Masculine Food

I was listening to Q recently and they had a journalist on, a Canadian one, who wrote (either for The New York Times or Wall Street Journal) about the "Gender" of food. For example an item called Vanilla Cup Cake would be associated with "girlie" food. Men do not cook & eat Quiche; or what is more Macho than a pulled pork sandwich slathered with Hickory-flavoured BBQ sauce.

There was a long discussion on the nature of the present foodie culture exhibiting these gender stereo-types.

To be truthful, some of it has been so obvious for years: the adverts for salads on television predominately feature women or girl friends talking about a particular salads' merits. Men are always doing the barbequing.

Who can forget the Mr. Big candy bar adverts. Clearly targeted at young men. 18 inches of pleasure.
Therein lies the flaw in the argument - not the gender but age of the target audience.

I am convinced the adverts attribute age-maturity related factors to the food more than our gender. They play to the "Kid in us". That brings out the gender stereo-types I admit. Men 'play' at cooking, women have a more adult 'love-provider, carer' aspect to putting food on the table.
At the centre however, is how food relates to our own perception of being mature rather than a man or woman that is significant in my estimation.

Ashmolean Museum

Been watching Endeavour on Masterpiece Mystery again. The most recent episode was set in March 1967. It was strange seeing Morse & C.I. Thursday wandering around Oxford and sitting on a bench near the Radcliffe Camera. I was working in Oxford in the Summer and Winter of 1967. In September 67 I was sitting on that exact spot in which they were! It looked exactly like that back then. It all appears as if someone borrowed my body and did those things. It could not be the quiet Michael living in Halifax that experienced those surroundings. The Summer of Love;  The Summer of Sgt. Pepper.

Just down from my office, 2  blocks or so, was the Ashmolean Museum. Before arriving in Oxford I was unaware of its status as the first public Museum in western culture. It was neglected and almost ignored back then. I would sit on its steps and watch the world go by.

It is a very changed institution now.

The bottom picture is from the Sixties.