who cooks better ..... man or woman!!

My dear Francesca, you have not only given an opinion but have joined the many who have voted for the male dominance in good cooking. Yes you said women are better but you also said that you purposefully wanted to annoy me, I can't get annoyed from a dear myLotter like you. Your purpose is different from your belief and acceptance: you are saying, you know men are better but you have to give some support to the women and to annoy the wise one (wysecom). You are so plain. Thanks. You even mentioned your ancestral line who had such excellent and uncomparable skilled male cooks without mentioning any female including yourself. I believe, if you have a brother, he must be exceptionally good and your male cousins and nephews must be good too. That makes men better but why?

I understand your 'real view' but I am also looking at that view from different inclinations. The theory has not, is not, can not and would never be ruined. What do you mean? That the ladies have taken over the excellency of preparing the best dishes somewhere? NO, NO, NO. The men are just pretending by lying dormant just to see if the ladies can upgrade their mediocre cooking skills and sooner, the men will arise again to fly the flag. Any good female cook should be seen as achievement contrary to the norm; just like YOU managed to excel. Are you trying to adjust my gaze by pushing me hard into considering the number of good female cooks alonside the quality of cooks? For the moment, I do not want to consider the quantity of female cooks but the quality of their cooking.

no wysecom, the reason i did not mention the excellent female cooks in my family is because there are so many of them, that a good female cook is considered to be normal, and therefore becomes invisible. my real view is that it is not a gender issue, and it is just a question of personal interest that crosses gender. however as you want to believe that men are better cooks i have to take the opposing view. the cooking gene is on my mothers side, it is her father who was the chef, and it could be handed down through the y chromosone, but my brother does not seem to have inherited it, whereas my sister enjoys cooking, so thats that theory ruined.

There are lots of people who are simply not interested in cooking. Interest is the first place to start with a good cook. Women cook at home usually because it is expected of them not because they want to cook, they grow up believing it is one of the roles. People who cook because they must rather than from love of cooking may or may not be good cooks. If they love food then they will take care to produce good food, if they do not care what they eat as long as it is food they will not care about cooking. I was taught cooking by my mother and by my school but neither of them taught me to be a good cook. I learned to cook from books because I love food and if I wanted a good meal I had to cook it myself. I consider myself to be a good cook but I have no problem with someone else cooking as long as the food is good. My partner is a trained cook and worked as a professional cook. He is a good cook and cooks most of our meals. He taught me a new range of skills and introduced me to different foods. My eldest brother taught himself to cook and he taught me a whole range of cooking that I did not pick up from cookbooks. My other brother learned to cook after he left home as he had to cook for himself, he was a competent cook. So I do not see it as a gender thing at all. I see it as requiring a love of good food and a desire to produce it. Even then there are people who love food but have no talent for good cooking. You can only learn so much from books and from teachers, if you do not have the ability to develop the skills that produce good food you will never be a good cook no matter what your gender.

You mean women are forced to cook at home not that they are interested in cooking! I n the same vein, men are also forced to cook either to save their children from starving because mommy is reluctant or to save them from malnurishment because mommy's concoctions are terrible. Sharra1, women love all the good things of life including good food - meat pies, ice cream, dessert, salad, cakes, rice, etc. But they do not want to cook or cannot, in most cases, prepare anything interesting either because they can't or do not want to. You still do not see it as a gender thing despite all the examples you have listed - your husband and two of your brothers! How come the REAL men around you taught you how to cook some dishes instead of you being the teacher! Your mom and school teacher (male or female!) taught you to cook, only two females(?) mentioned but three men have taught you thus far. You are a 'good cook' today not because of books but because those men taught you from their most excellent warehouse of cooking skills, am I right? Alright, I want to be an excellent cook, I have the interest, who should I approach for some skills and coaching - man or woman?

You are pushing me into the cook-for-money corner. I am looking at it from all perspectives - business and home. Even if there are food artists from both gender, the question still lingers, who is the better artist, whose works are better accepted both home and away, or whose work do you prefer? I ate many of her dishes but with the introductory remarks preceeding the eating, I was always compelled to expect the worst. Whether the food was good or bad, she spoiled the show with her words. I can agree with you that a good teacher would produce a good student and that a good student can succeed despite the teacher. Let me inteprete: mommy was the good teacher (for the ladies with good cooking skills), she taught John and Jane to cook but John became better than Jane.On the contrary, mommy was not too good a teacher (for the ladies with deplorable cooking skilss) but John came out excellent despite not being properly taught.

Try making Indian sweet 'saun papdi 'or 'padirpeni' with five kilograms of allpurpose flour and you will understand what I meant by 'intenese physical labur' in cooking.

"intense physical labour"--typo regretted.

Important information: after being warned by her through her introductory phrase, I was always compelled to expect the worst. Whatever she cooked didn't matter so long as she had given the warning. If you are a good cook, I am not part of the many that attested to that. In your case, people around you knew your ability and we all know that once in a while the 'devil' may have dipped his spoon in your pot. You judged yourself and weren't satisfied but the people were. But a daily occurrence..... Intense labour in cooking involves breaking forewood, fetching water from the local stream/tap, killing the cow, killing/dressing the chicken, etc, those I understand but pouring the ingredients into the pot is not labour intensive. Meanwhile there are machines to do almost everytihing from measuring to mixing dough; chopping and slicing to grinding, etc. There are good cooks from either gender but which gender cooks better!!!

No, Tell the fact that in my opinion women cooks better than man always and in every places but the fact is that the mans are professional cookers in hotels,restaurants,bars and even so I think that woman's cook better. I hope its more clear now,thanks.

I am lost Sir. What do you mean by '...men are professional cookes in hotels, restaurants...'. A professional is someone who does not only carry out that practice as a means of livelihood but also is best at it. For men to be professionals, it confers on them that they are also better. Or would you redefine 'professional' as used by you?

as2006, thanks for your opinion. Are you saying that in the home women are better and outside, men are better? Charity, they say, begins at home. If you can perform good enough at home, you should be able to take it outside. Let me tell you something here, if you have been able to cook good stuffs for yourself or has taken good food cooked outside by men, you would be able to see that the food cooked by the women inside or outside are .....

I would say it is 50/50. Not only that but personal taste is a factor. You could think someone a excellant cook while i would not. So who is the judge of if someone isa good cook or not???

I am not looking at a judge, I am looking at a panel of judges. Personal taste! Rice is rice but could be prepared in several ways or could be used in designing different dishes. In the process of getting something out of the same rice, the panel of judges unanimously declared that ..... are better in cooking and designing dishes than.... This judgement was arrived at after an intense exercise covering different dishes and different countries. So....

There is no battle here not-to-talk-of a war. I do not subscribe to the 50/50 theory you are trying to establish. Tip the scale, darling. In the very good class, which gender dominates?

How could she be lacking in something each and everytime? The first time or first few times upto a maximum of three, could be counted as a mistake(s) but an everyday affair is no longer a mistake, it's a lifestyle. Your vote is most appaudable and acceptable. Please give the men some more credit but be careful 'cos your lady may read this thread and ...... you have earned yourself that cooking responsibility permanently. If you define 'virasat' as used by you, I would be greatful.

lacking does not mean that she is missing some thing while cooking food its just shows the plesantary and well behaviour of the person they are all done but still they pardon for a minor mistake.may be that kind of nature that women have. and yes as i used the word "virasat" in my previous one, i will expain you that exacly what meaning virasat holds. virasat is somethin which one can get from their ancestors and older ones. like for examples, may be their is some thing you have got from your older ones like property, quality, good habbits, it can be anything presious one.

Thanks for your definition of virasat, in fact that word was not found in my ancient dictionary perhaps the virasated dictionary has lost its usefulness to the modern man. An everyday affair was never a pleasanty. Talk like man to man; if the pleasantry is a form of apology, I can accept it for the first time but a continuous recurrence is out of the word. Trying to make a black look white would not solve the problem, just open your mind and spill it. We would all understand.

I beg to disagree with you somehow; it is not a management drift. Please do not bring in the issue of taking care of children. What a lady cannot do while single, she won't do even when married. A chef husband would cherish the wife's food if she is better but the wife may prefer to eat the husbands food if she has fallen short of the cooking expectation.

Exactly what I am trying to elaborate here; could cooking be gender specific! Many myLotters reponding on this wall are of the opinion, thus far, that men are better. So the questio is valid when considering all the facts and figures from whereever food is prepared.

Your husband refused to balance the checkbook because he has a wife who can do the balancing better. This released him to concentrate on bringing in the money 'cos his dear wife has an eagle eye for details. If he starts looking at the balancing by himself, it shows the wife, eventhough she works as a bookeeper, doesn't have the capacity to balance his checkbook. Therefore, if you cook better, he will not come to the kitchen to cook for himself and probably the family.

Cuisine is simply the french word for cooking. Perhaps you are both misogynists, I have met a few of them in my life, my father's friends, one of my brothers. Have you ever actually cooked anything? Or do you just assume that because you are male if you deigned to try cooking you would just naturally be better than a woman because you think men are better at everything just because they are men. If you do think like that then you really do have problems.

webearn99 is a STAR. I am trying to be silent but the ladies are pushing me so hard to spill the beans. I am not very good at pretense. All the men on this wall should read this. How and where did you get that from? You have summed up the discussion but let's keep open arms to hear what others would say. Please keep scribbling.

Dear, dear sharra1, thank you for defining the word "Cuisine" as it means in French. Merci Madame. I had taken the word in its English context and usage. And then there is something called "artistic liberty". This link will be perhaps useful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine That piece was a little bit tongue-in-cheek, just not enough for me to be called a freak. I thought people would be bowled over, because I was simply trying to be clever. I cook for myself everyday, as I am a construction engineer and live away from my family for months. Qualifies me to know something about cooking doesn't it?

Cooking, whether home or away, should be perfected by the ladies but they have lost touch with it. The men have become so proficient in the art to a point they become professional cheffs almost everywhere. What choice do I have? I had no choice because we lived together and she cooked for us all. If I were to start cooking for myself or refused her food, pandemonium would have brokem loss. What reasons could I have given for not eating? And you know human beings, they may not even ask me but draw their own conclusions. Don't tell me that relocation would have been the best option.

Duly noted ,if so , I think the best way is your may can exchange your opinion with other roommate or you also can talk with this lady face to face in private to find out the what the exactly problem are now !!

Do you know what it means to refuse a woman's food when offered in goodwill?

Do you expect your 'father-in...' to be cooking for you except he is hosting a special function? Meanwhile you have concluded that you cook the best in your house. Has your 'mother-in...' ever tasted and drawn that conclusion? Tease the men in the house and let them cook for you and you will see what they can perform.

Don't start with me Polaroidsredwine. Have you ever eaten the same dish, one prepared by a man and another one by a lady? I know you like good things and the best restaurant you frequented are men-cheffed. So where then does the even partitioning emerge from? What takes you to restaurants where men cook if not that they cook better than the ones managed by....ehm...ehm... There are ways to tell who cooks better; 1. set up a competition (which I would like myLot to organise an internet version later) in which the same dish is to be prepared and every contestant (male / female) is given the same quantity / quality of ingredients, 2. visit restaurants and demand for the same dish after ascertaining the gender of the chef (but I won't foot the bill), 3. .... Let's keep reeling; think again and inform us who really cooks better.

Bravo, queen of rhetorics, the one and only Polaroidsredwine. Your proficiency in gramatical calistenics has no good second. 'Two equally qualified chefs, one male and one female..... end up with something different....'. The reason is very simple; one cooks better than the other and expectedly the male would come out with a unanimous superior decision from any panel of judges made up of men and women. this is what I have seen world over. Whether at home or in a restaurant setting, the result has not been different, so what are you saying? Under or without stress, family or none, it seems to be the same result. By the way, can you cook anything palatable?

Because, you know, I totally have the time and money to set up this nice experiment, but feel free to go and do it yourself. Cooking is an art form, albeit an edible one, but no less of one than a person who snags a paintbrush and maps out a gorgeous piece on canvas. In that way, it is also a subjective art - a dish one person likes may not be what another considers good (go figure, tastes vary from person to person and from one culture to the next), and how one chef prepares a dish can be done entirely different than what another chef does to prepare the same dish. Two equally qualified chefs, one male and one female, given the same ingredients and supplies to make a dish, could end up with something different because of the variations of what could be done in the creation of the dish. There are indeed many male chefs, and there can be a myriad of reasons as to why they are. Being a chef as a profession is entirely different from cooking in a domestic setting, and it's a high-stress, long-hours, extremely busy environment. Women today aren't as highly pressured to settle down and start a family, but it's still something expected of them at some point. A professional chef tends to put in well over 80+ hours of work a week, and men, who don't necessarily have to settle down and start a family or be around as much to put in the role the mother plays, have more time to do so.

A'Lily, you are almost saving someone here. You must be great. You mean your ex-males couldn't save themselves due to their below zero cooking skills! Incredible. So cooking skills has become part of the love/partnership tests and can make a man to loose the love of his life! I think I would recommend to my friends to take up some cooking lessons. Equality and dish dependency doesn't count. If you are good, you would be able to adjust and perform despite the dish. Better cooking entails ability to out-perform competition even in areas you do not have the expertise. Have you ever tried cooking the dishes in which your husband is holding sway and has he ever furrowed into your territorial waters?

A'Lily, you almost bought me over with the passion and equality accented line of discussion. With the types of dishes you have mention, I am compelled to salivate while responding to you. From your earlier response, you wrote and I quote '... my husband is an excellent cook and he cooks better than...'. With this expression, we cannot but witness to the fact that the man is good. Perhaps his reluctance to perform better with the Asian dishes could be because he doesn't like much spices. Are you sure relationships would fair better with more equality? I can only accept and respect someone who has most of what I lack in quality. I am not interested in a relationship of equals.

Well in my opinion relationships would fare better with more equality, but as for their terrible cooking that wasn't the other reason they are ex's but a minor contributing factor. Now the reason I believe it depends on the dish is because there is a certain amount of passion anyone who loves to cook has. My husband and I cook different types of food. We both cook Italian style dishes, but other than that we cook very different dishes that the other doesn't have a taste for in terms of fixing or making the recipe. He cooks some Hispanic style dishes on some nights because he loves them and I've tried but I can never seem to get it right. The same goes for me and when I cook asian food dishes at home. He has tried and I will never let him try some recipes again because he doesn't have the taste for it to be able to make it the way I do. We both make pretty much our own recipes but even ones from other people it depends on the dish. He can't make whole turkeys to save his life and usually messes them up so they don't taste that good and I am a lot better at that but not things like salisbury steak meals. The seasonings are off. So that is why I say its equal with cooking depending on the dish.

Love portion, I suspect. Are you afraid she might read your comment and respond by refusing to cook for you? Be the man and say the truth. Have you ever cooked for her?

megamatt, men are never favoured in any cooking competition. The rules of any competition are usually spelt out. The panel of judges usually comprises of men and women, so who plays the favouritism game there? As you wrote, many ladies present daily 'burnt offerings' to their families. In some cases, thank God that we were taught to pray before eating, we have to pray extra hard for the grace to swallow the concoctions.

It means a lot. If a man cooks better, the woman is in trouble. The persons I am talking about are the women and the men and these also balances the gender so everyhting is at stake here.

I never said women can't cook; I am saying who cooks better. Everybody can cook a meal but not every meal that can be eaten with joy. Great talent; inborn or acquired, check out the men. Even the Masterchef you mentioned always showcased more men than women and the few women presented usualyy have loads of excuses after preparing menus with unrivaled confusion. Over 99.999% of the women I have seen prefer to eat outside. They enjoy 'to eat good food' just as you said but not cooking.

squallming, you seem to be dwelling more on the restaurant side of the cooking. Look at the home side also. An adage says 'the way into a man's heart is through his stomach'. Women have lost the way; the men have found the way into their own hearts and closed the entrance since they can virtually maintain that way. By the way, if I can cook for myself, etc what do I need the woman for!! Can you see what I am facing here!!

My mom cooked so good and my dad was equally good but dad never saw the kitchen when mom was around. I wouldn't know why but because my mom was a woman with excellent cooking skills quite unlike my sisters, I ......