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I loved helping my mother and grandmother in the kitchen. I'm still envious that my sister got an Easy Bake oven with mixes and never cooked a single thing in it. And, wouldn't let me. So, I guess I wanted to cook from a very early age. We all had to help with dinner and rotated salad, dishes and table setting duties. I knew how to cook simple meals, like broiled steak, and the fixin's when I was still in elementary school. I could even bake cookies and cakes. I can't remember if Mom made us cook, or we wanted to. I went from my parents home to an apartment with my new husband and I was thrilled to have my own kitchen and be all grown up at 20. I put on 25 lbs. my first three months of marriage because I was making 7 course meals. I changed that when my clothes wouldn't fit. I had children a few years later and was always reading cookbooks and trying new recipes. Cooking healthy became a priority when I had my first child. I gained a reputation as a great cook and took pride in my ability to put a delicious meal together in no time with whatever was at hand. I entertained a lot. Small dinner parties and big outdoor picnics - and loved every minute of it. I used to hit the grocery store nearly every day on my way home from work.

Now, my children are grown and live far away. I'm disabled and unable to grocery shop. I can't do most of what I used to do, but I still cook and enjoy it. Just takes a lot more effort and time.

As a side note, my family is chock full of great cooks and a few mediocre ones. I think example had more to do with it than genes. And a love of good food makes it a passion, rather than a chore.

My sister and I both started with baking at an early age. Mom would also ask us to get dinner going when we got home from school. Mom is a decent cook who has gotten more into trying different things because my sister and I love to cook. My dad is quite proud of the good eats we turn out at family get togethers--he does NOT cook. If mom's out of town, it's BK, take out pizza or 5 or 6 slices of bologna on one slice of bread folded. So I guess we must get it from mom's side.

I was a merely functional cook (even though I liked to eat) from the time I left home until about the time my older kid finished highschool. Constraints of money, at first, and then conservative-eater kids, and time (single mom by then, working full time and carrying full academic load as well!) left me with other priorities. I didn't start exploring cooking as an exercise in fun until then, as my eating horizons had begun to expand earlier. It's led to a second career, the marriage to Mr. Meatloaf, and lots of interesting travel, among other things.

So, to answer your question, like most things, I think it's a combinaiton of nature and nurture.

I think a lot of things come into play, including the ability to taste things. Some people have a gene that makes cilantro taste like soap and supertasters are supersensitive to the bitter in foods like broccoli. So all that could be inheritied.

There's also upbringing involved. If you're raised in a home where a variety of foods are available, you're going to be lightyears ahead of someone who was raised on beans and rice and hunger. If food is talked about at home in a postitive way and cooking is seen as an enjoyable thing to do rather than a horrible chore, it's going to help make cooking seem like more fun.

I also think there are certain bits of creativity involved that are much more subtle. It's like music. I took lessons for years and could play the notes, but it sounded horrible. Someone else who had musical talent could play those same songs and make them sound beautiful. Someone who has studied music could tell you why my renditions were so horrible -- phrasing, timing, whatever -- but there are people who can simply create music without knowing all the technicalities. They just know it sounds good.

I know people who cook well with a recipe, a scale, and a stopwatch. It's not so much art as rigid rule-following. As long as the recipe itself is good, the food will be good, but it's not inspired cooking. If these people were ever faced with a pile of ingredients and no rules, they'd be lost.

So, you don't need to know the science behind why cooking works to be a good cook, and you don't need to be artistic in the kitchen to follow a recipe, but you can also find good cooks who are able to throw things together without recipes or science and have them taste wonderful.

Um, I think I just said that it's all of the above...some inherited, some learned young, and some that comes later in life.

My mom and sister are good cooks. They can cook and it tastes good but it's nothing special and they have very little imagination. My dad and I love to cook. We love to read about food and watch food shows and try all the things we learn. I guess my mom and sister cook so people can eat but my dad and I cook because we love it.

I dont know exactly how one comes to be a foodie...My mom is an ok cook but the best thing she makes is reservations...My grandmother is a mediocre cook...over cooks just about everything and her and my grandfather always made fun of my mom for liking her steak rare...

I have a fraternal twin sister who could survive on fast food and caned goods for the rest of her life and thinks I'm totally strange for liking food as much as I do. Everytime I start talking about food or a recipe or a restaurant her eyes glaze over and a few minutes later she'll start yelling at me to shut up...

Maybe I'm just a geteic oddball...hahaha.

Most folks in my family aren't into cooking at all. I do have a few uncles who love to eat a lot, but not to the point of stepping into the kitchen.

I've always loved to eat and discover new things. Being curious, I had to know how things worked, and eventually how good food was made. This passion permeates into my other interests such as sustainability, the environment, science, economics, humans. Everything seem connected through food. So fascinating.

But it was only in the last few years that I actually took the initiative to really cook. And of course, I regret not having started earlier.

Where HAVE you been Pavvie? Good to hear from you.
My mom could put food on the table that would nourish us. Her mom too. My Dad's mom was a great cook but lived in Michigan and we lived in Texas.
When we were little our brother would make the recipes on the Bisquick box on Saturday and Sunday. I started trying dinner recipes in middle school and then in high school our sister started to bake. We all say that the reason we're really good cooks is self-defense. When my dad retired he started to cook too and now my mother doesn't go near the kitchen (which everyone is fine with), just waits for her meals to be prepared.