Diet Gender Gap

[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.