Are men better chefs than women ?

One of the stereotypes of our society that has been followed ever since humans came into existence on this planet is that women are meant to be in the kitchen.

Human evolution point of view, perhaps the reason is men went hunting for food, came back home tired, so women did the cooking.

But now, men no longer have to go hunting or fishing.

Few women would be pleased that this is one of the stereotype that has been broken as more and more men enter the kitchen to try their culinary skills not just to impress their partner.

While women’s cooking skills was never in doubt, restaurant and hotels mainly hire men as chefs. This maybe changing though.

When it comes to large scale cooking and working long hours (sometimes late into the night) in front of the stove, possibly men are more adept. However, there are many popular women chefs but they probably don’t work full time in a large restaurant.

So, I guess it’s not the question of who is better, but the constraint is working long hours, especially for women who have kids.

At home though, women love to be responsible to feed their family. They do it out of love and care.

Men may enter the kitchen to prove a point or just try something new.

Women love to follow the recipe line by line from the recipe book, while men will cook based on what ingredients is available in front of them. They call it ‘innovation’ but it does come out good most times. 🙂

If women find it hard to get their hubby to cook once in a while, then should try the ‘praise formula’  – ‘Oh ! I did not know you are a wonderful cook.’  This worked for my wife. Any form of praise gives a lot of ego boost to men, especially who are not used to be being praised by their wife.

Sometimes, men take interest in cooking when there is no other choice, e.g. losing their life partner.

My father never knew how to make tea. But since my mother passed away, and while I used to work in the U.K, he learnt to cook and now he is a great cook.

Cooking is the best stress relief and married couples can take turns instead of eating out. It’s actually lot of fun cooking together.

In fact, nothing more romantic than watch a couple in the kitchen together – cooking, of course.

And, my next topic for research is ‘Why are stereotypes so hard to break in our society ?’