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Nobody taught me to cook at home. We're hispanic but my mom isn't a great cook. I know how to make some things just from being there but she always made food before she left for work, while we was at school.
Everyone in the house sat around watching tv all day and eating junk food, beans and tortillas, and whatever food she made with rice.
When I left home, I learned to cook for myself. I still tend to favor hispanic food, but I go for more vegetables. I love making picadillo with mushrooms, dried chiles, onion, garlic, corn, and toasted pine nuts and I usually add in whatever veg I might have, just chopped down. It's great for chiles rellenos, pastelitos, empanadas, and that sort of thing.
I use yuca, chamoya, jicama, stuff like that from my childhood that I used to hate. I guess other things I wasn't taught but just picked up was to make fruit "waters" during the summer, and make a lot of soups when it's cool out.
I leaned to cook by cooking. I learned how to clean by living at home. We cleaned every single day, sweep and mop the whole house. You don't make anything without cleaning up. You're not done in the kitchen until it's clean. That's something I value, as well as keeping the house looking pretty and tidy. I'm glad I got that drilled into my head early. Now it's a lot easier in the kitchen for me, I think, just naturally because I instinctively keep things tidy and in their place. I think that's invaluable.
I was going to agree that nobody taught me anything, but that's pretty wrong. I guess I learned some things. I'm not a great cook, but I'm trying to work on that actively, every day. I'm definitely not shit at it.
