leichter@yale-com.UUCP (Jerry Leichter) (06/02/83)
I've always wondered to what extent the "only women cook" theory was an Ameri- can invention anyway. Both my parents are of European background (Czech, to be exact) and they have never made a big thing of it; my mother cooks most of the time as a practical matter (since she has no outside job and my father does) but my father has helped in the kitchen and cooked once in a while - no special occasions; e.g. we almost never barbequed - as long as I can remember. Not that long ago, European society was much more stratified. While "the kitchen" was the women's resposibility, the actual cooking in any family of middle-class or above was done by a cook, who was, I believe, as likely to be male as female (certainly the most prestigious cooks were male). Since the "lower classes" looked to this as the model, cooking was probably seen as "lower class" rather than male or female per se. -- Jerry decvax!yale-comix!leichter leichter@yale