Is Cooking Welded to Gender?

Sometimes I google on my own site name just to see what turns up. It always gives me pause to see what a gender-related issue cooking is. As far as I know most of the online users are still men, but women come out in force to give their opinions about cooking. In publishing a site like mine, I've sometimes wondered if I'm walking into a wind.

A surprisingly large number of women believe that if a man cooks dinner for them they are being courted, or at least seduced. In the first 20 search results I found these titles:

• The Seductiveness of a Man Who Cooks
• Is A Man Who Cooks The Ultimate Turn On?
• Why is it sexy when a man cooks?

You get the idea. It reminds me of a particular episode of a well known TV game show. They asked all the women in the audience how many times in their life a man had proposed marriage to them. The average answer was 3. They asked all the men in the audience how many times in their life they had proposed marriage to a woman. The average answer was one. The women believed something was being offered that was not being offered.

You might think that men who cook are swarming with amorous young ladies. This sarcastic post doesn't bear that out.

In a few cases women took rather imperious positions. One tried to make a case that women were somehow genetically predisposed to be superior cooks. There were also a few examples of women ridiculing men in the kitchen. Although a few men deserve this ridicule, many women richly deserve it as well.

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The above foolishness aside, the great majority of duty cooks in the US are still women. They aren’t all good at it, and they don’t all enjoy it, but for what it’s worth they do it. Understandably, most of the thousands of cooking sites are authored by women. Most are focused on quality, craftsmanship and pride, as it should be. A few sites are able to combine cooking and health, as I hope to do myself in a low-key way.

There is an undercurrent of “girly food” – women writing recipes that women like. Some of it is stuff I would spit out, like Fried Zucchini Flowers Stuffed with Ricotta Cheese. Most of it is sugar – cakes, cookies, ice cream and candy. What’s up with all the sugar?

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So here I am, a man incurring on a woman’s world. Ladies, I am not here to court you. I am not here to seduce you. If you think your gender makes you a better cook, show me. But step on it. I’ve been waiting a long time and I haven’t seen anything yet.

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