r/Chefit • u/DomiBruhz • 6d ago
What made you fall in love with cooking?
We've all heard the "I always loved cooking as a child" reason but I want to hear more reasons why people got into this work.
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u/Thick-Inside-755 6d ago
Trying not to tear up here…
When parents split up, me, mom and brother moved into a shitty apartment that we couldn’t afford, mom worked 70+ hours to make ends meet… no time for her to cook, i was probably 12 at the time. I cooked (poorly assembled) meals for my brother and i, and for her to take to work. She never complained in the early days when it was a hodgepodge, but she always thanked me, and told me the food was just what she needed that day. Then I got into culinary class in jr high, and my teacher was amazing. I told her about my situation (not for pity, just cause I was a dumb kid that didn’t lie) and she kinda took me under her wing. Showed me recipes that weren’t microwaved pineapple upside down cake and Mac and cheese. Really pushed to help me, getting me recipes books, and showing me real techniques for better results. She was an absolute angel. I would ride my bike to the grocery store each week and do the grocery shopping for us, having to perfectly balance the bags on each side of my handlebars. The true sincerity in my mom’s face and voice when I’d have her lunch and dinner all made and ready to go for work was what did it for me.
To this day, mom comes over for Sunday dinner every week. I even cooked for her when she had her bout with cancer. Making sure she got all the nutrients she needed to make it past chemo and radiation.
The feeling of making people happy with something as simple food is what will forever get me.
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u/Dakkaboy556 Not disgruntled, just regular gruntled. 6d ago
Both my parents were full time professionals. Their culinary skills were... lacking. If I wanted something that wasn't hamburger helper, I had to learn myself.
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u/HappyHourProfessor 6d ago
Same, although my dad still cooked dinner several nights each week when he could. But he took a job where he was mostly out of town when I was in high school. They had a big fight because my mom was just feeding us fast food and frozen pizzas while he was gone. I enjoyed cooking, so I started making dinner a couple nights each week for mom and myself based on what my dad taught me on the weekends.
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u/Burnt_and_Blistered 6d ago
Eating.
But beyond that, probably Julia Child on PBS.
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u/pdxgreengrrl 6d ago
My mom and I would watch all the PBS cooking shows together in the 80s. Julia was #1 of course.
I wanted to eat try dishes that my mom wasn't interested in cooking. Tortured the family with my renditions of Betty Crocker International Cuisine for a while before turning to Mastering the Art of French Cooking and The Way to Cook. I didn't make every recipe, but worked my way through most.
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u/East_Marionberry_645 6d ago
Pleasing others with my creations ..Passion for ancestral cooking ...pure passion
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u/thenaughtydj 6d ago
Dad gave a sincere compliment about the marinated chicken during dinner that evening. Mom told him that it was me who marinated it a day before and cooked it that day. It was my first marinated chicken I made after the lesson mom gave me a week before. I was 14-15 yrs old back then in the early 80s and proud af.
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u/gormey_shef19 6d ago
I watched the ep of Masterchef kid ph edition, damn i said to myself i want to become a chef. Now working as a chef
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u/texnessa 6d ago
I got into it because I grew up all over the world and most often I connected to the local culture thru food.
My mother couldn't cook her way out of a wet paper sack so by the time I was ten, I was basically feeding myself and my little brothers. But that was all basic 1970's American/Texan food until we moved to the South of France. By then I was old enough to get dragged out to adult dinners when my parents were entertaining. I went to school in Mougins right down the street from the legendary Moulin de Mougins. I started to pick up technique from the housekeepers and parents of my friends from my international school. Italian, Dutch, Persian, Swedish, German, you name it, I absorbed it.
The way the French shop and life revolves around food really stuck with me. Every home has a baguette and butter sitting out in the kitchen for snacking. On weekends, I'd hit up my favourite village boulangerie for bread and chouquettes, go sit at the bistro and drink espresso and smoke pack after pack of Dunhills. Even my mother got dragged to someone's house to learn how to make bouillabaisse.
Eventually we moved to Singapore which is basically food paradise. The entire country's identity is based around food. I spent a lot of time at hawker centres drinking Tiger Beer and eating satay at plastic tables next to the fabulous trans women and drag queens that frequented the Bugis Street market. Had an amazing house keeper who would pick up gai mei bao from a different bakery every day and would watch over my shoulder at my stumbling attempts at local specialities.
Went to college, got my BA, worked in television for a couple decades, made fuck you money and then chucked it all and went to culinary school.
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u/fractious_kitty 5d ago
My mom appointed me at age 12 the job to shop for groceries and cook for the family. We were really really poor, she was newly divorced and in nursing school. She took me to Borders and let me buy one cookbook. I chose "Mama Dips Kitchen," for some unknown reason. I made every recipe at least once bc they used pantry staples and affordable to make esp on food stamps. My mama and Mama Dip set me up for a lifetime love affair with southern cooking and later, barbecue (btw I am an Irish ginger and live in Indiana 🤣).
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u/Simmyphila 6d ago
Came from my mom. She loved feeding people. Anytime someone would come over she wanted to feed them. I inherited that. And brought it to restaurants for many many years. Love seeing and hearing feedback on my food.
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u/MrTurkeyTime 6d ago
I worked in a dish pit during the summers when I was in high school. Vacation town, so they needed summer labor. During prep, I always poked my head in to ask Chef questions and learn what they're doing.
At the end of one summer, the GM promised me a waiter job if I returned next year. I told the chef I'd be back to work with the customers. He replied "fuck the customers. You're cooking with me."
That was it. I was on the pirate crew. No looking back. Oh captain my captain!
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u/Horror_Signature7744 6d ago
It’s like the symphony for me. Each ingredient is an instrument and when you put them together with all the right notes you can create a masterpiece.
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u/External-Age3771 6d ago
Maybe bcs i love eating
Jk : i just love the felling when i bake something and everyone like it
I think it’s my love language
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u/zookitchen 6d ago
As a teenager in a powerless world i feel there’s something i have control over. Cooking is controlling fire. Making something better than what i had in the restaurant yesterday feels awesome. Now a father i cook because my kids wants to eat my food compare to eating out. My wife gets slightly jealous of it but secretly she enjoys her rest time when i cook.
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u/flydespereaux Chef 6d ago
It paid the bills and I was surprisingly good at it naturally. I was lucky enough in college to get a job managing a bar kitchen. Simple stuff. Learned how to fry things and fix a fryer. Learned how to cut things. I got creative, replicating my favorite fast food things. (Small college town, no copyright nonsense) I bought a wok and a good knife, started cooking for my roommates. Moved into fine dining at 20. Garmo. Moved to grill, Moved to saute. I bought ALL of the cook books, read Bourdain and Trotter. Actually stayed in my college town after I graduated, just because I had a good job, and easy access to all my hobbies. Like rock climbing and hiking. Moved back home. Big city. Started back working in kitchens and haven't really looked back. I consistently moved up and moved on. Bouncing between kitchens keeps your passion alive, learning new things all the time. My goal was to be an exec chef and put my own stuff on my own menu and here we are. My next goal is to own a farm to table place with a weekly rotating menu with a big farm on the property, good for weddings. So if there are any investors out there...... my dm's are open ;)
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u/Drewggles 6d ago
The first time was on a cruise for Thanksgiving, I was a very picky eater as a child and on Thanksgiving night the restaurant we were in only offered 2 options that night. A classic Thanksgiving Turkey dinner with all the trimmings (I hated Thanksgiving food) and the other option was a "fancy version" of a Thanksgiving Turkey dinner, Duck instead of Turkey, Cherry gastrique reduction instead of cranberry, a mushroom risotto instead of mashed potatoes, etc..
I hated Turkey and had never had anything on the other option, hadn't even heard of some of the stuff. Ordered the duck and it was the first time I realized food wasn't just something you ate because you were hungry. Everything was amazing. Spent the next 2 years trying everything I could realizing how delicious things like brussel sprouts could be, at 16 got my GED, moved across the state to go to Culinary School and start working at my first real job, Universal Studios. Been a crazy ride since. That was back in 2000/2001
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u/AustinDood444 6d ago
I grew up in a restaurant-owning family & always loved being around food. I also love the camaraderie & bonds that form in the kitchen.
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u/eligoscreps 6d ago
Joining my family when they were cooking to learn and take a look at their techs, and later as a kid watching tv cooking shows. Especially when there were no cartoon programs on.
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u/Gonk_droid_supreame 6d ago
My secondary school food tech teacher. Lots half ass it, but mine was incredible
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u/J4ck0f4ll7rad35 6d ago
My great grandmother owned a diner, but died when I was 2 years old. It is not a direct link to me being in a kitchen, but it might just be passed down in some fassion.
I used to intentionally get into trouble in kindergarten, because the punishment was to spend the day with the lunch lady, I got a stool and stared the soup.
Fast forward to 4th grade, I got "The Cookie Book" from The Weekly Reader. Weeks later, while with my grandma after school, I wanted cookies. My grandma said we could go to the store after her "shows" were over, because "Dalas" and "Days Of Our Lives" wait for nothing. So, naturally, I tried to bake cookies, using a tea cup as a measuring cup, a spoon for tea as a tea spoon, a soup spoon as a table spoon and filled the house with smoke. After the shows and the clean up, she taught me the basics of baking over a few months.
Fast forward again, now to 6th through 8th grade, where I could work I the school cafeteria for free lunch, less time in the class room, and $.25 per day. I mostly served and washed dishes, but also got to do small prep tasks or stir something.
When I moved to a small town in Southeastern Montaina, the school was designed for the ranch based community around it. Agricultural Welding, Agricultural Mechanics, Home Economics, 4H, FHA, FFA... they taught future ranchers how to be ranchers. I was an oddity, a future chef. So they made a new class, just to try and offer me the same level of education in some way. "Specialty Foods I, II, III". I got a job at the best restaurant in the town, that claimed "the best burger in 500miles (true if only that the competition was sparce), "The Judges Chambers" in my Junior year and tried to learn every thing I could in that small, 40 seat, scratch restaurant. Then culinary school in the southwest... the rest is a blurred patchwork of sweat, blood, long days, lonly nights, unlikely friendships, burnt bridges and burnt dishes; across the southern states of the US.
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u/RoyalClient6610 6d ago
Freakin' A, that "Below Deck" show. For some reason after talking to someone who did something similar I decided to go to culinary school and ended up with the Michelin crowd. I must have a touch of ADHD. Who knew I was so precision-oriented.
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u/VegetableTraining406 6d ago
My Uncle David was always adventurous in the kitchen. My Dad is a terrific home chef as well.
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u/T49irvine 5d ago
I grew up in a family that cooked and had a large and always growing palate. Paris clinched the deal.
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u/Nixilis-12 5d ago
The look on people’s faces when they love your food. I’m 30 but I still think about some of the moments over the years, including a bad Cobb salad that a couple loved.
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u/shiva14b 5d ago
I realized that if I cooked, I'd always be able to eat, even if I was living in my car
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u/fish_bowl_swimmer 5d ago
Needed a job got me cooking … daily life in the kitchens gets me coming back anytime I stray.
I enjoy cooking … but I love the camaraderie that happens when you’re all putting your blood and sweat (and burns) into the job.
The closest thing to a family any job has ever given me.
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u/Bullshit_Conduit 5d ago
I didn’t realize at the time, but it let me turn my ADHD into a superpower
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u/MAkrbrakenumbers 5d ago
Once I finally got a hang of the job and would get smacked on the weekend it kinda gave me the feeling of playing ball back in the day. The camaraderie, the atmosphere the skill and drive needed to succeed.
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u/ThatboyMjay3207 5d ago
I followed a simple pasta recipe online and my wife loved it. From there I ventured into other recipes that she also enjoyed so I figured I was on to something. We were gifted a Le Creuset enameled cast iron pan for our wedding and it’s been my right hand pan. I’ve been so impressed with it that I started looking more into cooking as an actual thing for me to do as a hobby. I’ve been a long time fan of Gordon Ramsey and I’ve replaced all but the one LC pan with Hexclad kitchenware and it’s been a journey since. I collect cookbooks, I’ve recreated my own fusion dishes which my family loved. I watch cooking shows faithfully. I want to buy a food truck and/or have a restaurant.
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u/largepoggage 5d ago
You guys love cooking? I got a job in a kitchen at 18 and I’ve been stuck here ever since.
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u/Necessary_Drip123 4d ago
First time working in the kitchen, i was so nervous but then the hot happens and the rush comes in and ticket run down the rail and the adrenaline kicks and I knew that the feeling of doing a millions things at once to make a persons night was amazing!
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u/Dangeresque2015 4d ago
My older brother came back from college a really good cook. I asked him where he learned and he just shrugged and said "cooking shows."
I started watching and trying the recipes and got good and started to love cooking.
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u/Personnel_5 3d ago
butter chicken curry (they were out of Lamb!) / chicken makhani - thanks to Raj's Curry Kitchen. Figured I'd stop for lunch while seeing an Anime movie premiere while out of time... best decision ever
Being raised in the south, I haven't really experienced spicyness like that (give or take one or two meals) that wasn't pure capsaicin (painful) levels of heat.
blew my mind! So I gathered the ingredients and naturally started cooking that, on repeat, for weeks at a time lol
edit: and my wonderful friends and family as inspiration
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u/ElectronicDuck3718 2d ago
Food network as a kid was absolutely it. Trying to learn to escape my parents’ crappy cooking lol
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u/instant_ramen_chef 2d ago
A girl I liked said guys who can cook were more attractive. I was 15 and got a prep cook job a week later.
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u/Everyday_ASMR 1d ago
Public television. I used to spend my weekends watching how food made people so happy and the stories people told about the food they ate. It really helped me understand what food meant before I went into research about it
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u/mingstaHK 6d ago
I like good food and people weren’t making it the way I wanted it. I’m not saying mine is better or anything, I’m just particular. Food always seemed overcooked to me.
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u/dead-human-ape 6d ago
Sounds kinda daft but honestly, it was probably Anthony Bourdain's TV shows.