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All of my male friends (and myself as I am male) all cook, and some of us even enjoy it. That said I still eat alot of take out because I work 10-12 hours a day and tend to just pick something up on the way home instead of spending 30-60 mins in the kitchen when i get home. My lack of cooking however does not in anyway equate to my inability to cook.

Maybe it's a cultural thing? I know there are places where men refuse to cook, but most men I know enjoy cooking.

That being said I've noticed men usually pick a few dishes and become really good at cooking them, whereas women will generalise.

Anecdata. My experience is opposite.

Yeah it's all anecdata, that's the point. We want actual data because our experiences differ.

Wasn't the comment he was replying to anecdata as well?

> I'm interested in how the data splits across demographics other than class. One anecdotal observation I've made is that men often do not even consider cooking or learning to cook, while women actively decide not to cook or not to learn.

Most of the people I know who can cook anything are men; and I think, like me (and like you, it seems), they just wanted to eat something and weren't satisfied with what they could get prepared, and within their budget (including travel). For example, I just decided to make 20L of kimchi one day. I've variously known guys who have built computerized meat smokers, spent considerable time perfecting hummus, bread rolls, that preparation of pork belly they put in the bánh mì...

I think this is a matter of culture, but I can't help but agree that the women and girls I know, for the most part, actively avoid cooking, or are so used to being treated to prepared meals that it's unnecessary.

Sadly I think this comment will just turn grey, and nobody will say anything about why. Gotta love HN.

I think it's really polarized for guys. Guys who are into cooking, like myself, are really into cooking. But the vast majority of guys don't even consider cooking.

> For example, I just decided to make 20L of kimchi one day.

Nice! I've been getting into fermentation. I made kimchi a few weeks ago and I'm thinking of doing another batch soon. Also have some sauerkraut that I just made.

This is probably also culture-dependent. Most of the guys I know (including myself) cook in order to be able to, you know, continue existing. I knew of only one exception, which lasted until his divorce.

Maybe it's all because we as a nation have been through some tough times. It's hard to get used to cooking elaborate meals when you're happy to have anything edible on the table.

In South Korea, when you order from certain places for certain types of food, they come in actual containers/tupperwares that you just leave outside your door and someone from the restaurant will come pick it up at some point.

I don't see it working in the U.S. though, since people would probably be stealing them and other horrific stuff. Just a very different culture...

Green Tiffin is US a meal delivery service that uses reusable containers that you rinse out and then return at the next delivery.

It seems to work just fine, nothing "horrific" about it.

The key word here is "return" because the Korean model is not to return the dishes, its to leave them to be collected.

The horrific part, is an imputed risk the dishes in america become stolen, used as weapons, frisbees..

> The horrific part, is an imputed risk the dishes in america become stolen, used as weapons, frisbees..

I think the primary schools in east asia, excluding China for obvious reasons, are the birthplace [0] of a form of civic cohesion that the U.S. and Canada (virtually the same culture, despite what people say) lack. We have the rule of law and consequences, and that's a good start, but there's a missing piece.

[0] in addition to the home, I guess, but good luck improving that first.

We have laws to punish bad behavior after it happens, while they have a culture that reinforces good behavior from the start.

Nowadays, it seems like trying to enforce good/proper behavior in the U.S. would be taken as an affront to personal freedom or "forcing one's culture onto others", so perhaps we need a different way to incentivize good behavior in this multicultural society where it's almost a sin to want and expect others to do something for the good of anyone but themselves.

Make a new culture.

How do we convince other cultures to adapt to the new culture though? Any such efforts would be drowned out by cries of racism and cultural erasure or whatever they're calling it nowadays.

Live better lives for yourselves, conspicuously.

If they're stolen, they'll at least be reused, right?

Why reuse them when whoever you stole them from will have fresh ones tomorrow?

It is reduce, reuse, recycle in that order for a reason. If it is stolen the restaurant will need to buy another set. And reusing is worse than reducing.

I'd agree the risk of dishes being used as frisbees, though low, is likely higher in NA than in Asia.

To add to the anecdata, in my group of friends, most of the people who cook are male, whether for pleasure or for sustenance.

Through my entire dating life, I have found it rare for a woman to know how to cook, let along enjoy it, like I do. It’s been a big sticking point for me.

Same here. Aside from my own parents, among my group of friends it's usually the man doing the cooking. I cook, and my wife does the dishes. No complaints from me.

Same.

Likely because women were shackled to the kitchen before they burnt their bras. Feminism..at its advent..created this narrative that working outside is great and household work is holding them back from progressing towards gender equality.

However this didn’t translate as much to having children. Despite feminism and higher education and financial independence, women continue to have children at the same rate or higher than before. If anything, impoverished women choose to have lesser children due to the financial burden they’d create for them.

This is confounding to me. Maybe it’s the influence of religion or the biological imperative is stronger because mundane and menial tasks like cooking and even child rearing can be outsourced to cooks, day care and schools.

On a different note, cooking is a communal activity. In societies where work isn’t all consuming, communal bonding occurs through cooking. And so it’s a prized skill to learn. Cooking as a service is brilliant for any economy that places work culture over communal culture. So it will succeed here in the US.

> women continue to have children at the same rate or higher than before

This is false. Birth rates are way down.

Not low enough. Population grows exponentially. With death rate declining, birth rate must slow down significantly as population pressure increases.

Cleaning after yourself is part of the activity. If you don't clean the kitchen, you're not cooking in any meaningful sense. I'm sure you don't leave a mess behind when coding.

I suppose it is always afternoon somewhere, but it seems pretty early to me to be drinking.