He said:
Delicacies are a funny thing. When you were a kid, it was a hamburger and some greasy fries that looked like the meal you get for saving the president's life. Things, of course, change with time. We all learned this, when we could no longer get children's tickets to movies or play in the ball pen at Chuck E. Cheese's without getting weird looks. Our appetites may have become a little more refined (Chipotle, anyone?), but the second your confused little eyes molested all the selections of food in D2, what you cooked for yourself made little difference.
If you look at it from the beginning, a college freshman's cooking habits pretty much fall underneath what can fit in a bowl and be put in the microwave or be wrapped in a paper towel and be put in the microwave. There are the staples: ramen, Hot Pockets and the edible mystery boxes that are hotdogs.
This food is more of a means of immediate sustenance when you have the mental capacity of a 4-year-old during the late night hours -- which is pretty much the only way to justify eating Hot Pockets. Cooking when you're a freshman really isn't that high up on the list of priorities, but the food just keeps coming.
Once the move off campus happens, the necessity of cooking becomes more the case. This is when the differences of the sexes really take form. Guys are sentimental creatures; we like to hold onto the past and celebrate it. That is why we generally cook foods that remind us of our childhood. Chicken nuggets, taquitos, pasta, pizza or mac and cheese -- what more could a boy want? Some jazzercise, perhaps?
A man's main cooking apparatus is the grill. It is probably the most appealing method of cooking there is to the male gender, unless there's a microwave out there that plays Gears of War and can recite all of "Fear and Loathing" verbatim. Guys love grilling because it combines all of their favorite things.
In a world without TRL, standing outside surrounded by your friends and an ungodly amount of lighter fluid, beer and dead cow meat makes everything seem a little more sensible. Not to mention that it tastes great with mustard.
Girls like cooking things that might have one or two steps more than throw on fire and wait till pink. In particular, girls always seem to always be especially more excited about baked goods than guys. Guys don't spontaneously pop off the couch and announce "I'm making cookies, should they have sprinkles?" It's not really in our DNA to make such statements. We may consume the cookies like we went to Belgium and imported the chocolate chips for that specific batch, but screw the exodus to Kroger. Girls, on the other hand, will race each other into diabetes with mountains of cookies, brownies, cakes and stuff that contains apples, yet is still completely unhealthy.
In theory, girls seem to like the process of cooking. They love the planning and preparation, the time it takes to add flavors and that personalized touch. They like to have side courses and things such as Waldorf salads that aren't really salads. The concept of side courses never really comes up when guys are cooking; why else did God make chips? It's more about the eating than it is the cooking.
So maybe guys could afford to expand their cooking repertoire past the different selections Oscar Mayer has, but all the familiar terrain has been conquered. Men crave a new breed of food, which is what takes place when the person with the mental capacity of a 4-year-old on late nights moves off campus. Suddenly, cream cheese, raisins, Doritos and a bagel looks like something the Food Network delivered. The insurmountable problem being that they forget the recipe come morning.
She said
I would love to see Emeril Lagasse and Martha Stewart duel in a free-for-all battle of the cooking-all-stars chef-off -- you know, kind of like watching Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman go one-on-one on the court. There'd be a Barbie doll perfectly stirring her home-made cake mix at 30 mph with a plastic smile, a lot of "bams!" and caterpillar eyebrows glaring at you and a couple of CIA agents lurking stoically about in the audience.
What would they do differently? Emeril's Creole fried chicken would deliciously contribute to the cholesterol build-up in your arteries, and Martha's five-tier wedding cake with the edible flowers and bride and groom figures would fool the eye into believing that it would be to-die-for if it weren't for the unjust substitution of Splenda.
It's really interesting to think that as gender roles have evolved over time, so has the possession of the kitchen changed hands. More guys now enjoy making their own meals. June Cleaver wouldn't have let her hubby even dare think of entering her feminine domain of cabinets and glory -- good thing that thought never crossed his mind, as she was expected to have his food ready for him as soon as his car door was heard shut outside in the driveway.
But now that we're all in our college years, self-sufficiency is a priority for both sexes alike. Mommy, unfortunately, won't drive five hours every day just to feed you.
But there's no need to worry about the girls.
For us, cooking is just another art at which to excel and reign superior. She must have skill, creativity, a keen intuition and a functional George Foreman grill -- you know, to remove all of that disgusting fat. Girls, as usual, are much more structured when it comes to preparing a meal: With a recipe card and an arsenal of spices, measuring cups, spatulas, cookie sheets, cooking mitts and a stuffed fridge, she's ready to whip out that recipe book and cook up a storm.
Well, I guess "bake up a storm" would be more appropriate. It must be that additional X chromosome that provide us with that inherent, almost compulsive desire to bake. In fact, that's all I can do without threatening the lives of those around me. I can't even make hot chocolate without having problems, but I can make and decorate cakes that would put your grandmother to shame. With orange and maroon sprinkles.
Watching a guy cook, on the other hand, it's almost like being thrown back into a high school chemistry class. He's surrounded by rowdy-hungover-come-on-man-let's-see-what-happens-when-you-throw-that-white-stuff-over-the-flame buddies and foolishly provided with a lit Bunsen burner (in college, that Bunsen turns into a macho grill, but the friends remain the same).
He finds preparing a meal is more of an experiment -- if I add a dash of this and a sprinkle of that, what will it taste like then? Probably like a dish that, if it were thrown in a lake, would give the fish a couple extra eyes and another tail.
It doesn't even matter if he doesn't have the exact ingredients necessary to properly cook said dish. No sauce for that spaghetti? No need to run to Food Lion -- there's ketchup in the fridge -- that'll work just fine.
In addition to that super-sized bottle of Heinz, guys always have an assortment of marinades and spices, a couple slabs of meat, but really nothing else substantial. If anything, this is a moment to envy and give credit to that innate male ingenuity. To devise some god-forsaken edible concoction out of worcestershire sauce, spam and ramen noodles cooked in the microwave is definitely a feat of engineering.
And I love it when these guys, just trying to be oh-so-sweet to their gal pals, serve it up to their ladies with a ridiculously proud grin on their faces -- as the girls fake a smile and muster up the courage to try it.
Take a gulp, darling, and don't worry about that extra five pounds of fat that'll be yours once you stomach the mystery. Just know that you'll have revenge once Christmas rolls around and your boyfriend devours a couple dozen of your chocolate chip cookies.