How can I stop feeling so negative about cooking? It's damaging my relationship with my mother.

[BedHog]

My parents have been to stay with us for a few days recently. They have quite a traditional domestic set-up, Mum does all the cooking and most of the housework, Dad does all the DIY and car maintenance. DP and I do not - we take turns cooking, share the cleaning and DIY reasonably equally and try not to divide tasks based on gender.
When I cook, it tends to be something that requires minimal effort and mess - pasta and sauce, meat and veg, bolognese - basically something requiring half an hour, one tray, one saucepan, and a maximum of three utensils. Mum likes to plan meals, do everything 'properly', use a multitude of kitchen equipment and make a whole song and dance about the whole process. She likes to help out when she comes to stay, which is great, but she seems to want to involve me in the minutiae of the cooking process as if it's some kind of mother/daughter bonding process. She asks constant questions about how I want her to chop a certain vegetable (I really don't care), or how do I scrub my potatoes (I don't), or how I like certain processes to be done (when I've never done them in my life and have no desire to start). I end up seething with frustration and being very short with her.
The reason I've asked this in feminism is because I see cooking as housework, and therefore in the same category as washing, ironing, scrubbing floors and all the other traditional 'female' tasks which have entrapped women for generations. Logically I'm aware that I could be reasonably good at cooking, and even enjoy it, and it could be something nice I could do with my mum. But I can't seem to get beyond this hatred of it, and find I don't want to be seen as able to cook, as if it's something embarrassing and shameful.
Does anyone understand or feel like this too? I want to be able to get past this but I'm struggling....

You are probably feeling the pressure of an expectation that as a woman you should enjoy cooking, and because you don't, you are rebelling against that expectation so your dislike becomes exaggerated.

I enjoy cooking, and don't feel guilty about doing most of it at home, but then when I was growing up the main cook in my house was my dad, so it is not something that has is particular gender role for me.

I love cooking.

I hate anyone else in the Kitchen.

If someone tried to bond with me in the kitchen, I'd go postal.

Don'r eschew cooking as a feminist act- eschew it because you don't enjoy it. That in itself is a feminist act IYSWIM.

Find another activity to do to bond with your mother.

I can't work out if I don't enjoy it per se, or whether it's because of all the entrenched gender role crap behind it. I don't want to dismiss the possibility of it being something I could enjoy, after all it is something I have to do every other day or we'd go hungry!! I do enjoy baking occasionally.

I'm not sure about the pressure, I'm finding that quite confusing tbh. My mum has admitted that she doesn't particularly like cooking. I think she's spent too much time in the housewife role that it's become her 'thing'.

Of course there's the other possibility that I'm just a lazy slattern who wants to minimise washing up volume!!

minimizing washing up is v. v. important! :)

I like cooking but it does get boring and is a daily grind. DH does about half of it. We both enjoy it more when we're not trying to get food on the table for a fractious toddler around other things, like dogwalk, put a wash on, etc etc all before bedtime.

I'm fortunate in being the youngest of 3 so by the time I became an adult my Mum had learned to be very tactful. We live differently (she was a housewife, I work FT) and so while she helps like mad when she visits, she definitely keeps her mouth shut about my (relatively) slovenly ways.

Erm. I don't have much helpful stuff to add - but I think that feeling negative about cooking isn't damaging your relationship with your mother, exactly. It's more that your relationship with your mother isn't something that can be expressed/solidified/whatever over how the carrots should be chopped. It's a different thing. And so, maybe if she's trying to get a bit closer to you, it would help to have something NOT in the kitchen that you do together (daytrip with just the two of you to a stately home? Tickets to a play? Lunch in a naice caff?) and perhaps generate some of the 'special you and me' time without the stress of "look, I know this is important to you but I find it mind-numbingly boring and want it over asap!" that surrounds cooking.

Also, I do understand a certain level of "I don't WANT people to look at me and think 'good little wifey!' " rebellion against your mother's choice of work/self-expression. I think I went through a similar phase, though being greedy and having a foodie DH got me out of it.

I cook a lot of things my own mother can't/won't cook but likes eating (chinese and indian food) and that also helps. It's like I have an area where making a simple sweet and sour chicken or dhal makes her all "woooow!" and I don't feel that she's judging how I sauteed anything. Plus it's a bit of a treat for her. And it's what we like to eat!

I feel a bit the same about sewing. My mum is quite a fan and taught her male and female children to sew on a button etc but I can't help noticing that it's only me, her DD, who has repeatedly been bought sewing kits and exhorted to make things. I'm not bloody interested and yes it annoys me more that she thinks I "ought" to do it, presumably because I'm a girl, though she would flatly deny that. It would feel like giving in to start buying silk or whatever the bollocks it is you're supposed to use for sewing.

You don't have to like it. It's not an offence to her.

blackcurrants you make a lot of sense, thankyou. I'll try the foreign food idea - I think my mum is maybe misinterpreting my reluctance to cook for inability. Can't cook/won't cook!! So she tries to 'educate' me - last time it was soaking the remnants of a toad-in-the-hole to make cleaning the pan easier - surely that is blindingly obvious but she demonstrated as if she was imparting secret pearls of wisdom upon me. I think it might be safer to stay out of the kitchen and do our mother/daughter stuff elsewhere!

Elephants I love sewing!! Strangely I don't see that as a housewifey thing to do, although I suppose it is in some ways. Sewing is creative, unlike cooking which I find destructive.

I think sewing is much more gendered than cooking, which is more gender neutral. If you are fine with sewing, cooking is not a feminist issue. This is just a mother/daughter issue.

DH taught me to sew he's handy like that.

Isn't this more about your mum trying to bond with you than about feminism per say?

Would she be terribly offended if one day, at the start of cooking, you gave a big sigh and said 'God, I wish cooking meals didn't have to happen every day! I'd love to have a live-in chef!'? I'm trying to think of an obviously humorous statement that would nevertheless give the message that cooking isn't something you particularly enjoy.

Or else just flat-out say 'Mum, cooking isn't my thing. I do love sewing though. Do you like sewing?' Try to treat her like a friend, she may surprise you with her response. Good luck... I don't have the easiest relationship with my mother as we are very different, so I have found that clearly stating my preferences, as tactfully as possible, to be the only viable way forward. Otherwise I'd have murdered her by now

I suppose because sewing isn't an everyday task I don't see it as part of the whole womens drudgery thing, plus my grandad owned a textiles business so sewing falls into the creative/career category for me. I guess different experiences make us view things in different ways.

It is more about my mum trying to bond with me, but the feminist bit is because my resentment at 'cooking' due to all the housework/gender role issues mentioned above, is not enabling me to reciprocate my mum's attempts to bond with me in this way. So I turn into a snarling, snappy monster when we could potentially have an enjoyable couple of hours together in the kitchen.

No she wouldn't be offended Herrena, in fact she often says she hates having to do the cooking every day. She's teaching my dad to do some of the cooking now he's retired, but complains about the way he does it and all the mess he makes (oh, the irony!) which isn't really conducive to making him want to cook more often.

I like cooking, so does DH and so do most of the men in my family. Dbro does about a million different things with polenta.

I think you're over-thinking the whole cooking = housework = anti-feminist thing.

So you dislike cooking - fine.
Sounds like you dislike your mother sometimes too!
Just say, 'actually Mum I don't like cooking' and as someone suggested, find another way to bond with her.

And shove her out of the kitchen door while you microwave her ready meal.