Men Cooking

One of my guilty pleasures is watching Iron Chef and Iron Chef America. I love the concept of the show, it kind of reminds me of a popular anime series. Anyway, there are three Iron Chefs, each having their cooking specialties. Every episode a challenger will compete with one of the three to see whose cuisine will reign supreme! Sorry, I just had to say that. One of the Iron Chefs in the American version of the show is Bobby Flay. He is seen regularly on four Food Network Television programs; he hosts three of them. Recently, Bobby Flay became a super chef, which means that he has become one of the industries most well-know chefs and has built and "empire" that transcends cooking and media.

Flay started working in a New York restaurant at the age of 17. The owner, Joe Allen, was impressed by his cooking skills that he sponsored Flay's tuition to the French Culinary Institute. He earned the first ever Outstanding Graduate Award in the institute on 1993. Even though his education came from a French institute, he doesn't use French cooking techniques. Instead, he developed his own southwester American style.

Even though Flay is now an Iron Chef, he had a controversial history with the original show in Japan. He appeared in one episode against Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. After the battle ended, Flay stood on top of his cutting board and made a "raise the roof" gesture in front of the audience. This angered chef Morimoto because cooking instruments are considered sacred in Japan. Morimoto drew first blood, but Flay challenged him for the second time. This time, Flay defeated Morimoto and at the end of their battle, he flung the cutting board across the room and stood on the counter to perform the same gesture he did previously.

I was flipping through the channels during a lazy Sunday afternoon and I happen to stumble upon the lifestyle channel. There was this guy named Wolfgang Puck traveling over the globe to taste the cuisines and dishes from every country. I knew his name was familiar and I though he was some classical composer but I was wrong. Wolfgang Puck is one of the most successful chefs in the world today. Aside from whipping up mouthwatering meals, he is also a businessman with a restaurant franchise.

Wolfgang Puck was born and raised in Austria. He was the son of Maria Topfschnig, a professional cook, and a butcher who left Maria before Wolfgang was born. Maria was later married to Josef Puck who treated the boy as his own. It seems that the occupations of his biological parents foreshadowed Wolfgang’s future profession. He was exposed to the kitchen in his youth – he was beside his mother baking pastries.

Unlike most chefs who went to culinary school, Wolfgang received his training as an apprentice of Raymound Toulier. Under Toulier’s tutelage, he learned several techniques of the French cuisine which he incorporated in his cooking to establish the California cuisine. His motto in life is "Live, love, eat!"

It is a stereotypical belief that women belong in the kitchen, yet most famous chefs are men. Well, the simpler answer would be because most chefs are men.

Even so, women should excel in this field since, traditonally, they were the one to cook for the family. According to an interview with British celebrity chef Anthony Worral Thompson, most women are put off by the kitchen environment. The kitchen can be full of machismo, almost like a military camp, which can be a discouraging and difficult environment for a woman to work in. Everything must be precise and if something should go wrong, you get yelled at. If you can't take heat, get out of the kitchen.

Role reversals are always a big attraction for women. For instance, men who cook or at least exert some effort are appealing to women because aside from the fact that they invested time and energy into the activity, cooking is usually a domestic experience attributed to women.

Men who cook breaks the stereotype that only women or gays know how to whip a dish, and this makes men look...well, more human. So, whether you prepare a dinner meal for your girlfriend or you just make some pasta for yourself, learning the art of cooking could win you the approval of others.