Teaching the (adult) kids to cook and there's an underlying principle I'm trying to communicate to them:

The modern recipe, as a form, was invented in recent history to serve the needs of industrial, commercial, nationalist forms of cooking.

If you're doing any other kind of cooking — the vast majority of cooking worldwide and throughout history, including most home cooking — you don't want 'em.

What you want is a repertoire of techniques, experience with ingredients, and your active senses.