The Usborne Cookbook for girls

[startail]

Why on earth do you need to categorise a kids cookery book by gender?

^ what SQ said.

Though, I am secretive about eating choc, if I didnt' hide the stuff my ruddy kids would eat it :(

Incidentally it is my DH in our household who has the whole unhealthy relationship with food thing going on.

I find it strange though that to look at adverts you would think it was only women who ate chocolate or got excited about a "naughty" desert or needed to lose weight. It's very peculiar indeed.

women laughing alone with salad

That is v good, teenstrop

SQ - both the boys and the girls cookbooks have sweet treats (and healthy snacks, if I remember rightly - don't mind a quick flick through the book but don't want to go through it line by line :)). Neither book makes any reference to "naughty" foods or good foods. So really, the issue is with the phrase comfort food. I don't like it at all, either, but it's a stock phrase deployed in most cookbooks (which aren't explicitly aimed at any gender), and on most celebrity chef programmes. I think at most Usborne are guilty of thoughtlessly lifting it from the adult books they're modelling - it's not as if it's an unusual phrase specifically targetted at their girl audience.

And I don't think that sweet treats and healthy snacks are the language of the food obsessed. Some food is better for our health and well-being than others, we always need to make choices about food, and we need some shorthand to differentiate between the different types.

I'm talking about the blurb on the book ruby.

The bit that people write in order to appeal to their target audience, and the bit that people read when deciding whether to buy a book or not.

If you think it is fair enough that the boys book is billed as encouraging "innovation and fun" with the food talked about in a practical way, while the girls get comfort food, and the good/bad food dichotomy, then that is up to you.

If it doesn't bother you that a "treat" can only be sweet - not savoury/healthy, and that healthy things get a simple "snack" label, not the possibility they might be a "treat" then that is your call. If you agree it's reasonable to suggest that female children might want to "comfort eat" when they have "nights in " then that is your view.

I'm not going to agree with you though.

The idea that females, when they have a quiet night in, like nothing better than to eat entire cheesecakes and buckets of haagen dazs and stuff...

It's a media construct.

Lots of people stuff themselves silly with shit, male and female.
Most people (I hope) can think of something better to do on a "night in" than sit there eating and eating.
Yet you wouldn't think it to look at the ads on TV etc - and these books demonstrate the same idea.

Fair enough. Sweet snacks and healthy treats it is, then .

I do think the marketing blurb does both of the books a disservice, and as one of the previous posters said, I do wonder who writes it.

Perhaps this is a more straightforward choice?

Ooh I love a healthy treat.

Everyone once laughed at me at work when I described cherry tomatoes as "nature's maltesers"

They are sweet though. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I like cheese, does that help?

That book looks lovely BTW, and perfect if by some peculiar quirk of fate you have children who are (shock) different sexes!

Much as I like cherry tomatoes, I'm not going to agree with you that they're "nature's maltesers", either!

That book is fab, yes. If any of your kids ever worked their way through it (a process I want to start with DD and DS soon), they'd be set up to eat well for life...