In my case the answer is no and and I am glad she didn't god bless her soul. She wouldn't let us boys do anything in the kitchen preferring to let our sister do all of the work. Considering my father's charred hunks of chicken he barbacued on the grill I can see why she didn't let males in her kitchen. Don't get me wrong about my mother as she tried her hardest to feed us good food but she was only a so-so cook overall but her specialties were wonderful such as her fried chicken (the best I have ever eaten), her secret spaghetti sauce and her deep fried crunchy shrimp. Her ancient recipes are long lost so there is no chance of duplicationg them.

I assume her mother tought her how to cook but in my case case nobody taught me. Somewhere along the line I got tired of eating slop and learned to cook all on my own. This may sound strange but I was inspired by my eating experiences at college mess halls and eating food cooked by USN cooks. I liked that institutional cooking especially the Navy stuff. The US Navy has very good cooks no matter what you may have heard.

So how did you learn to cook if you even did so or are you one of those people who just learned to eat?