Meatmachine.info

There’s a great post over at I’m sick of your insane demands that deals with issues of cooking and masculinity.

A hypothesis: Cooking is seen as emasculating unless it’s a) something done as a favor to the woman who usually does the cooking, in which case it can be manly as long as it’s done infrequently and poorly; or b) something performed and described as a sport. (more…)

In the same disappointing way that cooking has escaped the male gender norm of being “the provider”, it seems that the development of actual responsibility has fled the scene of college students “living on their own”. Pride is taken in toast and ramen, and it’s “strangely cool”, “hella weird”, and generally confounding to my classmates when I offhandedly mention ingredients

“Mozzarella? Why do you need mozzarella? Isn’t that cheese?”
“Well yes, I need it for some lasagna I’m making, it’s also good with tomatoes and basil and olive oil.”
“Damn, you cook? My mom likes oil”
“Yeah, I guess me and your mom both like to eat foods.”

I’ve noticed a norm amongst first, second, and even third year college students to completely shirk the process of learning to cook for as long as possible. I pounced on the opportunity like a tiger starved for meat; it was only about a week into my freshman year of cafeteria food that I began to ache for a proper kitchen. Being a vegetarian certainly accelerated the process. I’ll leave it to the suckers to survive on saltines and redbull.