Good food can actually still be very cheap - but you need to know what to buy, what do with it, how to do it and have the facilities, abilities and energy to do it ... and the desire/will to do it.
Lack any one of those, and food starts to become very expensive.
I think the situation
@postman and my colleague was talking about was absolute poverty; in my colleagues case children were not getting a warm shower for weeks because there's no money. Sometimes this is because people spend money on the wrong things, but it's increasingly because there simply isn't the money for anything.
Several older teenagers - mainly 'big sisters' of large families - came along to the classes regularly and were happy to learn cheap simple ways to cook good tasty food, but the hoped-for parents didn't.
So even if an opportunity is offered, if it's not taken, it benefits no-one.
Why no parents took up the opportunity to attend these classes, I don't know, as they were offered in the same way, by the same people, in the same venue as other opportunities for different things, which had been taken up.
Sadly, I've seen this in other cases as well, and the pattern you describe isn't entirely surprising. It could be a number of reasons but here's a few possibilities:
There's a social stigma attached to not being able to cook. I don't know why this is, but as a non-cook I have felt it many times.
Then there's the social stigma attached to not "being educated" which unfortunately people often confuse with "being unintelligent or irresponsible" when its something very different.
I experienced this too when I came to Germany; it is genuinely quite unusual to find anyone here who doesn't have at the very least some kind of
Ausbildung; post high school vocational training, which means at least a two years apprenticeship and more usually three years. This is the same for men or women; there are more apprenticeship places available than there are young people in our state. You are as likely to be asked "what is your training?" as "what is your job?" I used to dread that question.
In the UK I don't think it's as extreme, but it's still an issue that can go to the heart of someone's view of themselves.
There's also a stigma attached to being seen as a "bad" or "incompetent" parent in the community. this is very toxic because we're all incompetent and have to learn as we go along, and it makes it very hard for people to get help: If you need help, you must be a "Bad Parent".
Put all of this together, and you may have a situation where attending this cooking course can
feel like admitting that you are a cr*p cook, badly educated (ie: "thick"); and worst of all a "bad parent". Who wants to admit to their peers, parents, or possibly worst of all, in-laws, that "I can't come on Wednesday; I need to learn how to cook"? This is especially true as people get older: when the kids are small that may be acceptable, but if they're ten years old it could feel like admitting not only that you aren't competent, but you've been incompetent for a decade. I felt that too, enrolling for an apprenticeship at 35.
Also, what will Grandma say if I give the impression I can't cook because
she didn't teach me to cook, will it make
her look incompetent?
This is also why the "Big sisters" were able to come; they're younger and there's no stigma attached. In fact it's quite the reverse: their home culture will encourage and applaud them: Parents and in-laws alike will be delighted.
At the end of the day it always comes down to the story we believe about ourselves, and the story we want to believe. We want to believe we're competent, capable members of society, and good parents, and it may be that enrolling on a cooking course suggests (or confirms) the opposite in our minds.I see this motivating people's decisions every day and it can be a really difficult situation, because it can lead to poor decisions for good reasons.
