How do I know?

How do I know what I know? I know that there is much I have learned, through books, experience, at school and so on. And there is much that I have seen others do and, in seeing, have fixed the knowledge in my mind. But, and this is where my question arises, there is still more that I just seem to know. Let me give an example from my own life: I am a very good cook. In some way I seem to be able to instinctively know what ingredients work with what and in which way they are best prepared. I say this not to be big headed but to illustrate a point. I have, however, no training in cooking either formal or informal. Neither do I remember spending much time in the kitchen when I was growing up watching my parents prepare food nor did I watch cooking programs on TV or read cooking books by way of relaxation. So, I have to ask, how do I know how to cook? I cannot think that it is somehow instinctive because how many of my Viking ancestors needed to prepare a nice Sauce Béarnaise after a good day out looting English monasteries or discovering Greenland? Or, going even further back, did my Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal ancestors really need a light, fluffy chocolate soufflé to follow their barbecued Mastodon? So, once again, I must ask where did my knowledge originate? I have to admit that I don’t know! This is not the only thing that I seem to know without learning it: Computer programming is something else. Almost the first time I saw a computer (in the dim distant past before the PC was a glimmer in IBM’s eye) I knew I could program it. Yes I had to learn a computer language to program with but not how to program. I know a lot of people will believe you can’t have the latter (programming) without the former (language) but you can. Believe me on that. It was almost as if I was born knowing. I know that sounds stupid and impossible but how else can I describe knowing without learning? Can anyone out there explain? Please? I am not saying my knowledge is perfect. It isn’t! Not by a long, long way. But then again neither is any other type of learning I know. But any theory about this has to explain how I could go to a restaurant when I was young (about 11-12 years old) and taste a dish and make it or how I could hear a cheese soufflé described on the radio and make it without a recipe and without ever seeing a soufflé. And no I really don’t know how it’s done.