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Notes -
The vast majority of people around me can cook, although it's notable just how much better the men are. I know one woman my age that is actually a good cook but every other guy seems to be.
One major difference seems to be that the guys cook even when they're alone.
Perhaps it's just the bubble I'm in.
Most women seem to learn cooking from their mothers, while most men seem to learn it from YouTube. Since most default YouTube chefs (Babish, Josh Weissman etc) are better cooks than the average mother of previous generations (who typically cooks whether she enjoys it or not and, even if she is a good cook, may not be a good cooking teacher) it makes sense that men on average are better cooks in my opinion. The young women I know who are great cooks either love cooking and consume much cooking related content online / in recipe books or they have good relationships with moms who are great cooks.
If I think about my grandmother, (who was a good cook and had actually worked part-time in a restaurant for a while) of the 20 things she cooked regularly 5 were excellent, 5 were pretty good, 10 were average or bad. But many of those bad or average dishes could have been completely repaired with some basic YouTube knowledge, or now even with chatGPT. It wasn’t a lack of mechanical skill, just of knowledge, of tiny mistakes compounded, of recipes that were blander than they had to be, because they were of another time. Perfectly mechanically decent home cooks spent decades making burgers with lean beef because popular knowledge that 20-25% fat works best just wasn’t there. A lot of home recipes for bolognese or chili or casserole or meatloaf are of course inferior to something derived in hours of experimentation by Kenji Lopez-Alt or whoever.
I’ve also noticed that men often cook special meals or weekend meals, but even in families where the man is a better cook it’s often the woman who does more weeknight cooking. Dad will cook a great lunch for everyone on Sunday that takes a few hours to prepare, but on Tuesday night when everybody’s tired and you just need to put something together in 20 minutes, it’s mom’s job.
My mom is a great cook, when she can be bothered to (maybe once every month or so). Though given what she does make, which is often a ridiculously greasy sphaghetti (this is the exact opposite of a criticism, I fucking love it), I doubt she picked that up from her mom. More likely to be the cookbook porn she enjoys, I see why Tumblr and TikTok cooking influences are only a continuation of previous trends heh. I used to get mad at her for buying so goddamn many of them, when she wouldn't make half the dishes, but I end up watching cooking videos on occasion on YT myself, which would probably have surprised the shit out of me if someone had told me that ten years back.
I will note that it is surprisingly common (at least to me) that a lot of middle-aged Indian men like cooking, at least for special occasions. Think of it as the equivalent of the suburban dad who likes to take the grill out on occasion. Beyond innate affinity, it's probably once again because they were forced to learn to do so in college. And of course, if it's a family occasion, everyone starts chipping in, even if an outright potluck isn't common. The host is expected to do the cooking and it would be mildly disrespectful (not that anyone would really complain) to bring your own food and upstage them. A nice bottle of whiskey or scotch? Or a hand in the kitchen? Now we're talking.
I certainly don't mind, I pay my respects to their culinary talents by finishing my plate and another two servings.
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I've noticed this a lot in my social circle - in the couples it's almost always the guy who does most of the cooking and enjoys cooking a lot more than the girlfriend/wife. The guys also geek out together over recipe ideas, Kenji videos, and cooking products. It's a hobby for them, a way to experiment and tinker. It's also a way for men to feel like providers for women in an era when women don't need them to survive.
Working theory:
Median American / Western woman (especially before marriage) see cooking for her significant other regularly as some sort of 1950s housewife shackling and, therefore, have a highly emotional response to doing it. It's a "betrayal" to the ideas of modern feminism (however defined). But, a lot of these same women will do their best to throw down for Thanksgiving / Christmas / Super Bowl (any of the Big American Gluttony Feasts) when their own extended family is present and especially when a finacee's family is present. There's still something that whispers the necessity of nourishment providing in order to secure marriage approval. Maybe.
As for the over-representation in baking - yes, this is a thing. I often find it hilarious as about 50% of "bakers" are just freaking terrible and aren't producing anything better than the made-for-kids brownie packets I used to rock with my Mom on Friday nights in gradeschool.
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