I dont necessarily agree - my family (including my mother who has run a few restaurants into the ground) didnt have any recipes worth passing down - unless you count dumping a jar of ragu in a pot with some spaghetti.

By the time I was 20 I could match or improve the flavour of any dish from childhood (about the only good thing to come out of going to a culinary scam college), and I ended up not cooking... Basically any of it. I still pop open a can of smoked oysters on cheese and cracker nights, but thats more for remembering my grandma than anything else.

I blame the fact that everyone in my family smoked like a chimney and had no tastebuds left.

Hush up and eat your hooves