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?

[quote Aria20]@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....[/quote]
Oh yes it has to be electric! And believed. Until the undercooked and cold meat is quietly put back in the oven...

Yep!
It's really expensive and uses every dish and pan you own.

Oh bread. So as part of his work DH does some research on chronic disease and nutrition and jumped on the ‘too much salt’ bandwagon. Fair enough I guess. Apparently most of our salt comes from bread (probably true). But are the kids eating his artisan bread before school? No. Am I having to listen to endless nonsense about the art of bread making? Does this mean that we not buying bread to get the kids to eat some toast before school? He once tried to make some kale crisps for their packed lunch. The look on the faces of our sons 🤣🤣🤣

So relatable, thanks for posting this thread. 'I'm cooking today' aka I can't do anything else. And he'll be so exhausted afterward he couldn't possible lift himself from the sofa. How convenient It's disruptive as he can't cook without turning the kitchen inside out, plus he makes half a job of cleaning up. Shit splattered everywhere. He's a great cook though. But some days a frozen pizza would do! You are absolutely not being unreasonable

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 🤦‍♀️

You’ve just described my husband! I swear he thinks he Jamie fucking Oliver. The over exaggerated dramatics of frying those onions or mushrooms is a sight to behold!😂

Great thread. I get a lot of performance knife sharpening here using a knife steel, which for some reason I find deeply annoying (I find blunt knives also annoying so should shut up).

My H cooks a lot but it just takes FOREVER. Even beans on toast could be up to half an hour of faffing about. A curry or spag bol MUST be allowed to cook for a good couple of hours, and a roast must involve resting the meat for an age while making deeply complex gravy (which never tasted as nice as mine because it's been faffed with too much).

This thread reminds me of the Christmas episode of The Osbournes where old Ozzy makes the gravy for Christmas dinner. He bangs on and on about the gravy for the entire meal. "What about that gravy though, eh?"

Bloody tedious. My husband and I just cook food and don't worry about it.

Mine on the very odd occasion he sets foot in the kitchen is like this. Pre kids in the 80s we had a spate of dinner parties. Mr I can barely make a Vesta chow mein decided to make some wanky Antony worrell Thompson thing including blue cheese mousse stuffed poached pears. Except he read the amounts wrong and we ended up with a huge amount of the mousse, which was so rich you could only manage a spoonful. And calves liver. Walked all over Sheffield looking for it, made the recipe, and hated it. He never liked offal, why spend a bomb on something he knows he doesn’t like?

“Kitchenwanking”😂

Mine's a real trained chef. No performances there. Cleans up as he goes along. Everyone who cooks in this house does this. I dumped performance cookers at the first hurdle. Not cute. Not something I wanted to put up with.

Complex recipes (often involving trips to specialist shops to source)

Yes! God, this thread articulates everything I feel. Amazingly I manage to cook the other six nights a week without using every pan in the house / moaning about the fact that I haven’t got the ingredients I need (because I haven’t added them to the online shop and expect to find, eg porcini mushrooms at the petrol station co-op) / asking my fellow diners what they think about the jus at three minute intervals.

We’ve decided it’s easier if he just pays for a posh takeaway on Saturdays.

If DH goes to the supermarket (rare) then cooks, the stuff he buys is the best EVER. His carrots? Amazing. Mashed potato? It really has that luscious, creamy taste, doesn't it?

No. It tastes like every other fucking spud I cooked relentlessly for the last 10 years mate

DH has decided he's doing a carrot cake today. I quote you his actual words:

'I've got to stack the dishwasher then do that cake, then it'll be supper time '

Also, we live abroad and it's currently only 9.10AM !

Mine's a real trained chef. No performances there. Cleans up as he goes along.

I had a friend who was a head chef at an Oxford college. Wonderful food, but he was the messiest cook I have ever met. He used every pan, plate and saucer in the kitchen to cook the simplest meal.

He was used to having lackeys cleaning up after him.

@Etulosba

Mine's a real trained chef. No performances there. Cleans up as he goes along.

I had a friend who was a head chef at an Oxford college. Wonderful food, but he was the messiest cook I have ever met. He used every pan, plate and saucer in the kitchen to cook the simplest meal.

He was used to having lackeys cleaning up after him.

Badly trained! The best have started as KP and worked their way up. Monica Galetti would have fired him .

Ooooh I forgot two key features:

1. characterised by an unnecessarily rich outcome and 2. inordinate amounts of waste.

Yip. We have a 'show cooker' here too. Will faff about for HOURS....home making pizzas / other elaborate men based crap like BBQed steaks, but can't make a spaghetti Bolognese or anything for the baby TBF his food is tasty - just the longest and messiest process in the world.

High performance knives !! And related: knife sharpening!! Of course

DP has a Special Knife which he spends a long time sharpening on a sharpening rod before use. It's usually used to cut salad or veg so really needs to be razor sharp before tackling those tomatoes.

The Special Knife is not to be used by me (except for washing as it is also not allowed in the dishwasher).

@Letsallscreamatthesistene

Not in my house. Its the same recipe over and over which I MUST be grateful for.

This. Chicken fajitas the only meal in 20 years, always accompanied by "ooh they're good, do you like the way I charred the peppers" and other self congratulatory drivel.

I must live in a parallel universe. My husband just cooks normal food purchased from a normal shop (Iceland or Aldi mostly). He sticks it in the oven, sets the timer and then finds something else to do.
My dad did the same in the 80s.

No, but here we have performative DIY, involving the requirement for a audience at every stage.

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".

This is spot on!

I was feeling extremely petty the other weekend when DH announces the night before he was going to do us "a nice dinner" tomorrow I knew what was coming. Hours of being locked away in the kitchen under the pretence of nurturing a roast when really he drinks beer and plays on his phone.

It winds me up when we eat and he's saying "this chicken is the best I've ever done if I do so so myself, what do you think etc..." so I purposefully never engaged. Just said, thanks for dinner! Then ate it and chatted with the kids. Petty as fuck but he never comments on anyone else's home cooked efforts. I can't be arsed to feed the ego!

Loving this thread.

I've become completely fed up with the performative cooking during lockdown.

The prep bowls, the unfashionable mess and, of course, the Very Special Knives (DH's prize specimen is pictured) are a common feature it seems.

*unfathomable not unfashionable!!