FORGOTTEN HISTORY: Horrifying disgusting dishes potlucks cooking - The Untold Story

Failure and making mistakes are all inevitable parts of life. It happens no matter what you do or who you are. But when you’re learning a new skill, early setbacks can really demoralize you and sap your motivation to keep going. The same applies in the kitchen, where failure with your first dishes can make you want to quit.

But, like with all important life skills, it’s worth persevering. Though to be fair, that’s easier said than done! Few people are naturally resilient to failure. The rest of us have to learn to embrace our mistakes. Having the patience to develop a growth-oriented mindset helps with this.

The good news is that you can learn and strengthen new skills no matter who you are. The same goes for a growth mindset, which is the belief that you can develop and improve various abilities, talents, and intelligence through effort. In other words, you understand that, through practice, you can get better at something.

The opposite of this is a fixed mindset, where you think that you cannot improve any traits, no matter how hard you try, the Harvard Business School explains.

Meanwhile, Verywell Mind points out that your mindset plays a “critical role in how you cope with life’s challenges.” For instance, an individual with a growth mindset tends to be curious and to have a hunger for learning, discovery, hard work, and engagement with new things.

In practice, this leads to better academic achievements and perseverance when you face challenges and setbacks.

“Instead of throwing in the towel, adults with a growth mindset view it as an opportunity to learn and grow. On the other hand, those with fixed mindsets are more likely to give up in the face of challenging circumstances,” Verywell Mind explains.

So, if you have a fixed mindset, you might think that people are born with certain talents, abilities, personality features, and an amount of intelligence that can’t ever be changed. This mindset can stunt your growth and lead to stagnation.

Luckily, if you have a fixed mindset, there are a few things you can do to gradually shift toward a more growth-oriented mindset. It won’t happen overnight (few things do), but with some patience, it’s possible.

“An important factor when building a growth mindset is seeing the value in your journey. When you're fixated on the end result, you miss out on all the things you could be learning along the way,” Verywell Mind suggests.

Another strategy that you can apply is replacing negative thought patterns with more positive ones. One example of this is embracing the power of the word “yet.” Namely, if you're struggling with something, you should remind yourself that you haven’t mastered the task just “yet.” Basically, by using this word, you’re reminding yourself that you can overcome anything.

What’s more, you can intentionally and actively take on more challenges so that you make more mistakes and learn more quickly.

As Maggie Shi writes in a piece on Today, failing in cooking is inevitable, just like it is in life. “But failing, and learning from those failures, can only lead to more delicious things.”

According to her, one of the toughest cooking-related lessons that she learned was that you needed to put in the time to learn new skills. Improving, according to her, sometimes meant being patient, and that studying, trying harder, or paying more attention wouldn’t necessarily help.

“Sometimes, you're going to fail. No amount of memorization or studying is going to ensure that your lamb chops cook to a perfect medium-rare every time. Sometimes you'll burn those cookies, or overcook the steak, or try to invent a dish with capers, scallops and grapefruit, only to have it fail miserably. And that's OK,” Shi writes.

“Food is all about trial and error, experimenting with flavors and techniques, and having fun while doing it. It's the only way to learn how to be a better cook. And those croissants I made from my raggedy laminated dough? They may not have been perfect, but they still tasted pretty darn good.”

Meanwhile, Elle Hunt writes in The Guardian that she has been a “terrible cook” for most of her life and has given herself food poisoning twice.

“My regular diet used to include microwaved scrambled eggs, children’s lunchbox cheeses, tinned lentils mixed with tinned tomatoes, bowls of garden peas, and the ‘complete food’ powder Huel. I alternated between the same two dinners for nearly a year, and the same sad desk lunch for two years. In short, I scavenged like a raccoon. I wrote cooking off as ‘not my thing’ alongside, say, basketball,” she writes.

However, she is not alone. Around a tenth of Brits “cannot cook a thing” while a quarter can only make three dishes.

However, Hunt’s situation changed thanks to a few mental shifts, and now she considers herself “pretty good at cooking.”

“See if you can identify the source of your belief that you are someone who can’t cook. You might uncover a false assumption – for example, that you don’t deserve to enjoy food, that any time not spent working is wasted, or that cooking is anti-intellectual or even women’s work,” she emphasizes. “It is exhilarating to realise that your identity is not fixed.”

She stresses that, for example, you can decide that you can cook, and then you prove it to yourself through small victories. In other words, we are all capable of adapting and evolving.

What are the very worst dishes that you’ve cooked, seen, ordered, or dared to taste at a potluck? Did they taste as bad as they looked... or worse?

What’s the biggest kitchen disaster that you’ve personally been responsible for, and what happened? On the other hand, what’s your biggest cooking win that you’re proud of to this day?

We’d like to hear all about your food-related experiences, so drop by the comments to share yours. Got any photos of your cooking fails and wins? Share them there, too.