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Man can cook!

post #1 of 10
4/24/04 at 7:17pm
Thread Starter 
:bounce: Hi, my name is Sin Ee Wang. I am a fourth year industrial design student at the University of New South Wales, Australia. I am conducting a study for my project research on the male user’s behaviour in kitchen and the ways to encourage the male user to participate in cooking.

I am finding ways and means to improve the relationship of the family by prepare their meal together.
any suggestion ? Thanks in advance! :-)
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post #2 of 10
4/28/04 at 12:17pm
I gotta say, it irritates me somewhat that the perception that men are inherently inept in the kitchen is still fostered in many societies.
In Madeline Kamman's earlier books she refers to home cooks exclusively as "She" and laments that women were excluded in the professional cooking field which was male dominated.
In years gone by, cooking in the home was considerd "woman's work" and my own mother was a housewife and the family cook. That is much less true today where in most households both parents work outside the home and chores are shared, including cooking. (Not that I think cooking is a chore but some might.) Almost all the men I know cook to some extent or another and the few that don't wisely stay out of the kichen because they are very bad at it.
I commend your effort Sin but I regret to say I have no suggestions that might help you. Getting more people into the kichen where there are cultural forces keeping them out is a monumental task and one that can only be approached one kitchen at a time.
Good luck

Jock
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post #3 of 10
4/28/04 at 4:05pm
Do you think this goes back to the hunter and the home maker?
Personally I've found the opposite problem, people expect a head chef to be a man!
There are always comments from guests i.e can you tell the chef I really enjoyed HIS meal.
It seems strange that when people talk about cooking in the home people always refer to women, but on a professional basis always men!
I think that mainly women cook in the home because they are the one's who look after the children, they're at home and so prepare for the "hunter"
Not forgetting that most people are not professional chefs and for them cooking a meal takes time and a lot of preparation, thought etc..
I hear friends so often say "we don't have time to cook" so they buy microwave meals!
I know given very little time I can produce a meal faster than most convience foods.
Therefore I think your answer lies in education - men are not, as a whole, educated in this subject, whereas women learn from their mothers from an early age.
My partner is not a chef but is a **** good cook. "survival"
I am at work when he needs to eat so he is forced to cook, I do the shopping and I refuse to buy micro meals. when I first met him he always complained that there was nothing to eat and I pointed out the cook books and ingredients, now I cannot get in my own kitchen he loves it!
Good luck
lins
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post #4 of 10
4/29/04 at 5:46am
Of my circle of friends, I'm the only 1 who cooks. How I motivate them to cook is to introduce them to foods they've never had before (these people are burger and fries types). I wet their pallette with something they would love to have more often so they'll at least try to reproduce at home.

To get anyone, men and women alike, to do something they're not interested in or shy away from because they think its too hard, you just have to find something to motivate their efforts. In 1 case, my friends motivation is to no longer eat his mother's cooking which in 1 occasion, made me sick for a week (food poisoning). He still relies on frozen and canned items but at least I got him started.

The biggest challenge is to convert someone who is stuburn. I know a few people who won't try anything new, who won't expand their fields.
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post #5 of 10
4/29/04 at 2:21pm
I agree, motivation is a key aspect!
I also think that the wide range of exotic foods and especally herbs and spices is very off putting to a beginner. I often get asked "How do I know which spices I can put with what, and which ones can I mix?"
I think fear of the kitchen is a big problem, after all no-one likes to fail, especially on their first attempt!
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post #6 of 10
4/29/04 at 4:53pm
I think the original question had to do with cooking at home and how to get the alpha male off his tush and into the kitchen. The professional cooking realm has been dominated by men since forever and it's only in the last 20 years or so that women have made any serious dent in that. There are still more men than women in the biz but I'm happy to say that that is changing.
You cannot seriously expect to successfully produce a 6 course gourmet dinner for 12 first time out of the kitchen. Like everything else it takes time and practice and failure to be any good.
When my friends and family say, This must be hard to make, I usually respond that it realy isn't. If it was hard I wouldn't do it! In 1962 Julia Child went on TV and demistified French cooking. Today millions of people enjoy better and more adventurous food in the home as a result. We should all make it our mission to demistify what we do and encourage the timid to make some soup or a nice salad. Baby steps - take the mystery and fear out of preparing good food.
On the other hand, some people just don't want to learn. I quoted the "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will feed himself for life" adage. My wife responded, "Or you can marry the fisherman!!" :chef:

Jock
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post #7 of 10
4/30/04 at 3:52am
LoL good answer, clever wife you got there Jock...

But I agree with what you said about baby steps. Don't expect a nocom whose only cooking experiance was frying an egg to go into the kitchen and whip up a souffle the next day.

1 of my friends who is a complete computer freak has now been shown the light! He got a job working at a banquet hall working in various areas like the bar. Hes now gotten himself a drink blender and is now experimenting at home. This guy couldn't even make chocolate milk with out screwing it up and now hes blending drinks.
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post #8 of 10
10/28/07 at 8:17am

mencancooktoo.blogspot.com

When it comes to men cooking, not proffessionally but at home, and their reasoning behind it, I dont know that theres many ways to encourage it other than promoting their own drive to do so, whether they know they have a drive for it or not.
My own personal drive was simply that I enjoy quality food, quality tastes, and quality time.
There's nothing better than pampering my wife with a great meal or teaching my 4 daughters what I know, and dont forget the good quality time of family or friends surrounding a dinner table enjoying an outstanding meal. Everything that is right comes from the kitchen.
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post #9 of 10
10/28/07 at 8:38am
interesting topic, my ex-husband could make chicken kiev, chocolate souffle and some other fairly intricate dish when we married....he was 28 and had "special dishes" to impress women. Certainly incentive.

Growing up with a cooking family, my dad fished and loved to grill....he'd throw just about any protein in a green loaded out salad. It was not unusal for all of us (well except my little brother) to cook dinner together.
As adults my brother makes whole grain waffles that he grinds mixed grains then prepares with yogurt, eggs, baking soda....makes numerous as he has 5 children and freezes whatever is leftover for future breakfasts, normally he makes a monster batch at least once a week. He smokes and BBQ's, makes jerky from the deers he hunts.

My sons cook, they grew up cooking.....literally as soon as they could sit on a counter they were cooking....they were in the garden, they were at the store, they were eating out, they would choose themed parties....

finding a motivating factor, why would a guy choose to cook? What benefits would they derive? What aspects of cooking would interest them?

Most guys I know love butchering, smoking, BBQing.....
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post #10 of 10
10/29/07 at 6:21am
Think stainless steel appliances. They're shiney and make noise. That ought to do it.

Seriously though, love of cooking starts with a love of food. Anybody who appreciates a quality end product will want to particiapte in making it. Getting somebody (man or woman) into the kitchen starts with getting them into the dinning room. Or at least away from the TV tray.

--Al
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