I can literally remember the day it happened.

I was about eighteen, and my then boyfriend and I went to a restaurant together. I ordered roast beef because I loved the sides that came with roast beef. Mashed potatoes, gravy, yorkshire pudding, veg, mmm.

When my food came, I ate some mashed potatoes, and then I cut into my roast beef and was horrified. They had drastically undercooked it, I was sure that even a single bite would give me food poisoning!

My boyfriend saw the look on my face and asked what was wrong. Not wanting to complain, I lowered my voice and said: “It’s—it’s moist.” (yes, I used the word moist)

Naturally, he gave me a confused look and asked why that was a problem, and we had a conversation, where I essentially informed him that roast beef was supposed to be dry, and even a little hard, and he insisted that, no, it should be tender and juicy.

But it was one of those conversations where, even as I was making my points, I was starting to realize I was wrong. Roast beef was NOT supposed to be hard and dry, and only made palatable by being buried in mashed potatoes and gravy. I was NOT going to get food poisoning from a roast that was cooked to perfection.

That was the first time I actually realized my Mom was not a good cook (sorry, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day!).

It was eye opening, and as I moved forward in life, I realized what things were supposed to taste like.

Her yorkshire pudding was nothing like anyone else’s yorkshire pudding, although I do still think hers is good.
Her pasta was so insanely overcooked that it was waterlogged and inedible, and I had always assumed that was just what pasta tasted like.
Her meats were always overcooked, and sometimes even charred, to the point that as an adult, I actually like charred chicken. Like, if chicken has a layer of black on it, I’m totally cool with that.

You name it, my Mom has destroyed it, and her three children had no idea that that wasn’t what food was supposed to taste like. It should not be surprising that all three of us were absolutely scrawny children, lol. She was always so worried about giving us food poisoning that she overcooked everything to insane degrees.

Her cooking has much improved. She uses meat thermometers now, and she follows recipes more closely.

I still prefer my meats to be burned, I still love her strange, flat yorkshire puddings, and I’ve discovered that pasta is actually delicious.

But whenever I cook for others I worry, is this how it’s supposed to look, or am I just doing what my Mom did, and overcooking things because that’s how I’m used to it tasting?

EDITED to add: My Dad, apparently, was/is an even worse cook than my Mom. I just don’t have any recollection of his cooking. I don’t think he’s cooked anything more than toast since I was a small child, and apparently it’s for a good reason.

My older sister is four years older than I am, and she remembers a time when my Dad made her soup. It was canned soup, cream of something or other, so you’d think it would be pretty easy, right? Add milk, stir, heat. Simple. Except my Dad didn’t read the instructions.

He added water, and didn’t bother stirring, so he served my sister hot water with chunks of cold, congealed soup concentrate floating in it. She was so upset she still talks about it occasionally, and my Dad hasn’t cooked since.