Women & Bar-B-Que
Most men are shown tending to Bar-B-Que. Are women often stereotyped as not being able to make as good a Bar-B-Que as men?
I don't think there is a gender issue with Barbeque. However, I think most men get into their paleolithic mindset when charring up animals on a open flame. You know:
Man kills animal (or buys meat from Costco)
Man makes fire
Man cook animals on open flame (may be augmented by listening to the ballgame and drinking beers with other men)
Family eats massive portions of MEAT!
I think men in general like the fire aspect. Women could live without it, but it doesn't make them any worse at making Barbeque. However, like my wife, most prefer to let men play around a hot fire on a summer day while they sit in the AC.
I will validate that statement only when this applies:
If the woman does not enjoy cooking on an open flame or outside.
Reason:
If you do not enjoy the activity you are doing you do not do it to the fullest of your capabilities. Mind you it is my opinion, it is the love of the art form that make it most pleasing to the end user.
Have doubts think of the times you make a meal and every one loved it how did you feel when preparing it? I am wiling to bet you were enjoying the activity greatly.
Here is another view that I read, but still does focus around that fire aspect...
QUOTE |
Real Men Barbeque Saturday June 4, 2005 from Derrick's Barbecues & Grilling Blog "It's curious to think that, for me, Memorial Day, this uniquely American day of remembrance, is somehow tied up with my masculinity, but there it is, Dr. Freud, fact! It's the one day a year I get to show what a real man can do. And, doc, what real men do on Memorial Day is barbecue. Take my father, Aaron Leo. Though he cooked but this one day a year, Pop, like all men before him and most of us who follow, considered himself the unquestioned master of the Weber. But hey, he had good reason. His Memorial Day barbecue was the talk of the family. My aunts Dorothy and Ida (who could always be counted on for three opinions between them ... On anything) might argue over this or that but there was one subject on which they agreed, especially if Aaron Leo was out of the room. No question, doc, it took a man to turn out a barbecue like Pop's. I was just a slip of a lad m'self when I met manhood's ultimate test of fire. It was on a Memorial Day morning, a morning a lot like this one, when Pop beckoned for me to join him. Today, he confided, I was to learn the deepest, darkest male secret of all, the secret of cooking over an open flame. What's that, doc? Oh, for sure! I was dying to learn what every man needs to know but, at the butcher, nothing was revealed; nor did Aaron Leo speak of the lore of the grill at the bakery, not even at the Crunch "n Munch Pickle Works. Oedipus, doc? Hmmmm. Alls I know is that the suspense was killing. Would I ever be able to become a man? Was the day long enough to learn how? I had my doubts, doc, and I had "em in spades. It was only when we got to the hardware store that Pop at last spoke of the invisible but ever-present truth that separates men from the rest of humankind. The thing that women don't get, he confided, eyeing the shelves, the reason they can't grill worth a darn, he added, selecting a five-gallon tin ... (The anticipation was too much for me, doc, I couldn't catch my breath I was so excited) ... Is plenty of charcoal lighter fluid. There it was! Plenty of charcoal lighter fluid ... The secret of manhood at last! Just soak half a bag of charcoal briquettes in a couple of gallons of lighter fluid ... Arrange the meat on a cold grill ... Touch a match ... And BOOM: not just manhood ... And not just instant barbecue ... But instant barbecue perfumed with that manly aroma of petroleum that says, "Psst, hey, buddy, put your nose into this and you'll known what it feels like to be a real man!" |
I cook out a lot. I do not do it on special occasions only. I enjoy cooking and if I can cook it on a grill in the outdoors then I am happy. I cook out all 12 months of the year. I think my wife and other women can cook just as well using a outdoor fire or grill. It is just what you want and how do you like it done. She lets me cook the meat because I really do enjoy it and I am good at it.