Diet Gender Gap

[Opsa]

Here's a continuation of the gender gap and diet discussion that a couple of people started in Virtual Halloween.

Please reiterate before continuing.

[Aggie]

Original article here, based on a study from Sweden that found that a woman's level of education is more relevant to her husband's likelihood of dying than his own level of education is:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8291667.stm

The larger discussion may be whether women in general are more likely to eat healthy than men are, and whether they tend to be a good influence on men in relationships.  Or anything else we wander into.

[Opsa]

...and it's really a good discussion, although on second thought I notice that "Diet Gender Gap" sounded like a carbonated beverage!

I think that maybe since traditionally the women are generally in charge of the household menu and meal preparations, they are more in control of what the family eats. The more educated she is, the more likely it is that she would buy and prepare healthy meals.

[Aggie]

I tend to agree - also, educated people in general are more likely to self-educate, I think (being in the habit of learning).  It's certainly not exclusive; my mother has a high-school education but is very health conscious and is always trying to learn something new in regards to her health. She's passed that on to me and uses me as a resource for vetting health claims.  She was also a big influence on her mother-in-law for year, and encouraged her to start cooking with vegetable oil instead of exclusively with lard and butter, among other things.

My father is generally a healthy eater for his main meals and is very fitness-oriented, but does like his indulgences (fried snacks, sweets, chocolate and alcohol, although the latter is probably at a healthy amount as he typically has one drink per day).   Mom has definitely been a big influence on him, diet-wise.

The study does note a strong link to material resources*; healthy eating is not particularly expensive in itself, but if one has extra disposable income it's easier to get your hands on specialty superfoods and supplements.  My parents are quite thrifty** (financially secure due to careful money management but not wealthy), but they`ve always gardened to keep fresh produce available during the growing season.

<sub>*perversely, I will spend sometimes too much money on healthy food, especially fruits and hate spending it on sweets and snacks, but have a hard time saying no to things I would not normally eat from a health perspective if they are free.

**however, their discretionary income these days does end up going towards healthy pursuits to a large degree; Mom spends it on health products and organic food, Dad spends it on mountain bikes.</sub>


It goes both ways in our house; Christie`s got me to make fruit a regular part of my diet (back home I was a seasonal fruit binger as we lived in a very fruitful region, but it was not easy in past decades to get good fruit all year round, and I fell out of the habit when I first moved to AB due to limited funds and supermarket choices when I was a student), got me eating fish on a regular basis (availability in the city helps here as well) and also initiated my cutbacks on meat consumption - I`ve taken it even further since I started getting into legumes, which she`s not a fan of. 

I`ve been encouraging her to cut back on sodium consumption (coming from a perpetually low-sodium household, I often undersalt) as Korean food tends to be quite salty, especially from her mother`s region of the country.

I find that I have a more tolerance of / drive to eat healthy things that don't actually taste good - a remnant of that bizarre North American puritanical food morality that anything that tastes good must therefor be unhealthy and cause guilt, and anthing that is healthy should be tasteless or nasty and eaten as an ascetic act to maintain the moral high ground through self-denial.  My actual cooking has moved away from that as I use lots of spices and flavours to make sure healthy food tastes good, but I will still put health ahead of taste in my day-to-day meals.  Her traditional diet is based on principals of health from the ground up, with very little need to worry about heath if one is eating a good variety of normally available foods; the lack of healthy-ingredient availabilty and ridiculously easy availabilty of red meat here makes it more difficult to keep it up.

We diverge on fat consumption; I like eating lean but need a ton of calories to maintain a reasonable weight, so I go heavy on the olive oil and other healthy fats when I`m cooking for myself (legumes for lunches).  I've come to the conclusion that my body is best fueled by a middle-Eastern style diet, which tends to be too heavy for her.

[Griffin NoName]

Some research suggests that people at the same level of income are less healthy if they live in a generally low income area than people with the same level of income who live in an area of higher income. So it may all be down to demographics.

(this is straight off my MSc course.... I am drowning in conflicting facts on health.... IMHO anything can prove anything in health research.... ie its not the five fruit and veg you eat, its how much the folk next door earn. and I am supposed to write an authorative essay on that?).

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

What the grocery stores in your area carry will depend on what people buy, which is what they can afford to buy.

[Aggie]

Or what they are ethnically inclined to buy - I don't trust any supermarket catering exclusively to white people.  The produce is terrible and the fish is sold by 100 grams instead of the pound (at the same price per unit!).

[beagle]

What the grocery stores in your area carry will depend on what people buy, which is what they can afford to buy.

You do realize Griffin is getting you both to provide all the key essay points for her? I hope you charge for this 

IMHO anything can prove anything in health research....

I hope you can back that up with some research. 
IMHO, the clue is when the paper ends with "It's is clear from our study that further research is needed". That's researcher speak for "My grant has ended and I don't want to have to get a real job" or "I made the results up so don't do anything serious with them".

[Griffin NoName]

What the grocery stores in your area carry will depend on what people buy, which is what they can afford to buy.

You do realize Griffin is getting you both to provide all the key essay points for her? I hope you charge for this 

IMHO anything can prove anything in health research....

I hope you can back that up with some research.

Actually I am quite shocked by the (sub) academic level of the course material (Uni is 18th in the overall league table) - statements like positive thinking improves the immune system ---- utter crap ---- some studies showed that 15 years ago, couldn't be reproduced, and since then other studies have proved the exact opposite including one that showed absolutely without doubt that positive thinking does not extend life with breast cancer*. The trouble is that I have to please the person who marks the essay so I can't challenge the nonesense.

* sorry don't have the web links to hand

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There was a book mentioned in the Daily Show about that, the lady who wrote it was very adamant on the subject (that positive thinking doesn't work). I found the link (hopefully it works in the UK):

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-14-2009/barbara-ehrenreich

[Griffin NoName]

Thanks for that Zono. Video won't show in the UK but I followed the bi-line up and found interesting stuff, including cited research which supports my own understanding that being happy has no effect on the immune system.

Still though it includes gender and diet (well apples):

quote from Linus Pauling (1962)

The appearance of the concept of good and evil that was interpreted by Man as his painful expulsion from paradise probably was a molecular disease that turned out to be evolution.

Chew on that !

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

quote from Linus Pauling (1962)

The appearance of the concept of good and evil that was interpreted by Man as his painful expulsion from paradise probably was a molecular disease that turned out to be evolution.

Chew on that !

I think he is reading too much into it, but I've always loved that metaphor, it suggests that part of what define us as human is the labeling of good and evil, that conformity is bliss and what separates us from other animals in this planet.

I could go further to say that what the judeo-christian paradigm actively seeks that conformity (why else the medieval Platonist ethos?) and questioning is by definition evil (for whom?).

[Aggie]

What the grocery stores in your area carry will depend on what people buy, which is what they can afford to buy.

OTOH, it may be a case of thresholds rather than being directly proportional to income levels.  Very poor areas where few residents own cars and transit is inadequate will not easily support the type of supermarkets that rely on large-volume purchases (refrigeration units for fresh foods are expensive, and if turnover is not high, it's tough to keep fresh, good-quality produce and meat on the shelf).  However, once a certain standard of living is reached (upper lower/lower middle) is reached and the population density is sufficient, shopping options expand and prices drop rapidly to compete for that market.  I'm thinking of a couple of areas of my city that are perceived to be the "bad" area of town, but have the most diverse offerings even within major chains and almost always the best price:quality ratio (plus tons of small-business specialty markets). 

People with too much money can eat whatever they like, but are usually getting ripped off for any given item, as they don't have to watch every penny they spend.  There's one national budget supermarket chain I can think of here that MANY people of a certain income threshold actively avoid, mostly so they don't have to shop alongside of "those people"; however, the price, quality and selection (especially of house-brand items, which are generally better than the national brands) are excellent, and it's about the best place to get organic staple items and basic produce.   There's another local premium supermarket chain that I'm convinced exists primarily so one doesn't have to shop with "those people" - the deli/butcher/bakery/pre-made food counters are OK, but prices for food readily available elsewhere is atrocious and the produce is generally sub-par (half the quality, twice the price!).

There's definitely a "health food" threshold at which point one can afford to shop at the local health-food / organic market and drop ridiculous amounts of disposable income on sometimes ridiculous powders and potions in addition to overpaying for rather basic food items. I think this threshold may be more important in terms of overall health, but as a caveat, the people who shop in these types of places are generally more interested in health and wellness, so IMHO it's more of the educational / awareness aspects that make the difference than necessarily spending the money on any particular items (there's still a pretty big fried-salty-snack aisle at a health food store, and last time I checked health-food-fried-salty-snacks are still high in fat and sodium; however, at $7 for a bag of potato chips, one is more likely to consume them in moderation ).  I do shop frequently at the health food store, especially in summer when organic produce is in season and reasonably priced (in winter, prices rise there and it's largely back to the above-mentioned budget chain), especially since it's downtown and I don't need to drive 15 - 20 minutes to get there.

---------------------------

WRT the original premise here - more men are cooking for the family on a regular basis than was the case 50 years ago.  In everyone's experience, does Dad-as-chef generally cook as healthy as Mom does, or is there a difference in priorities (ease of preparation, taste, did it have a face, etc. )?

[Opsa]

I like it when my husband cooks, because he really loves to fuss over details, whereas I usually am concentrating on getting the stuff onto the table PRONTO. I do fast and healthy, he does the fancier stuff but far less frequently.

Speaking of organic, I was shopping for natural peanut butter today and was flabbergasted at what can be called "natural" and "organic". We like the stuff that's just peanuts and salt. I saw one brand that claimed to be natural and organic, but had both oil and sugar added. WTF?

I guess there's another place where my husband and I differ as we shop. I read labels. He just grabs.

[Aggie]

Speaking of organic, I was shopping for natural peanut butter today and was flabbergasted at what can be called "natural" and "organic". We like the stuff that's just peanuts and salt. I saw one brand that claimed to be natural and organic, but had both oil and sugar added. WTF?

Organic*, natural oil and sugar, mind.

It's the health equivalent of greenwashing - I get flabbergasted that many people will assume something is healthier because it's promoted as 'natural'.  Glad to hear you are a label reader and can sift through the mixed signals.  I've found that sulphites*** are permitted in quite a few organic products as well (wine, dried fruits/spices), which bothers me a little.

IMHO, 'natural peanut butter' should be peanuts and possibly a bit of salt (both options are appreciated, but I don't like the taste of unsalted).  OTOH, if you do eat sweetened, fatted-up peanut butter, the organic version is still worthwhile because peanuts are notoriously contaminated with pesticides and oils tend to be good carriers of organic** contaminants.   I haven't heard whether organic peanuts differ in aflatoxin content or not, but I doubt it's lower as no fungicides would be permitted on organic crops. 

Incidentally, some types of peanut butter with added sugar and fat are actually lower-fat than the peanuts-only variety, as the sugar displaces some of the peanut oil in the mix.  However, the fats added are often (historically) shortenings and may boost the saturated fat content significantly.




<sub>*chemists giggle about this because most of the nastiest chemicals are organic**, and even the inorganic nasties (mercury, lead) tend to be more toxic and/or bioavailable when complexed with organic ligands.

**carbon-based

***definitely inorganic as there's no carbon, although this also applies to good ol' NaCl</sub> 

[Griffin NoName]

What about mixed gender peanuts?

[Aggie]

Not only are they mixed gender, they self pollinate!

[Opsa]

But are they allowed to be legally wed?

[Aggie]

Whatever they do in the privacy of their own petals is their business.

In any case, they're better off than Red Bartsia and Dodder, which are legally weeds here (not sure on whether Black Bartsia is banned in AB ).

[Lindorm]

Sort of veering off on a tangent here, but what about the trend towards (at least some) cooking becoming a mucho macho activity? Gordon Ramsey, Anthony Bourdain or some other suitably buff lad telling the housewives of the country that they do not know how to cook, and need a man's guiding hand to do so in a correct manner? Male-oriented magazines such as FHM and their equivalents running features on cooking, guides to expensive knives, pots and gadgets and so on? Or is this a trend more about conspicious consumption, rather than about actual cooking?

[Griffin NoName]

I can't answer your questions Lindorm but I can say that my son's liking of expenisive knives has nearly bankrupted me

[Aggie]

is this a trend more about conspicious consumption, rather than about actual cooking?

Both. Gadgets can easily go both ways.  IMO some things are straighforward conspicuous consumption, like very expensive professional knife sets for anything except a professional cook (sorry Grif ).  One expensive chef's knife may be justifiable, because they are a central tool, but really, unless you are regularly putting your entire knife set through its paces it's probably just a showpiece and you'd do better to add a couple of mid-priced specialty knives to the ensemble for the tasks you regularly do (i.e. cleaver and boning knife for me).

It also depends on your skill level; like many sporting goods, you don't really appreciate the very high-performance stuff unless you are very good, although you do tend to learn faster with at least entry-level gear instead of the cheap, flimsy low-grade crap. If you are a wizard with a knife, you may be able to justify top-of-the-line tools, if not, you're just a poseur.  IMO.

I think cooking's also "machoing up" a bit to make it seem a worthwhile pursuit to men who would otherwise worry that showing those kind of (traditionally) "wimmin's" skills makes them seem sissy. I think there's still a lot more emphasis on meat and fire with male cooking than on soups and pastries, especially in the FHM-type of media (that kind of mag exists to advertise products, so putting a macho image on it helps sell expensive gear).


There's always a bit of jockeying for dominance with male friends, and while one might impress his buddies a bit with a delicious meal, one needs to put a bit of macho in it to keep the upper hand with guys who are useless in the kitchen and associate food-preparation with mom/wife/girlfriend. Putting some badass cooking gear into the process helps. I buy gear for functionality, but must admit more than a few man-gadgets that I'm the primary user of:

-lots of cast iron
-19 inch meat saw
-meat grinder
-massive stone mortar and pestle
-charcoal smoker large enough to smoke a turkey in (did so for thanksgiving)

and this little beauty, which is totally functional and gets regular use, but is also a total man-toy:


I will admit boasting to my buddies ('specially foodies) about being able to handle this kind of equipment, which isn't conspicuous consumption (spending money) but is still status-oriented male dominance behaviour, albeit skill based instead of cash based.



_{The secret here is that men aren't generally cooking to impress men (they are cooking to impress women, hence the focus in FHM & equivalents), so they need the edge to keep cooking manly.  I just need some badass indoor gardening tools or some very scary plants to make up for my houseplant obsession now.}

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

The secret here is that men aren't generally cooking to impress men (they are cooking to impress women, hence the focus in FHM & equivalents), so they need the edge to keep cooking manly.

I dunno about that, in a social setting being able to cook a lauded meal is a plus (besides my wife isn't that impressed with my cooking which she finds less healthy than hers ).
---
BTW, where did you get that beautiful puppy there? Gas, alcohol, coal? 

[Pachyderm]

I learnt to cook helping my Mum. Unfortunately, she has a natural talent with flavours that I signally lack. As she never really follows recipes (although she has lots of recipe books, including one of her mother's, who was a cook at a stately home), it was always "a pinch of this, a smidge of that.." and a glorious end product. Fortunately, all those years of lab training come to the fore, and I can (have to) follow recipes. And keep the kitchen clean, while I'm at it. As I love hot foods, I do tend to be a bit heavy handed with the spices, which not everybody appreciates. 

I can, however barbecue, and cook over an open fire. Handy in the savannah, less useful in Belfast...

I do have a very expensive knife set, which fell off the back of a lorry. Bloke came round to the pub kitchen where I was working, and offered them. The head chef didn't need any for the kitchen, but got a set for himself. Hmm, thinks I, Neil reckons these are good enough for him to want, so I'll have some of that as well...

[Darlica]

I tend to think along the same lines when it comes to cooking and kitchen appliances an I do when it comes to art and art-supplies. Good quality tools make things a lot easier and save you a lot of frustration however without talent and skill they won't help.


I'm a sucker for good quality tools. It doesn't matter if we are talking art-supplies, carpentry tools or pots, pans and knifes. That said Lindorm is the one working magic in the kitchen...   

[Aggie]

I dunno about that, in a social setting being able to cook a lauded meal is a plus (besides my wife isn't that impressed with my cooking which she finds less healthy than hers ).

Mixed-gender settings, I agree, and a good cook will still be lauded by his buddies, but it may not count for as much on the male dominance scale as owning the fancy gadgets to pull it off, unless said buddies also have culinary inclinations (I'm still running with the observation that most male-male interactions, even between close friends, are to some degree a subtle game of one-upmanship).

There's some cultural variations too, because in many places cooking as a profession is dominated by men. Regardless, men always try to out-gadget each other, and probably have since they started knapping flint, so perhaps it's just that more men are picking up cooking.

BTW, where did you get that beautiful puppy there? Gas, alcohol, coal? 

Got it from a little kitchen supply shop in Calgary, after seeing it at a big bbq place and drooling over it on the 'net for a couple of days.  It runs on charcoal - about 8 briquettes worth per load, although I think most briquettes are blasphemy and stick to hardwood lump charcoal - a handful is enough. Grills, smokes, roasts, and can cook a load of veggies in the base while grilling up top. I'm very happy with it, although I would like some of the accessories (roasting rack, griddle, or fit out some cast iron for a cooking surface) to make it a little more flexible.
http://www.cobbamerica.com/ for more details.

Fortunately, all those years of lab training come to the fore, and I can (have to) follow recipes. And keep the kitchen clean, while I'm at it.

I can do neither of those things, despite lab training.   I do keep my hands clean and minimize cross-contamination, though - field skills.

I do have a very expensive knife set, which fell off the back of a lorry. Bloke came round to the pub kitchen where I was working, and offered them. The head chef didn't need any for the kitchen, but got a set for himself. Hmm, thinks I, Neil reckons these are good enough for him to want, so I'll have some of that as well...

I'm a sucker for good quality tools. It doesn't matter if we are talking art-supplies, carpentry tools or pots, pans and knifes.

I will admit to owning a fairly good chef's knife (Henckels 5-star), but managed to pick it up for a ridiculously low $30 at Winners - it was marked as a second, but I can't find anything wrong with it.  I'm also a believer in good-quality tools, and generally feel that if you're buying something that you will be using for years on a regular basis, it's worth spending the money for quality.  OTOH, it's easy to spend money for the sake of spending money - keeping knives as an example, top-of-the-line knife sets can run into the thousands of dollars, wheras you can get decent quality mid-range knives from a reputable manufacturer around the $30 - $50 price point, and IMHO these are plenty for most home cooks, especially if you spend a little more on your main knife.

[Pachyderm]

Just been doing some currency conversions.

Set should have cost (at today's exchange rates) $755. I got it for $42.

Steal. (Quite literally, I suspect... )


I have a friend who is a very good cook, and his philosophy with kitchen equipment is to buy cheap, and if it gets worn out/broken he's using it enough to  warrant a good version.

[Aggie]

I have a friend who is a very good cook, and his philosophy with kitchen equipment is to buy cheap, and if it gets worn out/broken he's using it enough to  warrant a good version.

Good philosophy for all sorts of gear, methinks.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I'm kind of on my own when it comes to cooking, though I still ask my mom for tips here and there. Pretty much every meal she's ever cooked is centered around meat of some kind and I'm a vegetarian so that doesn't cross apply very well.

[Lindorm]

Going back to the original post and subject, I'd say that education carries a strong correlation to economic status, and thus the ability to afford both expensive and healthy ingredients, as well as the time to buy and prepare them -or, for that matter, buying more expensive and healthier take-away food ( e g, Sushi ) instead of McGrease.

While Sweden is (yet!) far from the situation in the USA, for example, where it is actually cheaper for a lot of people to buy prepared foodstuffs and frozen dinners than to buy ingredients and cook from scratch, we are certainly making more and more moves in that direction, with healthy food and especially home-cooked food becoming more and more of a status marker -and, at the same time, becoming something perceptually more and more out of reach of the ordinary person. Cooking is done by celebs on TV, not your mom in the kitchen.

What I was skirting in my first, rather hurried, post, was the interesting perception that women are perfectly capable of cooking nice, home-made food and family dinners -but when things get serious, a Real Man needs to step in. Who cooks at home? Who is the star chef at swanky restaurant? There's more than a few interesting contradicitons here, contradictions that make the social anthropologist in me start to peek out again.

On the one hand, women are/were traditionally percieved as capable of cooking and nourishing the family -indeed, that was one of the definitions of womenhood. On the other hand, women seem to be incapable of knowing what it is that they do, when they fulfill their holy role in the family -they don't have the right recipes, techniques and what not. Indeed, a lot of traditional french home-cooking classics are sometimes lumped together as incodifiables -dishes that cannot be codified, are made slightly different from time to time, do not have exact recipes with ingredients, proportions and times, made by women in the home and most often not present on the menu of a classic restaurant, except perhaps in a modified or more luxurious version.

On the other hand, you have the dishes of the grand cuisine, made almost exclusively by male chefs in restaurant kitchens, with meticulous attention to detail, techniques and exact ingredients -or subject to endless debate between more male experts as to whether you can use chicken from somewhere else than Bresse in a certain dish. Most definitely not something for maman in her home kitchen, who is utterly incapable of the reasoning needed to be able to pull off one of these great dishes, though she might have one named after her, or her tits, if she is nice, or they are nice.

As an interesting side note, the lovely bean casserolle Cassoulet really ought to be in the camp of the incodifibles -several contesting recipes and regional variations, no real canonical list of ingredients despite several attempts at providing one, the dish it self can hardly be called elegant and often made at home, by women. However, it is also a popular restaurant dish, and one that is definitely within a man's domain -possibly because it has been the standard friday fare of the Foreign Legion since it's inception, and is also intimately tied to the sport of Rugby, which is extremely popular in the southern half of France. Are you going to tell the bunch of legionnaires enjoying their after-game beans that they are poofs, eating a woman's dish? 

Anyhow, more disjointed ramblings, but I hope someone else but me find them interesting.

[Aggie]

Cooking is done by celebs on TV, not your mom in the kitchen.

This.  Is a problem. 

The odd time I pick up a cooking magazine (supermarket lineup) I am generally appalled by how dumbed-down the recipes are and ESPECIALLY how many packaged / convenience food items are advertised in most of them (Gourmet used to be OK from what I remember, but it's now defunct).  It's becoming appallingly obvious that today's food media is geared primarily to people who like to eat, not people who like to / know how to cook (I'd even suggest that it's specifically for people who can't cook).

What I was skirting in my first, rather hurried, post, was the interesting perception that women are perfectly capable of cooking nice, home-made food and family dinners -but when things get serious, a Real Man needs to step in. Who cooks at home? Who is the star chef at swanky restaurant? There's more than a few interesting contradicitons here, contradictions that make the social anthropologist in me start to peek out again.

On the one hand, women are/were traditionally percieved as capable of cooking and nourishing the family -indeed, that was one of the definitions of womenhood. On the other hand, women seem to be incapable of knowing what it is that they do, when they fulfill their holy role in the family -they don't have the right recipes, techniques and what not.

Maybe you'd find some light in Korean cuisine - still largely considered to be women's cuisine, although I'm sure swanky restaurants may be an exception (but average restaurants definitely are not, in contrast to many other Euro and Asian cuisines). I'm personally convinced that to some degree it's due to the patience, extensive preparation and fine grasp of complex flavours (from simple ingredients) required; royal cuisine was also traditionally prepared by women.

Another major factor here, at least in my (Canadian) experience, is that many girls/women that grew up after second-wave feminism don't consider cooking to be a necessary skill once women were not pre-destined to take on a domestic role _{(perhaps someone a bit older than I could comment on second-wave feminist attitudes to cooking - I suspect a minor backlash, although I don't see that in my generation, just apathy)}.  I would estimate that there's little difference in prevalence and degree of cooking skills between urban men and women in my cohort (rural areas seem to follow traditional patterns to a larger degree, but also are more likely to be male-as-primary-earner than urban households).

To hell with gender roles, how do you expect to feed yourself in a cheap and healthful manner if you can't cook a little? 

Men of my generation, OTOH, are more likely to be able to cook a few dishes to meet the 'enlightened male' image, but generally cooking skills are dismal across the board.  Also worth noting that with the male bias in commercial kitchens, more men have gotten some training as a part-time job.  There are plenty of women in the restaurant industry, but the can make more money as servers (and it takes a special type of woman to put up with the sophomoric male kitchen environment).

I perceive a generational gap in women's cooking skills; ask nearly anyone, and they'll tell you that Grandma's food is the best.  Years of practice, perhaps - could also be due to Grandma learning to cook before the days of 'health food' and using the right amount of fat to make it taste good. 

Indeed, a lot of traditional french home-cooking classics are sometimes lumped together as incodifiables -dishes that cannot be codified, are made slightly different from time to time, do not have exact recipes with ingredients

See the Cooking with Chili Peppers thread. 

[Opsa]

Indeed, a lot of traditional french home-cooking classics are sometimes lumped together as incodifiables -dishes that cannot be codified, are made slightly different from time to time, do not have exact recipes with ingredients

OHhhhh... I thought you meant they did not contain cod.