They've had a culinary upbringing like no generation before them, but are today's twentysomethings any good in the kitchen? Rachel Dugan tests some friends at a DIY dinner
My culinary exploits during my university days were hardly my finest food moments. I ate far too much overcooked pasta, smothered in the cheapest tomato-based sauce I could lay my hands on. These days I feel overcome by nausea at the thought of a jar of a "genuine taste of Tuscany". But compared with my contemporaries, I had the imagination of a Michelin-starred chef. One friend used to flop in front of the television after a long day at college with a variety packet of a sugar-laden cereal. I use the word packet, and not bowl, because she poured the milk straight into the plastic pouch.
She recently served me a spaghetti dish. Fresh pasta, a jar of good sauce with some roasted mushrooms and bacon added to the mix. A reasonable level of progression, I thought - until she dished up. I could only marvel at the fresh rocket, doused in a tangy balsamic dressing she had made. Had someone implanted a culinary microchip in her brain, or does everyone experience accelerated culinary development in their mid-20s?
I wasn't sure, so I decided to host an informal dinner party for a few of my peers. Hasty invitations were issued; people arrived. We had drunk two beers before someone asked when we might be eating. I told them that would be determined by how soon we got cooking. Inquiring eyebrows were raised, but hunger soon brought them to their senses.
I chose a recipe from one of Jamie Oliver's cookbooks, Jamie's Dinners. Tray-baked Maryland chicken with chilli spiced wedges and a simple green salad were on our menu. Twentysomething cooks tend not to go for multiple courses or particularly fiddly creations. The idea was to get a tasty meal into the oven as quickly as possible, sit back, sip a beer and watch our dish bubble away.
The guys conformed to gender stereotypes. While the girls huddled around the chopping board, discussing the best way to stuff the banana into the chicken breasts, they just sat bolted to their seats. I brought them two bags of potatoes to chop into wedges. They liked that - something about sharp knives and the safe familiarity of tubers, I suspect.
Guys in their 20s can cook, though. One guest maintained that all her previous boyfriends had been more able in the kitchen than she, and it is rare to find a young man who doesn't know his way around a wok. It's a case of can cook, won't cook, for some at least.
Today's twentysomethings have had a culinary upbringing unlike no Irish generation before us. As the guys chopped and the girls stuffed, marinated, basted and blanched, we discussed what kind of food we had been served as children. It would seem that the Celtic Tiger feeds well, and from a variety of continents. Lasagne, stir-fries and curries were recalled, along with more traditional staples. All agreed that microwaveable meals were not tolerated, although one guy admitted to succumbing when time and imagination were in short supply.
Cooking from scratch is the cheaper option. To go back to that jar of cheap and nasty pasta sauce, chopped tomatoes, peppers, onions, crushed garlic, cubes of courgette and a bit of diced chilli makes something more appetising for a similar, if not lower, price. So all those afternoons spent marvelling at Ainsley Harriott and his crew on Ready Steady Cook, when we should have been in some tutorial or other, have finally paid off.
I fed eight people, but could have fed 10, for only €40. The meal turned out well - although I would recommend getting chicken breasts with a cup size big enough to accommodate half a banana, and to heed Jamie's advice about the wine. I overdid it on the vino, not for the first time in my life, and the once-feathered A-cups ended floating in, rather than resting on, the sweetcorn, cream and white wine-filled tray.
So, twentysomething cooking? It isn't haute cuisine, but nor is it the pasta and jar of our university days. It is, a bit like ourselves: maturing nicely.