I live with three other people who are good cooks and actually enjoy cooking, so it's bit hard to work up the motivation to learn a skill I don't enjoy. My brother's teaching me, though, if slowly. I can do a few simple things, oatmeal, potatoes, things on that level. Plus the family pizza recipe. That's basically a requirement for my household.

Eggs, sausage and spam. Spam, spam, spam, spa-
No, wait.

Eggs, sausage and some pastas, yes. With acceptable casualties.

People who don't cook don't seem to grasp that it's not hard, and also that if the pot's boiling over, take it off the burner, I don't care what the book says.

Yeah most anything, save for breads.

And as a student and (job-searching diplomee) living alone, I sure hope I can cook, I'd die of hunger otherwise... Or I'd ruin my budget buying kebabs and the likes (seriously, you can get meat and vegetables for four dishes if you spend smart against one kebab costing six Euros).

I usually use woks, pans or a small oven, and wouldn't dream of not using fresh vegetables (carrots, courgette or bell pepper, they're easier to cook. Sometimes with mushrooms) in my dish to go with the meat (usually chicken, it's cheaper) and rice/couscous/pasta, generally with soy sauce (or tomato sauce, or cream+mustard) and a few spices... I thank my mother's cooking habits for these skills and habits (I also have a brother who can do pizzas).

Speaking of her, I remember she talked the fact the idea people ate and cooked better in the past was sort of overblown, with conserves, frozen packages and the likes being all the rage during the 70s and 80s...

I cook mainly Chinese dishes, and I have a friend who was nice enough to teach me some Japanese dishes. Even if I'm pressed for time, it's not too hard to whip up a chicken teriyaki or a simple stir fry.

Pretty well, if I do say so myself :) It's rare I make anything truly inedible, anyway.

It actually became something I could call a true hobby over the past year or so, though I've been interested in it and experimenting with it for years. It's just that last year suddenly I was responsible for all my own food, so I had to do a lot of cooking, and I hate being bored by what I'm cooking or eating, so...yeah. I got really into it. I'm still pretty into it. I spent several hours going through recipe ideas a few days ago, just because they looked interesting and I thought I might find some things to try.

~Z

Heck, eating is a waste of time, and I wouldn't bother with it, except that I literally have to to stay alive.

But I spend nearly the entire waking portion of my work week either at work, getting ready for work, or feeding myself. I have no interest in messing around with ovens; they take way too long. I do use the stove, but only to boil hot dogs for dinner (+ an extra to pack in my lunch for the next shift), or to make my pot of breakfast spaghetti for the week on my first shift day of the week. (I go in two hours early most days, so I need to pack as much mass into my stomach at the start of the day as possible to make sure my energy lasts to lunch break.) Otherwise, I'm a microwave man. Chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, cheese crisps (the gringo kind), whatever hats up the fastest so I can eke out a few precious minutes of internet time between shifts. I also have tuna and crackers for dinner a lot of nights now, since the high energy cost period was recently changed in Arizona and doesn't end until 8:00 pm, and I try not to use the microwave before then to save on the electric bill. I do allow myself to make macaroni and cheese for weekend lunches, since those are the only days I have time to to wash all the dishes that result from that mess. Food is food, and I don't care much about quality, fanciness or variety, just so long as it keeps me fed.

But I would happily cut out eating altogether if I could. If nothing else, it would allow me to go back up to eight hours of sleep every night instead of seven, which my body sorely needs.

—since age was brought up, doctorlit is thirty-two

I like to pan-fry things and I occasionally bake.
So far, I generally cook one thing at a time.

I don't often, but I can. My dad is quite good at cooking, so it would be weird if he didn't teach me a thing or two. I can make a decent omlette, hot dogs, hamburgers, et al, and I'm able to actually cook from a recipe.

Although I must admit, I don’t tend to do much.

So back in college I worked part time in the kitchens of a bar/restaurant, which gave me a lot of experience cooking, and a bunch of recipes I could take with me when I left.

My issue these days is just how impractical it is to do anything particularly involved when you’re only cooking for one person: the amount of prep time, the amount of washing up it can generate, and sometimes even just trying to buy the ingredients without having a bunch of stuff go to waste – there’s a lot of stuff that I know how to cook, that just don’t feel like they’re worth doing.

Still, I try and make sure I only use microwave meals/takeaways once or twice a week. Most of what I do I don’t consider to be ‘proper’ cooking, as it largely just consists of heating different things for slightly different amounts of time (boil some carrots and peas, cheat a little and microwave a pack of rice, serve with some sausages) – no real skill of effort needed, but at the weekends I might do something a bit more involved.

-Irish

Like I mentioned in my reply to Scape below, my mom's absolutely amazing in the kitchen and she passed her knowledge on to me and my little brother. (My dad's no slouch as a chef, either, and he taught us some things too, but Mom is usually the one making dinner, so... anyway, rambling.)

When I moved into my uni dorm, I ended up sharing a flat with five other people. Out of them, only one knew how to make his own meals, and that's because he'd been living on his own for a while before.

I taught two of them how to cook and they've finally gained enough confidence in the kitchen to start trying new things; one of them has taken a shine to making ham in the slow cooker, the other tried making fresh bread the other day (and it was delicious), and we've taken to collaborating on meals. It's resulted in some strange combinations like horchata, spaghetti, and potatoes, but hey, it tasted good. :P

I live in a part of the world where it's very easy to get fresh produce, particularly fish; my local fishmonger operates his own fifteen-boat fleet and once supplied fish to the Queen. Other people don't have that luxury. There's the phenomenon of "nutritional deserts", in which poor people who get paid once a month and therefore have to get food that lasts a month for some reason buy frozen ready meals rather than fresh fruit and vegetables. This is a truly inexplicable state of affairs and is probably to do with how poor people are just too stupid to know what healthy food is, so we'll send Jamie Oliver in to look mournfully at a chicken nugget and this will solve everything forever.

Another big part of the lack of cooking skills is the idea that you should be constantly working, all the time, always and forever. Breaks are breaks in productivity and therefore to be not only discouraged but shamed. Not only does nobody have the time to learn how to cook, nobody has the energy to cook. If you've done a twelve-hour shift for a pittance of wages that you won't see for dust come payday's round of bills and are trying to keep a house in order, you don't want to run the risk of the household going hungry for a night and/or wasting a load of money by trying and failing to cook something. It's wasteful to try and cook; wasteful of your time and energy and very limited resources. So you don't try. You can't try. And trying only ever hurts you.

I can cook pasta, if that counts, and I’m a fairly good baker. I still have a lot of learning to do to be able to cook properly.

But I am capable of making a meal, considering as I have passed my year 11 Cooking class. Gonna go for the Year 12 course, up my skills a bit more.

Granted, I know many people my age who eat two minute noodles often, so it does have a basis.

But often I'm too lazy to really cook stuff. I can do a lot of baking as well, and (for the most part) I do enjoy doing both.

I can cook! I've got a kitchen and a slow-cooker and everything. I still don't have the knack of breadmaking, but I can do a reasonable amount of other things.

Of course, I'm also starting into my thirties, so I'm not terribly far into the younger generations. :)