My sister recently found an after school program for tweens that let them learn how to cook and explained some of the food sciencey stuff (as well as budget stuff) to her tween. And since that teenager is now a vegetarian it has been helpful that she can help prepare her meals (I don't actually know how my sister does it making 2 full sets of meals for each type of eater in her house. actually 3 now because one became vegan, one is vegetarian and the meat eater refuses to eat vegetables) So I would steer the kid more in that direction. Let someone else teach them the ways of the kitchen AND give them a cabinet of foostuffs they can use.
Some people grok cooking better than others. Experimentation is good, but if there are enough terrible meals they will eventually realize they have to go back to a recipe as a basis bc they are hungry. (yes I see the privilege of having the $$ to experiment and have terrible food. I remember eating a lot of terrible meals that didn't work when I was on a stricter budget)
As a latch key kid who was told at 9 that "You are old enough to read a recipe and follow it. The meat is in the fridge, make meatloaf from joy of cooking" There has to be a middle ground. Starting to let kids help when they are younger (yes younger than 9) and also explaining budgets to them younger (yes younger than 9) might have helped stave off the 100$ experiment. But kids still need to experiment. So let them have boundaries to do so. (my experimentation foodwise was confined to tuna fish salad. I could put ANYTHING I wanted in it, but I still had to eat it.)
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Some people grok cooking better than others. Experimentation is good, but if there are enough terrible meals they will eventually realize they have to go back to a recipe as a basis bc they are hungry. (yes I see the privilege of having the $$ to experiment and have terrible food. I remember eating a lot of terrible meals that didn't work when I was on a stricter budget)
As a latch key kid who was told at 9 that "You are old enough to read a recipe and follow it. The meat is in the fridge, make meatloaf from joy of cooking" There has to be a middle ground. Starting to let kids help when they are younger (yes younger than 9) and also explaining budgets to them younger (yes younger than 9) might have helped stave off the 100$ experiment. But kids still need to experiment. So let them have boundaries to do so. (my experimentation foodwise was confined to tuna fish salad. I could put ANYTHING I wanted in it, but I still had to eat it.)