When people say they can't cook

All cottape pie is is some minced meat cooked with vegetables and gravy put into a casserole dish, covered in mash, and stuck in the oven. So yes, it's pretty simple and I'd find it hard to understand how someone wouldn't know how to make it...

How do you make the gravy? Mashed potatoes? How are the veg cooked? Mince? Do you just put raw mince, and chopped veg and gravy in a pot, and put mashed potatoes on top? How do you know when it's ready?

Just because you find some cooking easy, and I suspect you aren't as good as you think, doesn't mean everyone does.

Things like getting a fried egg perfect take practise. Rice is difficult too.

Mashed potatoes, if you haven't made them before, are not obvious. Do you mash them up in a blender or something when raw? Boil them? Roast them? Do you drain the water off them? Do you add milk/butter/salt? etc etc.

Use something called a potato masher.

Someone cooking for the first time is going to have no idea what a potato masher looks like/is.

Flat mate tried to make tuna pasta and almost emptied a can of tuna into a pan of boiling water with penne in it.

Nump.

I use a fork for mine. Works just fine.

There is no excuse for not understanding the basics. I can understand fear of trying for the first time, but not knowing how to make mashed potato or burning an egg is laziness or an unwillingness to think.

I'm well aware of the tools you can use for potato mashing, thank you.

Why is it laziness? Because some people do live off ready meals, or have parents cook for them most of the time. It's not obvious how to make mashed potatoes without having experience of making them before.