Cook Like a Man
by Buck Reed
I heard a story of a woman who started her career at sixteen at a popular chain restaurant, and after working her way up the ladder, was passed over for CEO. Not to be beaten, her next move was to seek out and obtain the head position in a rival company. Then she went on to buy out the first chain restaurant, just like boys do it. Women have come a long way, from housewife to CEOs, professional sports, and most every profession that was reserved for the men. I saw a girl driving a fork lift today and it didn’t even faze me. So, if the women abandoned the kitchen, why is it a surprise that men have taken it over? For the purpose of this article and admittedly my complete lack of knowledge of such things, let’s just work with the basics of the stereotypes. I will not be able to cite studies and I don’t have time to get a degree in Gender Studies. My apologies ahead of time.
Men do not ask for directions. Now, this might make you late for your appointment, but this trait actually makes men very good cooks. They do not need recipes to produce delicious meals on the fly. Give a man a limited number of ingredients and you might be surprised at the clever way he is able to produce something to eat.
Men like to figure things out. From the engine of a ’69 Nova to the latest fishing reel, men enjoy taking things apart and figuring out how they work. The male of our species has a solid need to understand how and why things work. So, in cooking, instead of memorizing recipes, men try to understand the ingredients and mastering the methods needed to prepare them.
Men want women to be proud of what they have done. Why do you think young men ride their bikes off cliffs or jump skateboards over oil fires? To get girls to notice them. Kinda makes the whole motorcycle thing make sense now, doesn’t it? Men are willing to produce a perfect souffle or roast a pig if he can get the approval of that one woman or as many women as possible, depending on the man. Heck, if mastodons still roamed the plains, menfolk would not only be hunting them down, but also cooking them whole and serving it to their 800 friends with the perfect sampling of their signature sauce.
Where women cook out of a sense of love for whoever they are cooking for, men feel it is a task that must be mastered and want to be admired for it. It is why we do not stop at meat loaf but go on to working out pate en croute. We men now want to not only cook the bacon, but also cure it and smoke it ourselves. For better or for worse, if you have a man learning to cook, you are just going to have to get used to tasting the same sauce over and over again.
