Male performative cooking, it’s a thing isn’t it?

[Beeth0ven]

Characterised by:

Weekly cadence
Complex recipes (often involving trips to specialist shops to source)
While day needed (or substantial park of the day) to cook
Low engagement with wider family during process
No expectation of clearing up afterwards, despite WILD amount of mess

Has anyone else observed this? Has it been widely discussed on here?

My husband will sometimes cook normal meals during the week. It is always quite a performance. He calls to me lots of times to ask for help and advice even for something he's cooked many times before. If he's making anything like curry or bolognese, he is incapable of working out how much rice or pasta to cook so I get called in to weigh it out. I'll tell him what amount to cook and get the reply, "can't you just come and sort it out?"

Anyway after quite a lot of help and support from me we get our meal. Then it's time to appreciate his amazing skills in the kitchen. He makes comments like, "this is delicious isn't it? I've done a really good job." "I think my bolognese is probably better than yours don't you? Actually, I'm probably a better cook than you."

I then have to go and tackle the carnage in the kitchen. I do believe it's all calculated, even if subconsciously, to make me think it's just much easier for me always do the cooking myself.

Love this thread... mine has become a weekend performance cook too... he has got our 9yo son in on it too, off they trot to M&S to buy fancy ingredients you can't possibly get in Asda... Then spend ages making something fancy which of course involves mess everywhere and all the pots and utensils being used. Also sending photos to Mil to prove how amazing and cheffy they are. It does usually taste good but don't we all know how amazing they are for cooking something "different" as opposed to my boring dinners

Kitchen wank is hilarious.

My DH isn’t too bad to be fair. Cooking is generally a chore which falls to me, but he will cook at weekends if I ask him to (he is a machine when it comes to laundry and tidying up after the kids).

The issue is multitasking. He’ll watch a pot of rice cooking, rather than using that time to put away clean washing up, set the table, prep a side salad.

As a result I need to add at least 30 minutes on to his ETA, and be ready to microwave food that has gone cold while waiting for him to finish.

His food always tastes better though, because of the time and effort and thought that goes into his food. My method is chop it up and Chuck it in. Often rushed and disappointing.

@Beeth0ven

Characterised by:

Weekly cadence
Complex recipes (often involving trips to specialist shops to source)
While day needed (or substantial park of the day) to cook
Low engagement with wider family during process
No expectation of clearing up afterwards, despite WILD amount of mess

Has anyone else observed this? Has it been widely discussed on here?

Not in my house — DH is an excellent cook, and does almost all the cooking on a daily basis — but this describes to a tee a close friend of mine who, when he was married, would take over the kitchen all day Saturday to cook something endlessly complex that involved studying multiple recipe books, a trip to get special ingredients and spending most of the day closeted away from his children, while his wife ferried them around to swimming lessons and play dates and supervised their homework etc.

His wife also cooked literally all other meals, ever. And the thing was, nobody wanted the elaborate, lengthy dish. It was just an excuse to be doing something that looked ‘virtuous’, but actually was essentially the same as being shut away gaming, an excuse to not engage, which he did much of the rest of the time.

Unsurprisingly he’s no longer married. When he has his now teenage children EOW, he still does this, even though the kids are vocal about just wanting ‘normal food’.

Has anyone mentioned a meat thermometer yet?!

Oh, definitely. It's particularly noticeable with curries. I have a wide collection of curry and Indian cookbooks but avoid anything restaurant style with several steps and dozens of ingredients. Pure man cooking, they are.

We call it stunt cooking.

My husband is a good cook and until recently was out of work, so cooked for all of us. So he doesn’t do this but absolutely doesn’t get the whole “clear up as you go along” thing so there’s always a heck of a mess after

Ha @InescapableDeath the 80s were awash with currys and Chinese food I assure you!
While my father could just about boil an egg if pushed, my late husband was not only a fantastic cook but cleaned as he went - there was never a mess afterwards.
Due to his ten plus hour a day job he only cooked on weekends, but what fabulous meals they were.

My husband has an album of his achievements and has bought a gadget called a 'wankle'!

We locked down (east coast USA) before the UK. Sent DH (who I will say is a nice man, not a wanker, a decent cook and fairly tidy). He came back with some essentials, no toilet paper, a cocktail shaker and a meat thermometer.
He’s vegetarian!!
And we are mostly vegetarian.

Meant to say sent DH to Costco.

I know one of these! My sisters ex, we are all on very friendly terms and he often comes to her house to see the kids and so will cook for us. He constantly moans about how empty her cupboards are, how he doesn't have what he needs, the knives are blunt, he is under appreciated and yet is clearly far, Far superiority to us etc. My sister once mentioned the dish was nice but she had never been a huge fan of lemon chicken and he was all "Et tu Brute?" And actually offended. Cue bowl banging and side eye while muttering under his breath.

Every family even at her house, her tries to take over the cooking. We're go for the topical " spring rolls, butties, pasta salad and crisp" sort of fare but then he starts the one up man ship. I say I will do something, he slow roasts a slab of Betty pork with a side sauce so cooked he can't leave the stove - despite his entire family having driven 150 miles being desperate to talk to him. He becomes so frantic, the performance so intense and anxiety inducing that he melts down, declares us all selfish and walks away from the cooker. Ten minutes later he serves, all quiet and complains while we try to eat about the lack of this spice, the pans not being copper bottomed.

What really pisses him off is that he uses a gas bbq and I only use charcoal. And I have a vagina 😳😂. We went in a huge family houses trip in the us and there was 16 of us. It was his turn to cook but it was a standard size oven and hob and he couldn't do it. Flidded off and was so obnoxious that they instigated divorce proceedings ON HOLIDAY . I just picked up all the meat, got some packet marinades etc, buns and made a quick salad - took it outside and cooked for the 16 on the charcoal bbq. He didn't eat that night as he was in a mood. It massively, hugely upsets him that I can not only cook, but see through his wankery.

But for a man with multiple degrees he cannot shop. Went to buy our sons some clothes. Came back with some glittery unicorn shit. We are not into hugely gendered parenting but this was a bit much. I said: where did you go?
DH: Gap.
Me: the girls bit?
DH: what do you mean? It’s just one shop. Is there a boys’ bit?!

In fairness to him he’s a decent cook and does his share. All his wankery comes out when he’s making salads though. He’s quite a healthy eater and makes rather nice salads but dear god, the PROCESS. And sometimes he gets upset because my interest in the intricacies of these salads is non existent.

@MyBoysHaveDogsNames

Has anyone mentioned a meat thermometer yet?!

My husband has one of those!

I get a run down of fancy new ingredients, where he got them, the origin and how much they were 🤣

@midlifephoenix it must've just been my dad selling it as him doing something special then! He went on and on about it enough.

I guess the point is that he only rolled out these banquets for occasions where he could show off. The rest of the time it was my mum doing the daily grind and he would sit there saying 'I don't even like potatoes' or 'not sure about this sauce' etc.

He still does it, but now they're getting on a bit it's excused as 'ahh, you know what your dad's like' and I think my mum is just used to it now!

@MyBoysHaveDogsNames yes apparently we need an electric meat thermometer too! As opposed to a standard one...I said just stick a knife in if juice runs clear it's fine....

Let's not forget the porn style groans of utter pleasure as he eats each and every mouthful. Each one intercepted with the same statement over and over again. "Beautiful dinner, beautiful. Everyone enjoying their dinner".

It's the spuds that make him reach orgasmic levels of joys. My rice/pasta efforts aren't a "proper" dinner.

I’m so happy to have a name for this!

MPC may be my new favourite acronym.

I have a meat thermometer and I am a vegetarian.

I also love gadgets (not the plug-in kind though), collect pans and research obscure recipes and ingredients. Sometimes it takes me an entire day to cook a meal (but there are always leftovers). I have a Mise en place set :).

I live alone and cook for myself.

Sometimes I take photos.

Yes! Always a long-winded recipe that requires me to look after the toddler for several hours. Then the expectation of gratitude for the tasty dinner... I'd rather have egg and beans and a break from childcare!

Be warned, ladies. Mine has now retired from paid employment and discovered making preserves and 101 different sourdough creations.

I may one day commit murder.

My ex did this anytime he was in front of the hob, lots of tossing ingredients in the pan and shaking the pan ala chef style, then of course the dashing frantically around the kitchen when serving up. And of course lots of brow mopping and dramatically throwing the tea towel over his shoulder 🤦‍♀️
He would also then sit with nothing while we ate because he clearly needed time to recover from his cooking ordeal?

I remember when my teenage son said he could cook steak better than me( he could ) but of course l had to upgrade all the cookware.
I then started buying a lot of steak without making it obvious so his amount of cooking increased eventually he took over the evening meals and l did all the washing up afterward but I didn't mind as he turned out to be an excellent cook when he left home he worried about me eating properly it was so sweet.

Bugger that! As little time as possible needed to bang together pasties and pies. 4 pasties doesn't take long and a couple of decent sized pies even less time.

Life is too short to pretend you are James Martin or some other bloody celebrity chef!!