^{Photo by Devon Rockola from Pexels}

As we were eating whatever food at some point we watched someone cooking. It could’ve been your mom fixing something simple. Your sibling putting something into the microwave.

You might have been out somewhere and remember seeing that person packing up something at the grocery. Maybe you were at a friend’s house and saw their parent making something you had never seen at your house.

As time went along, we might have decided that it was time to try and cook something new for ourselves. I know when I first was living on my own, I started to try and cook a lot of different things. I would cook with my mom whenever we would get a chance to spend time with each other. When I was growing up with my grandparents, being able to cook in the house was always a challenge. That wasn’t the environment to try out new things.

Mainly, my grandmother wanted to know what you were doing and make sure you weren’t screwing anything up because she made it seem as if it was going to cause a problem for her somehow later on. This relegated me to using the microwave to heat food. A time here or there, I might get by with turning on the oven and putting something in there.

Depending on your life, deciding to try something new could happen for a lot of different reasons. You were watching something and thought it would be good to try. You went on a trip and had something great.

A while ago, I wondered why should we learn to cook something. Why do we spend time reading blogs, checking out cookbooks from the library, or in my case instead of reading current event stories in the Washington Post, I go directly to the food section and see what interesting things they are writing about there.

This then had me wondering why anyone wants to explore cooking. Primarily, why do you want to cook something new? I knew I could probably tell you a few reasons, but why not go and poll such a thing? I did this with a few groups I belong to on a few different social media websites.

The Question

Why someone should learn to cook something new. What are some reasons you decided you wanted to cook something new?

I got a lot of really great answers. With those answers, I got 9 reasons why you should learn to cook new things. These reasons are good and I think will most likely motivate you to go out and maybe try something different that you might not have ever thought about doing.

9 reasons why you should learn to cook new things

1. Experimentation

Trying a new recipe, trying a new food, or just trying a new technique is experimenting in general. You might not think about it, but seeing how something works can intrigue the mind. It can also get you out of your comfort zone. If you aren’t a baker, but you wonder about how to make some chocolate chip cookies. You will go and look for some cookie recipes. You will bake one batch. If you don’t like that batch, you’ll try another recipe. If you don’t like the taste of the cookies with one brand of butter, you’ll get a different brand. Cooking is about your taste and experimenting with different things to get you to a point where you are happy with the results.

2. Learning

If you want to learn something, you will go and explore, and then gather the information to try things out. That’s the same for cooking. I got a lot of responses saying that learning about new cuisines that they might not have known about, really spurred them to try out new things. I know I’m the same way myself. If I see something on TV or online about a different cultures cuisine, I will search for more information. The education can start with reading up on the food. From there, you’ll research chefs, ingredients, popular dishes, etc. After that, figuring out a dish that is attainable, so you can try your hand at it and see how well your creation went.

3. Reliving a great trip

I took my first trip to Greece in 2014. I was aware of Greek food, but there is a difference between knowing Greek food and getting that food in the country itself. When I got back from my trip, I wanted to more Greek food and wanted to make some myself. That was the feeling of some as well. You want to make new things so you can keep that great trip to wherever going. Spain was another place. Every time I’d return from a trip there, I’d want to make some croquette, or at moments when I don’t know what I want to eat if I have tomatoes and some bread. It is pan con tomate. That’s how it goes, the best way to relive a trip, especially if it was a food trip is to recreate one of your meals.

4. Maintaining your heritage

This response from one person kind of says it all, “The country, I was originally born in has a very diverse and delicious kind of cuisine. But, the country I moved to had/(s) a very bland and tasteless kind of cuisine. Therefore, to continue cherishing the taste of my homeland, I decided to learn cooking using the internet and have been ever since on a very bright path.”

If you never grew up or for whatever reason lost touch with your food heritage, then why not go out and learn more about it? There are so many ways of finding out about food. This can also be a great way to connect with family or get to know friends better. I learned a lot about Indian food when I was living in Stuttgart once I started spending time with an Indian friend who did cooking get-togethers. It expanded my knowledge a lot.

5. Expanding your palate

If you grew up with the same meat and potatoes all the time, you might wonder if there is more out there than simple things. Expanding the palate and looking for a different variety of things was important to a lot of people. This is a great thing for those who didn’t grow up with a lot of spices in their life. Some people are adventurous and want to try new things. It could also be because a partner or friend took them to a new restaurant or made them something, that got them intrigued to give something new a try.

Over the years, I’ve tried so many different things that I now always enjoy giving new things a try. From the most simple things like hummus to now loving to do things with plantains, opening your mind to new things can do wonders overall for your food life.

6. Creativity

The ability to be creative takes numerous paths. You can be creative in your life when it comes to finding new ways to do things. You can be a creative thinker when it comes to finding solutions. Being creative is a major thing when it comes to cooking. You can mix and match ingredients. If you aren’t a fan of a dish being spicy, in this case hot, then you can leave it out. It won’t hurt the dish. Same thing if the situations were reversed. When you bake, however, you need to have exact items more or less. Certain baking recipes can be more forgiving, so if you leave out a spice or a flavoring, your result will still be OK.

When you are following a recipe, you are looking at someone’s blueprint. A path that can be viewed in various ways. The fact that cooking allows creativity to come out is something that can open up countless doors. Not sure what to do what that sumac, look up some recipes. Once you use it a few times, then start putting it in other dishes. From there you can decide how you want to use it and when.

7. Saving Money

You could be well off or just want to cut back on going out and spending a lot of money. Cooking yourself can let you save a decent amount of money. If you want to try to cook a certain cuisine that you know will cost you an exorbitant amount at a restaurant, maybe it’s a nice cut of meat. When you calculate the cost that a restaurant could charge you. Cooking whatever it is at home, really can save you.

It can also tie back to being creative as well. When you cook at home, the amount of money you save yourself can add up. This is also the case if you have a family. A $15-$20 grocery bill that had items for a nice dinner that night, could be over $100 at a decent restaurant with the same thing you just cooked.

Yes, the thought could be, “Well, they might cook it way better.” At various points, it’s true, but other times, because of the demands to turn tables over, so they can get their next customers in the seats. This in turn rushes the cooks. That means rushes on dishes could happen or they make the wrong food.

8. New Skills

Learning a technique or skill is something several people expressed. A new skill could be deboning or filleting a fish, trimming a brisket, or making some bread. There are so many new things you can learn while cooking, it’s a great learning opportunity. If you want to have better knife skills, then learning to cook a new dish that involves a lot of chopping is the way to go. Over the years, I’ve learned how to cut up a whole chicken, fillet a fish, and make puff pastry.

When it comes to cooking, you’ll never stop learning.

9. Trying Something New

The last thing is something that ties a lot of the previous items into this one. Trying something new. Chef Kwame Onwuachi in his memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef, talked about going over to a friend’s place and being able to try a pot roast. He admitted that it wasn’t the best thing he had at that time. However, it was the fact he had never had that food before made him interested.

You could have that experience, or you just want to see what else is out there. Trying something you aren’t familiar with can open a lot of doors. I was never a pumpkin fan, but when I first started going to the Pumpkin Festival when I lived in Germany. I was introduced to so many different varieties of pumpkins, I’m a pumpkin convert now. I’m sure there is a food you feel this way about right now.

Food has so many elements in our lives, it can take us to places we’ve never thought about. It can allow us to remember trips, family members, or particular moments that we will never want to forget. Understanding why we do what we do is very important and understanding our why is even more important.

If you haven’t given something new a try, go out and try something new today. You can see from the 9 reasons here why you won’t be sorry. Your wallet, mind, and body will thank you for taking the time to do it.