by her.

Dad is bad. Mum is good.

My father could cook and well.

My mother relied on shake and bake. She once tried to bake a stew.

My mom was always on weird diets growing up and never let us have real butter and she never seasoned anything. Now my sister and I, adults, have adopted a French-level respect for butter in all things. I am fat but enjoy my food a lot more now that it tastes of food.

I am a much better cook than my parents barring two exceptions, my mother is an incredible baker and my dad is a master with an old school barrel smoker (his smoked salmon/trout and ribs are amazing). Outside of those two specialties though neither can cook for shit, I legitimately though I hated pasta and steak until I started cooking for myself at 15.

My mom wasn’t a great cook, but I didn’t realize that until I grew up and started cooking on my own.

My dad loves to experiment in the kitchen so I take after him more.

And my wife isn’t a great cook so loves that I’m able and willing to.

Both of my parents were inconsistent.

My mom was Italian and made great pastas and a number of other dishes.

My dad had a signature chili dish and a bunch of others that were great.

But most meats either if them cooked (other than poultry) turned out dry and chewy. My dad liked his steak well done, or medium-well at the rarest. To be fair, I’ve since discovered how easy it is to overcook meats. But I’ve also put effort into understanding how moisture can work in various dishes and make great ribs, like the kind you can just pull the bones out of (the secret is to poach them for about 10 minutes before roasting or grilling them).

But growing up like that has left me mostly uninterested in things like steaks and pork chops, even though I know restaurants can do a better job at cooking them.

My dad had a similar dislike for anything boiled because that’s how his mom cooked everything (and yeah, if I stopped after poaching those ribs, I bet they’d be kinda gross).