We have a couple of generations out there who have never learned how to cook. Oh, they can scramble eggs, make toast, make coffee in a coffee maker and slap a sandwich together with store bread and deli sliced meats. But they can't COOK. For them, following recipes to the letter is essential until tasting what each ingredient does to the whole dish lets them get a feel for what they like and what they don't like. At that point, they can use recipes as basic guidelines but no longer follow them carefully.
Learning any skill is a process of starting with the basics and that's what recipes are, especially in some of the better books that illustrate things like proper knife skills. While people who know how to cook regard them as crutches and sneer, there's nothing wrong with crutches if that's what you need to get around. I've broken enough bones to learn that.
And no, Neal,throwing more butter into a dish doesn't make it better, that only works on northern European and some Indian fare. Try it with Mediterranean or East Asian food, you are not going to like what happens. Besides, butter, while far better than margarine or any solid vegetable fat, is still not good for you in large quantities.
So if you're a non cook, watching videos and plodding through a copy of Fannie Farmer or The Joy of Cooking, you are not alone and kudos to you for wanting to learn an essential skill. You'll get there and eventually you'll do Grandma cooking, a handful of this and a handful of that with great results. You just have to start at the beginning.
(My mother hated cooking and it showed, so no real cooking skills to be had there. Julia Child did her best, supplemented by Fannie Farmer, buyt I needed them both to teach me what I'd missed)
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