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Interesting and useful post, but I'm not sure I agree with the analogy to learned helplessness or using the word "learned" at all. The state you are describing seems to vary greatly between individuals (for contrast, I know many people who believe they can do or know almost anything correctly) and probably correlates to such things as intelligence, openness, risk-tolerance, etc. What makes you think this "blankness" is learned?
In response to
Learned Blankness
We (and by 'we' I mean the general American public) learn it in school, fairly early on. Children who question, explore, experiment, and tinker are often chastised for "jumping ahead" or "not paying attention" or "being disruptive" or a half-dozen other complaints made by harried or exhausted teachers, or fearful parents.
Children are not often (anymore) encouraged to simply try things out to see if they work. In school they're not really encouraged to explore, but instead to stay with the group. At home, they're often inhibited from tinkering with pretty much anything. "You might break it!" is a pretty common parental reaction to a child tinkering with anything remotely mechanical.
I'm not sure that's what the author specifically had in mind, when calling this behavior "learned", but it's certainly something I've seen fairly often.
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Cooking is a lot like computing in reverse. Instead of being the programmer, you're the cpu. Follow the program, and you'll end up with the result the recipe provides.
The part of cooking where people look like they're just tossing things together is much more advanced. Cuddle your recipe book while you cook, it's your best friend.
I really recommend 'The Joy of Cooking' as a good book to start with, especially older editions. My 'acid test' of a general-purpose cookbook is if it has a real recipe for cream of mushroom soup or if it just says 'add 1 can'. The older editions have the real recipe, as well as massive amounts of information not only about food but also about how to serve it.
Edit - please disregard this post
I have a preference for the Fannie Farmer cookbook, personally. I regularly flip between my 1918 edition and my 1986 edition to see how cooking styles, preferences, and procedures have changed. The 1986 edition also has some excellent sections on the process of (for example) baking in general, rather than just a list of recipes.