re: What age to teach children to cook?

7 is a bit young to chop an onion, but not too much. Certainly, a kid with decent fine motor control can do it by 9. But making gumbo is long and kinda boring.....no grand transformation like baking. Kids dig baking b/c the ingredients (dry, terrible tasting flour, pale sugar, butter) become such a radically different thing (brownies! Cookies! Cinnamon rolls!). So why not make a family favorite cookie, cake, or bread? Or ask the lil bugger what HIS favorite thing to eat is, and then make that.