From: nall@ibm12.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: Men who can cook...
Date: 24 Jan 93 15:09:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: sun13.11810
Reply-To: nall@ibm12.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <1993Jan24.045355.13333@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> lrumsey@nyx.cs.du.edu (-Linda-) writes:
>I had a friend who was sick of canned spagetti and confessed he wanted to
>learn to cook but just couldn't... didn't know how. My response: "Do you
>know how to read?"

Well, doggone it, I had not intended to participate in this thread, but
guess I'm going to have to, since that comment hits a nerve.

I suppose that men who learn to cook do so for many different reasons.
Some because they are single, and tired of eating in restaurants; some
because they are feel a responsibility for sharing household chores;
some because they grew up in a household which encouraged it; and some
because of a household situation in which the woman just does not have
time to do so.  And I'm sure there are other good reasons - just can't
list them all :-)

But I gather that all this discussion started with a question from
someone of the female persuasion, along the general lines of "My husband
(or boyfriend, or SO, or whatever) won't cook.  How do I get him to
do so?"  And I've seen suggestions which range from the above "Read a
cookbook" to "Lie to him, and say 'good dog!' no matter how bad a job
he does".

Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I suspect that I speak for a
large number of men when I say there are two primary obstacles which
have to be overcome.  The first is psychological: "Men don't cook."  We
know this is nonsense, but you'd be surprised how many men don't.  How
do you overcome this?  Simple - make it a point to find some friends
who will invite you over to eat in an environment where the man does
cook.  Not only cooks, but cooks well.  Believe me, this sinks in very
quickly without any need for drawing attention to it.

The second is cultural - a lot of us grew up in an environment where
we did not learn any of the zillion and one little things which cooks
take for absolutely granted!  When you say "can you read?" you are
making a false assumption.  To wit: that a cookbook tells someone who
knows nothing, how to cook.  That is not correct.  A cookbook tells
someone who DOES know how to cook, what the recipe is for a particular
item.  (That is an over-generalization, of course.  Some cookbooks *do*
have all the information needed, which is my point).  

If you haven't hit "n" long ago, you'll be happy to know that I'm about
ready to climb down from the soapbox :-)   Just one last thing.  Once
you've got your man cooking, and doing a decent job of it, invite some
close friends over for dinner.  Assuming the dinner is not a disaster,
they'll say how good it was (that is what close friends are for!).  And
believe me, that is worth a lot to the novice cook.  But please - don't
be doing false praise.  If something is bad, the poor guy knows it!

Keep trucking,

John


-- 
John W. Nall              | Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
nall@mailer.scri.fsu.edu  | Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
  "Why yes, as a matter of fact, I DID vote for Hillary!!" - me
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking