Some lovely folks have shared Abortion Everyday's Substack on here and I stumbled across this article from a related Substack called Men Yell at Me. I was a little torn on if this should be in...
Some lovely folks have shared Abortion Everyday's Substack on here and I stumbled across this article from a related Substack called Men Yell at Me. I was a little torn on if this should be in ~life.women or ~food, but given it dives more into the topics of feminism and patriarchy, I thought it was more appropriate to be placed here. Please free to move Mods if y'all think otherwise. Thanks!
I'm a subscriber to the New York Times Cooking and saw the mentioned recipe for Marry Me Chicken when it was first posted. Initially I didn't think anything about it except "wow, this sounds kinda tasty" and didn't think much else. After reading through the Author's analysis of this dish it has me rethinking the framing of the dish or how women are evaluated as "wife material" based on their Cooking abilities.
After reading the Marry Me Chicken article, I joked that there was no equivalent for men. No, “End Male Loneliness Eggplant Parmesan.” No “Get the Girlfriend Gnocchi.”
It is fascinating to have it juxtaposed in this way; why is the onus on women to make a show-stopping dish to wow their significant other? Home cooking has historically been a "Woman's" duty and it's only been recently that these type of domestic roles have become shared with male partners. I think the same point that I and the author have concluded on, is that it seems odd to see this type of language used in 2023 on a recipe. With recent regression of Women's reproductive rights, calls to end no fault divorce, and the rising calls for traditional wives; it just seems unnecessary to present a recipe in such a gendered way in regards to courtship.
Cooking is a passion of mine and one of the ways I convey my love language of sorts. While I do think it was something that I gravited to due to patriarchal influences (growing up in the south there are a lot of jokes about keeping your man well fed or fixing their plate as a requirement), it's something I grew a passion for after working in so many restaurants and aspiring to recreate what I was serving others. I cook not because I feel obligated too in order to keep my husband, although he very much enjoys the results as do I! I do it because I enjoy it and want to put in that effort. I own a large collection of cookbooks as well due to it being my hobby and some of them are older. In the older ones there is a large emphasis on hosting and presentation to impress. An old Bell's cookbook I have even has a section in the index for "male, microwave" implying easier meals that can made by men. Yet in modern cookbooks this genderization or stress to impress has been dropped.
What are your thoughts on seeing a recipe published in this way in 2023? Have you ever encountered the need to cook for men because you felt obligated too? The author also goes into an interesting rabbit hole of how the NY Times has published some other more questionable articles regarding the rise of male loneliness. Do you think there's a greater conspiracy to push the ideals out with that in mind?
Interestingly, when I first encountered the "Marry Me Chicken" recipe, it was from a guy influencer in my Instagram Reels, talking about if you want to impress your date, you should learn how to...
Interestingly, when I first encountered the "Marry Me Chicken" recipe, it was from a guy influencer in my Instagram Reels, talking about if you want to impress your date, you should learn how to cook this type of thing.
That being said, having cooking be presented in a gendered way like this does feel counter-productive, it feels like a couple of steps away from basically telling a woman to "get back in the kitchen" and that kind of thing.
Edit: Adding to my thoughts a bit, I kinda feel like I have a problem with it being presented from male influencers as "learn how to cook for your date" too. I do think that people really should learn how to cook if at least to take care of themselves, but I think there's an implied narrative of, "if you learn how to cook, you'll get a reward (implied to be sex or whatever.)" And sure, it might be bonus points for some people, but it really generalizes a whole gender to "do x, receive y" when everyone is different and unique. I think people should learn to cook to keep themselves healthy provided they have time, and if you really enjoy it, go deeper, it just rounds out your hobbies and makes you a more well rounded person.
Some folks may balk at this statement, but I think it's highly relevant more than ever. Now that can have several layers of meaning when it comes to authenticity, who owns a dish, white-washing,...
Some folks may balk at this statement, but I think it's highly relevant more than ever.
Food is political.
Now that can have several layers of meaning when it comes to authenticity, who owns a dish, white-washing, cultural appropriation, and so much more. But genderization falls in there too. Home cooking has been viewed as "women's work" yet in professional kitchens women are still having to break glass ceiling in the male dominated fields of being a chef. It's an older article, but Gastronomica had a great write-up delving into this.
men and women don’t really cook differently; we just judge their food in different ways
I'm not on Instagram anymore, but it's interesting to hear how a male influencer approached the same recipe from the context of impressing a date. The original printing of the recipe refers to using the dish to encourage a boyfriend to propose, which goes into another interpretation of using food to communicate. In the case of the guy making it, it's to impress in the moment. But in the case of the original inception of the recipe, it was a means to secure a more long term relationship through marriage which had more gendered implications at that time.
I love that you explored this authenticity in depth and provided some great context! Looking back, I think I wrote that in my comment without properly fleshing it out in my explanation. Honestly,...
I love that you explored this authenticity in depth and provided some great context! Looking back, I think I wrote that in my comment without properly fleshing it out in my explanation. Honestly, just bad word placement there, but I thoroughly agree with you! I think I wanted to express it in the same way you did, but sorta grouped it with the other concepts without proper explanation.
It's certainly a topic that I have read into and have even some of my favorite food writers get eviscerated when they do a twist on a dish from their culture. Food is both a snapshot of a culture, but serves as a beautiful canvas of how cultures can blend like paint in food and create something even more amazing. I'm so happy to see a trend amongst recipe writers embracing using what you have available to you and not stressing on perfection in authenticity. I think what matters is respect for what it was intended to be, i.e. don't publish a green curry recipe that only uses 2 green chilies because it strays from the original intentions.
Personally, I find it a bit regressive to have something like this published in this way. I'm sure I'm not the only person seeing "marry me chicken" and thinking, "really? Seriously?" As a Gen X...
Personally, I find it a bit regressive to have something like this published in this way. I'm sure I'm not the only person seeing "marry me chicken" and thinking, "really? Seriously?" As a Gen X person raised in the south, the atmosphere for girls was very focused on being marriage material/feminine/domestic. Despite that, I somehow grew up with some feminist ideals kicking around in the back of my brain.
Fast forward to adulthood and I met and married a chef. The topic of cooking isn't something we generally discuss or struggle with. He cooks and does dishes on the weekends, I cook/clean during the week. It has less to do with our "roles" and more to do with the fact that he works a lot of hours, I don't, so we split the responsibility as best we can. When we first started dating, he actually made dinner for me as his way of trying to impress me. The first dinner he made for me included homemade bread from scratch and a rack of lamb. We view cooking as an act of love on both our parts, so for us, it has less to do with who's supposed to/should cook, and more to do with who is able to devote the time and effort. Also, I really didn't know how to cook when I started dating husband. Ramen, spaghetti and cookies/cakes from a box were the extent of my skills. He taught me how to actually cook. Now I'm able to make pretty much anything that doesn't require special ingredients from scratch and sometimes without a recipe.
As for the Times, I haven't been reading it as much lately. I have some gripes here and there about their reporting, so I'm not a regular reader like I used to be. I do feel like there's been a push toward conservative ideals, especially lately.
As someone whose exposure to the Times has mostly been people discussing their trans coverage bacm when I was on Twitter... there's definitely been a hard turn towards conservativism in that...
As someone whose exposure to the Times has mostly been people discussing their trans coverage bacm when I was on Twitter... there's definitely been a hard turn towards conservativism in that domain. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the case for other topics too when it's so blatant with trans stuff.
While I don't recall seeing anything like Get the Girlfriend Gnocchi, in practice, this seems to be a relatively common thing around where I live. My father charmed by mother by flipping pancakes...
While I don't recall seeing anything like Get the Girlfriend Gnocchi, in practice, this seems to be a relatively common thing around where I live. My father charmed by mother by flipping pancakes in the air, among other things. The singer in my band told me how, on their first date, her husband cooked her a great soup. In long-term relationships it's more commonly women who cook, but various "get the girlfriend gnocchi" equivalents seem to be common.
I'm from Czechia, which is possibly the most westernized eastern bloc country, so the society is different from the west in many things, but not nearly as patriarchal and conservative as more eastern European countries for example. However most of us are very much outside of many culture wars topics and things related to them.
So while Marry Me Chicken does sound cringy, articles about it's appropriateness mostly just feel tiresome. Like at some point in the last decade people in the English speaking west in particular stopped caring about whether the energy given to complaining about a particular thing is appropriate with regards to the potential problems the thing may or may not be causing.
I'm talking about blog articles, magazine articles, reddit discussions etc., so it is not a jab at you - this discussion is measured and not stupid because it's taking place here.
I'm part czech myself actually, but US born. I've been fortunate to have an aunt who did the genealogy research and I'm able to track my family name back to the early 1800s to the Moravian region....
I'm part czech myself actually, but US born. I've been fortunate to have an aunt who did the genealogy research and I'm able to track my family name back to the early 1800s to the Moravian region. It's definitely very cool meet someone on Tildes from czechia sharing their cultural lense to someone who is distant from the culture! I've been wanting to learn more about czechia and I would love to visit Prague and the small villages that my relatives came from. Is there a dish or dishes from your country that you think really captures the czech identity through food or does that also feel westernized?
On the topic of the article though, I will admit when I initially saw the recipe on New York Times Cooking, I didn't think much about the name. It was later when I went down a rabbit hole on blog sites that I came across this article. I read it due to recognition of what it was discussing, but not exactly due to agreeing with it. Instead it made me think about the language we use around food. I have another comment in this thread that links to an old article of how the world of professional chefs are dominated by men and how language around food by women has its own effects there. I found both that article and this one fascinating because they are "thinker" pieces that made me reflect on something I didn't originally consider.
You should definitely come visit. Prague is beautiful of course, even if a bit too crowded in places. And some parts of Moravia are definitely a hidden gem for foreigners. Southern Moravia...
Exemplary
I've been wanting to learn more about czechia and I would love to visit Prague and the small villages that my relatives came from. Is there a dish or dishes from your country that you think really captures the czech identity through food or does that also feel westernized?
You should definitely come visit. Prague is beautiful of course, even if a bit too crowded in places. And some parts of Moravia are definitely a hidden gem for foreigners. Southern Moravia especially, beautiful landscapes, generally friendly people (though the percentage of people who speak English goes lower once you leave cities), pretty good food, excellent white wine, even some local folklore music... They managed to retain a lot of their historical culture, which most of the country north of Prague did not.
Brno is the second biggest czech city and the de facto capital of Moravia, and it's also worth visiting because it's very different from the rural areas. There's quite a bit of interesting architecture on a relatively small area, it's more cosmopolitan and lively that you would expect from its size and location because there's a ton of foreign tech workers and university students, and there are almost no tourist traps because there are few tourists and most pubs, venues and other services have to rely on attracting locals. Excellent café and bar scene.
Regarding food, well, we're really a mix of neighboring cultures around central Europe since we were a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, plus we had a huge German population before world wars, so a lot of our food is a mix of German, Austrian, Slovak and Hungarian cuisine. Each country has its own variations on Goulash for example. Lots of dumplings, heavy creamy sauces and meat. You can try googling "svíčková" (most famous dumplings+beef sauce) or "kulajda" (that's a type of soup). Since Moravia is close to Slovakia, you should definitely try "bryndzové halušky" if you have the option, that's a typical Slovak food which is also pretty popular in Moravia and it's very good. Our bread also seems to be quite specific - traditionally it's a sourdough loaf made with rye sourdough starter instead of wheat, and the dough is 1/3 rye and 2/3 wheat with salt and a bit of cumin. Almost impossible to get in the west from what I've heard, overwhelmingly prevalent here, though most bakeries do not use real sourdough anymore.
And, of course, beer. Usually, regarding pilsners, the smaller the brewery the better the beer. The really good beers are unfiltered and unpasteurized, so you can't get them abroad, but even the average stuff from large breweries that goes for export tastes slightly worse than what you get here, probably because the recipe is changed for longer shelf life. I've never had a truly good pilsner outside of Czechia (which I cannot say about almost any other type of beer).
As a man who does almost all of the cooking in my household, I find this gendered framing tacky, lazy, and frustrating. I would pointedly avoid a recipe like this, since the author went out of...
As a man who does almost all of the cooking in my household, I find this gendered framing tacky, lazy, and frustrating. I would pointedly avoid a recipe like this, since the author went out of their way to exclude me.
I can see why the attitude is so persistent though. I have never owned a car or cared at all about them, yet when my wife's breaks down there's still that nagging feeling in the back of my head that I ought to be doing something about it because I'm the man. These gender norms are only about control at the end of the day, yet they're almost impossible to completely root out because they're cruelly packaged with our good-natured desire to be worthy partners for the people we love.
The author also goes into an interesting rabbit hole of how the NY Times has published some other more questionable articles regarding the rise of male loneliness. Do you think there's a greater conspiracy to push the ideals out with that in mind?
Nah. The most offending articles are from the op-ed section. There are plenty of people out there who have regressive but sincere opinions about these things, and there likely always will be. Simply allowing them to write an opinion piece is miles away from a conspiracy. Ironically, if media outlets like the NYT did heavily censor op-eds to silence those people I would say that's much closer to a conspiracy.
My wife and I have always struggled with the balance of cooking at home. But genuinely? She really enjoys it... I absolutely hate cooking with a burning passion. I embrace the Captain Holt, "I'd...
My wife and I have always struggled with the balance of cooking at home. But genuinely? She really enjoys it... I absolutely hate cooking with a burning passion. I embrace the Captain Holt, "I'd eat a beige smoothie" approach to dinner whenever she's not around (protein shakes) simply because I hate the process of cooking.
I do other stuff around the home, but I know it's a bigger problem for some of my other friends where things go out of whack. There was some big toxic masc stuff floating around in 2010 where if you couldn't cook... Then you weren't a good person. But honestly? It just isn't for everyone. I hate cooking, I'd rather go out for some food.
Don't get me wrong, I CAN cook. I just hate it. If I have to (she's working late) then I do put effort into it, but I just do not like it. That being said? It requires a healthy relationship and a good conversation to actually figure out why and what falls to who in any relationship. There's a lot of nonsense thar defaults to either gender and it requires honest and mature approaches if you don't want that to happen.
This sounds fairly similar to my own relationship. I absolutely live getting into the kitchen and putting in the effort into a dish that has amazing flavors when I am not stressed by other stuff....
This sounds fairly similar to my own relationship. I absolutely live getting into the kitchen and putting in the effort into a dish that has amazing flavors when I am not stressed by other stuff. I've geeked-out to my husband about certain dish origins or cooking techniques and although he is not as passionate about it, he is supportive and is my best taste tester! If I'm overwhelmed by work and have no energy, he is more than happy to help with an alternative. It's not usually a home-cooked meal when he does this, sometimes it's takeout or a frozen skillet meal. But the key is we have a healthy relationship and neither of us feels forced to have to deliver something above that standard, we just get it.
Instead I think what author of this article is trying to get to is viewing the act of cooking a good meal as a requirement. That in place of healthy communication in a relationship, that a woman has to use a performative act of cooking a good meal in order to convey her desires. Lyz explains this weird taboo tango around who in the relationship can ask to be proposed too and how this dishes name arose out of it.
Times have fortunately changed despite attempts to regress back. I'm happy that I don't have to make an impressive meal in order to make my husband clean the bathrooms; he just does it because we communicate. In a way it's highly fascinating to see how the language around food can either dismantle or uphold these expectations.
Sounds very familiar! Love and support comes in many ways! I wonder if that's due to love language being misunderstood and not talked about as well? Can't help but feel like that chat will show...
Sounds very familiar! Love and support comes in many ways!
I wonder if that's due to love language being misunderstood and not talked about as well? Can't help but feel like that chat will show how you and a partner would like to be shown affection. We do default to things, but again it comes down to comms... And if someone reacts negatively to that? Well, I'm not really sure what to say.
But I do know it's a default that dinner/kitchen = women's world. Lots of my mates don't have that, but many of us do for one reason or another I guess? As long as we talk about needs, then it shouldn't be an issue.
Transactionality in relationships is exhausting. I dated someone in the past who would play that game and it got old really quickly (and it ended due to it).
Is it just food I wonder? We all know that both genders get a load of jobs based on gender and nothing more. It's a weird hodgepodge right?
Some lovely folks have shared Abortion Everyday's Substack on here and I stumbled across this article from a related Substack called Men Yell at Me. I was a little torn on if this should be in ~life.women or ~food, but given it dives more into the topics of feminism and patriarchy, I thought it was more appropriate to be placed here. Please free to move Mods if y'all think otherwise. Thanks!
I'm a subscriber to the New York Times Cooking and saw the mentioned recipe for Marry Me Chicken when it was first posted. Initially I didn't think anything about it except "wow, this sounds kinda tasty" and didn't think much else. After reading through the Author's analysis of this dish it has me rethinking the framing of the dish or how women are evaluated as "wife material" based on their Cooking abilities.
It is fascinating to have it juxtaposed in this way; why is the onus on women to make a show-stopping dish to wow their significant other? Home cooking has historically been a "Woman's" duty and it's only been recently that these type of domestic roles have become shared with male partners. I think the same point that I and the author have concluded on, is that it seems odd to see this type of language used in 2023 on a recipe. With recent regression of Women's reproductive rights, calls to end no fault divorce, and the rising calls for traditional wives; it just seems unnecessary to present a recipe in such a gendered way in regards to courtship.
Cooking is a passion of mine and one of the ways I convey my love language of sorts. While I do think it was something that I gravited to due to patriarchal influences (growing up in the south there are a lot of jokes about keeping your man well fed or fixing their plate as a requirement), it's something I grew a passion for after working in so many restaurants and aspiring to recreate what I was serving others. I cook not because I feel obligated too in order to keep my husband, although he very much enjoys the results as do I! I do it because I enjoy it and want to put in that effort. I own a large collection of cookbooks as well due to it being my hobby and some of them are older. In the older ones there is a large emphasis on hosting and presentation to impress. An old Bell's cookbook I have even has a section in the index for "male, microwave" implying easier meals that can made by men. Yet in modern cookbooks this genderization or stress to impress has been dropped.
What are your thoughts on seeing a recipe published in this way in 2023? Have you ever encountered the need to cook for men because you felt obligated too? The author also goes into an interesting rabbit hole of how the NY Times has published some other more questionable articles regarding the rise of male loneliness. Do you think there's a greater conspiracy to push the ideals out with that in mind?
Interestingly, when I first encountered the "Marry Me Chicken" recipe, it was from a guy influencer in my Instagram Reels, talking about if you want to impress your date, you should learn how to cook this type of thing.
That being said, having cooking be presented in a gendered way like this does feel counter-productive, it feels like a couple of steps away from basically telling a woman to "get back in the kitchen" and that kind of thing.
Edit: Adding to my thoughts a bit, I kinda feel like I have a problem with it being presented from male influencers as "learn how to cook for your date" too. I do think that people really should learn how to cook if at least to take care of themselves, but I think there's an implied narrative of, "if you learn how to cook, you'll get a reward (implied to be sex or whatever.)" And sure, it might be bonus points for some people, but it really generalizes a whole gender to "do x, receive y" when everyone is different and unique. I think people should learn to cook to keep themselves healthy provided they have time, and if you really enjoy it, go deeper, it just rounds out your hobbies and makes you a more well rounded person.
Some folks may balk at this statement, but I think it's highly relevant more than ever.
Now that can have several layers of meaning when it comes to authenticity, who owns a dish, white-washing, cultural appropriation, and so much more. But genderization falls in there too. Home cooking has been viewed as "women's work" yet in professional kitchens women are still having to break glass ceiling in the male dominated fields of being a chef. It's an older article, but Gastronomica had a great write-up delving into this.
I'm not on Instagram anymore, but it's interesting to hear how a male influencer approached the same recipe from the context of impressing a date. The original printing of the recipe refers to using the dish to encourage a boyfriend to propose, which goes into another interpretation of using food to communicate. In the case of the guy making it, it's to impress in the moment. But in the case of the original inception of the recipe, it was a means to secure a more long term relationship through marriage which had more gendered implications at that time.
I love that you explored this authenticity in depth and provided some great context! Looking back, I think I wrote that in my comment without properly fleshing it out in my explanation. Honestly, just bad word placement there, but I thoroughly agree with you! I think I wanted to express it in the same way you did, but sorta grouped it with the other concepts without proper explanation.
It's certainly a topic that I have read into and have even some of my favorite food writers get eviscerated when they do a twist on a dish from their culture. Food is both a snapshot of a culture, but serves as a beautiful canvas of how cultures can blend like paint in food and create something even more amazing. I'm so happy to see a trend amongst recipe writers embracing using what you have available to you and not stressing on perfection in authenticity. I think what matters is respect for what it was intended to be, i.e. don't publish a green curry recipe that only uses 2 green chilies because it strays from the original intentions.
Personally, I find it a bit regressive to have something like this published in this way. I'm sure I'm not the only person seeing "marry me chicken" and thinking, "really? Seriously?" As a Gen X person raised in the south, the atmosphere for girls was very focused on being marriage material/feminine/domestic. Despite that, I somehow grew up with some feminist ideals kicking around in the back of my brain.
Fast forward to adulthood and I met and married a chef. The topic of cooking isn't something we generally discuss or struggle with. He cooks and does dishes on the weekends, I cook/clean during the week. It has less to do with our "roles" and more to do with the fact that he works a lot of hours, I don't, so we split the responsibility as best we can. When we first started dating, he actually made dinner for me as his way of trying to impress me. The first dinner he made for me included homemade bread from scratch and a rack of lamb. We view cooking as an act of love on both our parts, so for us, it has less to do with who's supposed to/should cook, and more to do with who is able to devote the time and effort. Also, I really didn't know how to cook when I started dating husband. Ramen, spaghetti and cookies/cakes from a box were the extent of my skills. He taught me how to actually cook. Now I'm able to make pretty much anything that doesn't require special ingredients from scratch and sometimes without a recipe.
As for the Times, I haven't been reading it as much lately. I have some gripes here and there about their reporting, so I'm not a regular reader like I used to be. I do feel like there's been a push toward conservative ideals, especially lately.
As someone whose exposure to the Times has mostly been people discussing their trans coverage bacm when I was on Twitter... there's definitely been a hard turn towards conservativism in that domain. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the case for other topics too when it's so blatant with trans stuff.
While I don't recall seeing anything like Get the Girlfriend Gnocchi, in practice, this seems to be a relatively common thing around where I live. My father charmed by mother by flipping pancakes in the air, among other things. The singer in my band told me how, on their first date, her husband cooked her a great soup. In long-term relationships it's more commonly women who cook, but various "get the girlfriend gnocchi" equivalents seem to be common.
I'm from Czechia, which is possibly the most westernized eastern bloc country, so the society is different from the west in many things, but not nearly as patriarchal and conservative as more eastern European countries for example. However most of us are very much outside of many culture wars topics and things related to them.
So while Marry Me Chicken does sound cringy, articles about it's appropriateness mostly just feel tiresome. Like at some point in the last decade people in the English speaking west in particular stopped caring about whether the energy given to complaining about a particular thing is appropriate with regards to the potential problems the thing may or may not be causing.
I'm talking about blog articles, magazine articles, reddit discussions etc., so it is not a jab at you - this discussion is measured and not stupid because it's taking place here.
I'm part czech myself actually, but US born. I've been fortunate to have an aunt who did the genealogy research and I'm able to track my family name back to the early 1800s to the Moravian region. It's definitely very cool meet someone on Tildes from czechia sharing their cultural lense to someone who is distant from the culture! I've been wanting to learn more about czechia and I would love to visit Prague and the small villages that my relatives came from. Is there a dish or dishes from your country that you think really captures the czech identity through food or does that also feel westernized?
On the topic of the article though, I will admit when I initially saw the recipe on New York Times Cooking, I didn't think much about the name. It was later when I went down a rabbit hole on blog sites that I came across this article. I read it due to recognition of what it was discussing, but not exactly due to agreeing with it. Instead it made me think about the language we use around food. I have another comment in this thread that links to an old article of how the world of professional chefs are dominated by men and how language around food by women has its own effects there. I found both that article and this one fascinating because they are "thinker" pieces that made me reflect on something I didn't originally consider.
You should definitely come visit. Prague is beautiful of course, even if a bit too crowded in places. And some parts of Moravia are definitely a hidden gem for foreigners. Southern Moravia especially, beautiful landscapes, generally friendly people (though the percentage of people who speak English goes lower once you leave cities), pretty good food, excellent white wine, even some local folklore music... They managed to retain a lot of their historical culture, which most of the country north of Prague did not.
Brno is the second biggest czech city and the de facto capital of Moravia, and it's also worth visiting because it's very different from the rural areas. There's quite a bit of interesting architecture on a relatively small area, it's more cosmopolitan and lively that you would expect from its size and location because there's a ton of foreign tech workers and university students, and there are almost no tourist traps because there are few tourists and most pubs, venues and other services have to rely on attracting locals. Excellent café and bar scene.
Regarding food, well, we're really a mix of neighboring cultures around central Europe since we were a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, plus we had a huge German population before world wars, so a lot of our food is a mix of German, Austrian, Slovak and Hungarian cuisine. Each country has its own variations on Goulash for example. Lots of dumplings, heavy creamy sauces and meat. You can try googling "svíčková" (most famous dumplings+beef sauce) or "kulajda" (that's a type of soup). Since Moravia is close to Slovakia, you should definitely try "bryndzové halušky" if you have the option, that's a typical Slovak food which is also pretty popular in Moravia and it's very good. Our bread also seems to be quite specific - traditionally it's a sourdough loaf made with rye sourdough starter instead of wheat, and the dough is 1/3 rye and 2/3 wheat with salt and a bit of cumin. Almost impossible to get in the west from what I've heard, overwhelmingly prevalent here, though most bakeries do not use real sourdough anymore.
And, of course, beer. Usually, regarding pilsners, the smaller the brewery the better the beer. The really good beers are unfiltered and unpasteurized, so you can't get them abroad, but even the average stuff from large breweries that goes for export tastes slightly worse than what you get here, probably because the recipe is changed for longer shelf life. I've never had a truly good pilsner outside of Czechia (which I cannot say about almost any other type of beer).
As a man who does almost all of the cooking in my household, I find this gendered framing tacky, lazy, and frustrating. I would pointedly avoid a recipe like this, since the author went out of their way to exclude me.
I can see why the attitude is so persistent though. I have never owned a car or cared at all about them, yet when my wife's breaks down there's still that nagging feeling in the back of my head that I ought to be doing something about it because I'm the man. These gender norms are only about control at the end of the day, yet they're almost impossible to completely root out because they're cruelly packaged with our good-natured desire to be worthy partners for the people we love.
Nah. The most offending articles are from the op-ed section. There are plenty of people out there who have regressive but sincere opinions about these things, and there likely always will be. Simply allowing them to write an opinion piece is miles away from a conspiracy. Ironically, if media outlets like the NYT did heavily censor op-eds to silence those people I would say that's much closer to a conspiracy.
My wife and I have always struggled with the balance of cooking at home. But genuinely? She really enjoys it... I absolutely hate cooking with a burning passion. I embrace the Captain Holt, "I'd eat a beige smoothie" approach to dinner whenever she's not around (protein shakes) simply because I hate the process of cooking.
I do other stuff around the home, but I know it's a bigger problem for some of my other friends where things go out of whack. There was some big toxic masc stuff floating around in 2010 where if you couldn't cook... Then you weren't a good person. But honestly? It just isn't for everyone. I hate cooking, I'd rather go out for some food.
Don't get me wrong, I CAN cook. I just hate it. If I have to (she's working late) then I do put effort into it, but I just do not like it. That being said? It requires a healthy relationship and a good conversation to actually figure out why and what falls to who in any relationship. There's a lot of nonsense thar defaults to either gender and it requires honest and mature approaches if you don't want that to happen.
This sounds fairly similar to my own relationship. I absolutely live getting into the kitchen and putting in the effort into a dish that has amazing flavors when I am not stressed by other stuff. I've geeked-out to my husband about certain dish origins or cooking techniques and although he is not as passionate about it, he is supportive and is my best taste tester! If I'm overwhelmed by work and have no energy, he is more than happy to help with an alternative. It's not usually a home-cooked meal when he does this, sometimes it's takeout or a frozen skillet meal. But the key is we have a healthy relationship and neither of us feels forced to have to deliver something above that standard, we just get it.
Instead I think what author of this article is trying to get to is viewing the act of cooking a good meal as a requirement. That in place of healthy communication in a relationship, that a woman has to use a performative act of cooking a good meal in order to convey her desires. Lyz explains this weird taboo tango around who in the relationship can ask to be proposed too and how this dishes name arose out of it.
Times have fortunately changed despite attempts to regress back. I'm happy that I don't have to make an impressive meal in order to make my husband clean the bathrooms; he just does it because we communicate. In a way it's highly fascinating to see how the language around food can either dismantle or uphold these expectations.
Sounds very familiar! Love and support comes in many ways!
I wonder if that's due to love language being misunderstood and not talked about as well? Can't help but feel like that chat will show how you and a partner would like to be shown affection. We do default to things, but again it comes down to comms... And if someone reacts negatively to that? Well, I'm not really sure what to say.
But I do know it's a default that dinner/kitchen = women's world. Lots of my mates don't have that, but many of us do for one reason or another I guess? As long as we talk about needs, then it shouldn't be an issue.
Transactionality in relationships is exhausting. I dated someone in the past who would play that game and it got old really quickly (and it ended due to it).
Is it just food I wonder? We all know that both genders get a load of jobs based on gender and nothing more. It's a weird hodgepodge right?