What do you mean, let's cook? (не уметь готовить - это круто?..)

Anna · 9 сен 2003

Increasingly young women can't tell a colander from a courgette - and they like to brag about it. Hermione Eyre on
why it's cool to be clueless in the kitchen

My dinner party was a triumph, though I say so myself. I served Pimms garnished with the sticker from a lemon (someone spat it out) and one lucky guest found a skein of kitchen roll in their mashed potato. I broiled the asparagus, swore at the sauce and drowned the salad. When everyone had gone I noticed that no one had eaten their bread rolls. I touched one and found it was hard as a bullet. All of which I take as proof I am a model twenty-something woman.

You see, there is a lot of pressure on women of my generation to be pathetically, curdlingly bad at cooking. Ask a group of young professionals if they cook and they will all shout "Not me" louder than each other. According to a new Mintel survey half of all 25- to 34-year-olds call a takeaway when disinclined to cook and half the young population eats out twice a week.
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But what about the "can't cook, me" bravado? Why should women be proud to declare they don't know their skillet from their elbow? According to Linda Blair, "there's a lot of pressure to give the impression that you are busy - too busy to slave over a hot stove. When a woman declares 'I can't even begin to cook' she is unconsciously saying 'Look at me, I'm important.'"
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After all, men are, conversely, becoming increasingly confident in the kitchen. The Leith School of Cookery has doubled its amateur male intake in the last 10 years, according to Jenny Stringer, the principal. "Men think they can chat you up by telling you the 16 different things they put in their stir-fry" she says. The best dinner parties I have been to have all been given by men, who seem to take a formal, fastidious approach to cooking.
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:wasntme: :wasntme: :wasntme:

Evgenij Koronin · 10 сен 2003

Obviously it is not you! I can't imagine your whole family starving from it. There are few answers in the article on what may be the cause of the issue:

Why are so many young women kitchen idiots? Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist at Bath university who specialises in nutrition, says that at its most basic level, this is a generational issue. In the Eighties, many feminist mothers decided not to teach their daughters to cook. "We're now slap bang in the middle of that post-reactionary generation," she says. "This means that young women don't choose not to cook - they've just grown up totally lacking the skills."

It is true that a soufflé is a strange and terrifying concept to me, and even the sound of fat beginning to fry makes friends of mine jump with alarm. "Fear of failure means a lot of young women don't even begin cooking," says Jill Dupleix, author of Simple Food. "They want to do things very well or not at all. And frequently young women have eaten out a lot, which means they have a sophisticated palate - but no basic skills at all. That gap can be very disconcerting and puts them off even starting."
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To be honest, for me, being proud of and braving out being complete cooking illiterate is the stupidest thing to be doing. Let's hope that the next generation of good cooking men will teach good looking women! :hehe:

PS. This also raises an interesting question whether feminism is/was good in this sense, but I'm not going to flame on this.

Anna · 10 сен 2003

In my opinion, feminists are too pathetic to be taken seriously...

Fear of failure though should not necessarily be related to feminism, although it is quite an interesting point. You could easily say that it might be one of the reasons why both male or female modern (that might mean, Western) young persons are afraid of getting involved into serious relationship, let away having children, sometimes all the way until eventually they are well in their 30s. And at this point they are still too afraid of getting into relationship and having children just because they are not accustomed to (and again, many would not like to change their lifestyle when there is a more than moderate risk of failure.. but some of them are brave - just read all the posts of 30-something-year old beginner moms at Expatica! ). Responsibility appears to be too high a burden... so the question is, how old the parents of the next generation good cooking men and/or good-looking women would eventually be?.. :dunno:

PS Shall we continue to use this thread as a possibility to exercise in English?

kuzma · 10 сен 2003

Shall we continue to use this thread as a possibility to exercise in English?
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look's like it :colgate:

Xitpij_Laban · 10 сен 2003

let's roll

In my opinion, feminists are too pathetic to be taken seriously..
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God saves you to say this in face of a feminist "comarad". I'd had some time of dealing with them... they're not women!

my strong belief that everything happens with some purpose, but sometimes we just can't get up to that. if woman can't cook and man accepts this, then allright... be happy! we shape each other in many ways... coocking is just one of them... and after all, what about this "путь к сердцу мужчины лежит через желудок"? and d'amn that's right!

Ann · 10 сен 2003

2 Xitpij_Laban:
Oh yeah, you've just reminded me a former colleague of mine who once said: "I will never marry a woman that can't cook!" Let such men marry cooks but God save normal women from them!

IMHO cooking must not be a matter of principle either for men or for women as both extremes sound quite ridiculois. Even if none in the couple can cook because they are both busy, they can easily order meal at the restaurant - they definitely can afford it! :laugh:

Anna · 10 сен 2003

Ann, I guess you would not want to go with your kids to the restaurant too often, at least not until they come to some reasonable age first Of course the alternative is to order a pizza or Indonesian/Indian/Chinese/Snackbar meal everyday... but, in my opinion, cooking is much cheaper

Ann · 10 сен 2003

Anna:
well, a career couple should be able to afford it :laugh:

However, I am sure that it is mostly the matter of attitude. My mom, although she is not a feminist , never taught me cooking and till coming to Holland I couldn't cook at all (not a matter of special proud, just a fact ) that never created any problems in my private life :sun: So, conclusion: just choose a suitable person - if a man wants a cooking woman choose a cook, if a woman doesn't want to cook, choose a cooking man! Don't make a problem of nothing! :lol-sign:

Xitpij_Laban · 10 сен 2003

oh comon... gizz... :turn:

i haven't said that... but if a woman can cook, she's got more chances in man's eays. the one would be really idiot to require ability to cook. we all know tons of jokes on that, like "he was looking for a perfect woman, and when he's finally found one, she said "sory, boy, but i need a perfect man".
i have an other perspective... i think majority pretend of being not able to cook, because cookidng makes them feel silly. "am i a maid or what?" one gorgeus may ask. "no, honey" he answers "coz not, let's go to your favorite (restaurant/pizza/mcdOOnalds/whatever) instead of having a nice dinner at warm and cosy home". and it's gonna work... for her. but, i seriuosly doubting, the relatioship will work out sometimes into a family. (unless she doesn't want it)

Alexey · 10 сен 2003

Cooking is fun Cleaning or ironing - these are awful things

hondje · 10 сен 2003

If a (Dutch)man all his childhood eat only bread at home 3 times per day then he accept any non-cooking women.
Cocking is a same ability like a drawing, playing music, driving car, playing sport games, swimming, speaking foreign languages etc.
It is possible to live without any of them but in some situation such things make you life easer and better.

Evgenij Koronin · 10 сен 2003

I can see that we're all being pretty much in an agreement here, and it is the time to draw some conclusions

1. Not being able to cook is not cool
2. Women/Men that can't cook are alright, however those, who pride themselves about it, are not cool either.
3. Cooking is cool by itself.
4. Cooking is even cooler if you know how to and you consciously enjoy it.
5. Cooking is not only a sensual experience, but it also developes abilities to sense time better, to measure volumes by eye and to recognise the taste better.
6. Being able to cook saves you money and maintain yourself and your family in a good healthy condition as opposed to eating restaurant food (you never know what you're eating and how it's been cooked)
7. If you can cook well, your loved ones/friends are going to love you even more day by day.
8. If you can cook, your survival chances are higher, when you happen to have found yourself in a desert/forest/island.

Can't think about anything more at the moment, women are sure to have more to say on this.
Cheers. :bow:

Вилка · 10 сен 2003

this answer comes from the husband in this dutch russian marriage:

I can cook clean and iron myself, the ability to do so is not part of the perfect woman, the perfect woman does not exist, just like the perfect man.

They are images selfprojected on humans, to make the humans fall into certain things that they think have to be.

in Holland we call that kuddegedrag: one thinks something , screams it loud enough then others will believe it

Yaroslav Blanter · 10 сен 2003

Народ, хватит издеваться над участниками форума, не знающими английский (такие по опросу есть, хоть и не составляют большинства).

А в обсуждаемом вопросе я вообще, как и hondje, никакой проблемы не вижу. Кто умеет готовить - готовит. Кто не умеет - не готовит. Есть деньги и желание - ходи каждый день в ресторан или разогревай готовую еду в микроволновке. Нет денег или желания - учись готовить. Зачем делать из этого вопрос принципа в ту или другую сторону - мне непонятно. Исключение, может быть, когда вкусно готовить - у человека хобби, да и то он же тогда не требует, чтобы все вкусно готовили, только чтобы оценивали его результаты.

Идея, что know-how потеряется, мне при наличии деревень, ресторанов, кулинарных книг и интернера мне не кажется очень серьезной.

Alex Zimarev · 13 сен 2003

-Evgenij Koronin сказал(а):

8. If you can cook, your survival chances are higher, when you happen to have found yourself in a desert/forest/island.
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вот этот пункт мне непонятен.
- в пустыне - что из чего на чём готовить? там бы попить уже счастье...
- в лесу, на острове (разница небольшая) - тут главное добыть еду, нежели её "приготовить", неплохо бы иметь огонь, чтоб запечь или там над костром поджарить. неплохо, если есть ёмкость, чтоб варить. а больше ничего (1) не понадобиться (2) нафиг не сдалось (3) нет ингридиентов.

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What do you mean, let's cook? (не уметь готовить - это круто?..)

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