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Even a minimal familiarity with the American cooking landscape should easily disabuse anyone of the notion that Americans of either gender cook at home. No, "pa

Even a minimal familiarity with the American cooking landscape should easily disabuse anyone of the notion that Americans of either gender cook at home. No, "pasta salad", microwaved mac & cheese and the occasional barbecued hamburger is not home cooking. I grew up in a poor country, with an objectively deprived food supply chain. There were multiple home cooked dishes in the fridge at all times, though, if memory serves right, '88/'89 were rough. Every single social gathering had more 10x tastier and more varied home cooked food than I ever saw in decades of American life. I met exactly one American family that took cooking seriously and placed a noticeable degree of effort in home cooking dinner from raw ingredients, though their results were rather on the high end, not sure they were engaging in the process on a regular basis. Consider using 1900ish as the comparison point... https://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php https://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php

morsch 5y ago
I have zero real-life exposure with the American cooking landscape, you seem to have some personal familiarity with it; both isn't a great basis for these kinds of societal judgements. The linked study claims: While the mean per capita time spent cooking increased over time for both men and women, women cooked for a much greater amount of time than did men (50 min/capita/day vs. 20 min/capita/day). Even 20 minutes is a long time for microwaved mac & cheese. From what you've been observing, it's very different here in Europe, I know a lot of people now who take cooking quite seriously, and I knew a lot of people back in the 90s for whom it was perfunctory. And in fact: The increase in men’s cooking found here mirrors trends in Europe, where research from four Nordic countries found increases from 1997 to 2012 in the percent of men cooking, particularly those from the working and upper classes [28]. Even in 2016, however, US males’ cooking levels were still lower than in the United Kingdom a decade earlier, when a 2005 time use survey showed 60% of men (and 85% of women) in the United Kingdom cooked over one 24-h period [29]. Unfortunately, I don't get a response for the URL you posted, maybe I'm geo-blocked or something.
- angelzen 5y ago
  Ah, the Nordics. What we are seeing is the result of the collapse of the family. First the village church, then the extended family, lately the nuclear family. Of course once people are completely and utterly atomized all gender roles are lost and people pick up some cooking out of necessity. No, it's not healthy. > According to People in the EU, a new publication from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, Denmark boasts by far the highest proportion of single-person households of any country in the European Union, at 45%. Finland, the country with the next highest share, has only 40.8%. In the UK it is 30.6%. In Spain, 23.2%. > According to figures from Statistics Denmark, the phenomenon of alene-kultur, as the Danes call it, has been on the march for decades, with the proportion of Danes living alone rising by 42% since 1986. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/20/city-of-borgen-key-to-happiness-own-front-door https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/20/city-of-borgen... > Around 47% of households have just one occupant – typically a child-free, single adult. https://www.flashpack.com/us/relationships/sweden-solo-living-single/ https://www.flashpack.com/us/relationships/sweden-solo-livin... PS. We might have inadvertently HN-effect the prior link, it was simply a reasonably looking description of the 1850-1930 household lifestyle.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - morsch 5y ago
    So seemingly we're in agreement that Americans as well as people in Europe do, in fact, prepare food at home, since now you're bemoaning all the men (like me!) spending time in the kitchen, doing a woman's job.
    - angelzen 5y ago
      No, we are absolutely not. You are measuring time spent, I am measuring results. The results, aka homecooked food, are not even barely passable in an American context. As I already said, pasta salad, microwaved mac and cheese and occasional weekend burgers are not homecooking. Just open the fridge of the average American household, it is a barren wasteland. Somehow I doubt modern Europe is doing much better, though possibly some pockets, especially in the Latin world, are holding by a thread. I am aghast at the misogynistic downplay of the skills, hard work, love and dedication our foremothers poured in keeping the household happily humming along. But to each its own, at this point some of these words are probably just some empty strange anachronisms. Enjoy the Nordic lifelong solitude, probably happier to simply not know what has been lost.

morsch 5y ago

I have zero real-life exposure with the American cooking landscape, you seem to have some personal familiarity with it; both isn't a great basis for these kinds of societal judgements. The linked study claims: While the mean per capita time spent cooking increased over time for both men and women, women cooked for a much greater amount of time than did men (50 min/capita/day vs. 20 min/capita/day). Even 20 minutes is a long time for microwaved mac & cheese. From what you've been observing, it's very different here in Europe, I know a lot of people now who take cooking quite seriously, and I knew a lot of people back in the 90s for whom it was perfunctory. And in fact: The increase in men’s cooking found here mirrors trends in Europe, where research from four Nordic countries found increases from 1997 to 2012 in the percent of men cooking, particularly those from the working and upper classes [28]. Even in 2016, however, US males’ cooking levels were still lower than in the United Kingdom a decade earlier, when a 2005 time use survey showed 60% of men (and 85% of women) in the United Kingdom cooked over one 24-h period [29]. Unfortunately, I don't get a response for the URL you posted, maybe I'm geo-blocked or something.

angelzen 5y ago
Ah, the Nordics. What we are seeing is the result of the collapse of the family. First the village church, then the extended family, lately the nuclear family. Of course once people are completely and utterly atomized all gender roles are lost and people pick up some cooking out of necessity. No, it's not healthy. > According to People in the EU, a new publication from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, Denmark boasts by far the highest proportion of single-person households of any country in the European Union, at 45%. Finland, the country with the next highest share, has only 40.8%. In the UK it is 30.6%. In Spain, 23.2%. > According to figures from Statistics Denmark, the phenomenon of alene-kultur, as the Danes call it, has been on the march for decades, with the proportion of Danes living alone rising by 42% since 1986. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/20/city-of-borgen-key-to-happiness-own-front-door https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/20/city-of-borgen... > Around 47% of households have just one occupant – typically a child-free, single adult. https://www.flashpack.com/us/relationships/sweden-solo-living-single/ https://www.flashpack.com/us/relationships/sweden-solo-livin... PS. We might have inadvertently HN-effect the prior link, it was simply a reasonably looking description of the 1850-1930 household lifestyle.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- morsch 5y ago
  So seemingly we're in agreement that Americans as well as people in Europe do, in fact, prepare food at home, since now you're bemoaning all the men (like me!) spending time in the kitchen, doing a woman's job.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    No, we are absolutely not. You are measuring time spent, I am measuring results. The results, aka homecooked food, are not even barely passable in an American context. As I already said, pasta salad, microwaved mac and cheese and occasional weekend burgers are not homecooking. Just open the fridge of the average American household, it is a barren wasteland. Somehow I doubt modern Europe is doing much better, though possibly some pockets, especially in the Latin world, are holding by a thread. I am aghast at the misogynistic downplay of the skills, hard work, love and dedication our foremothers poured in keeping the household happily humming along. But to each its own, at this point some of these words are probably just some empty strange anachronisms. Enjoy the Nordic lifelong solitude, probably happier to simply not know what has been lost.