With the exemption of Christ who fasted for forty days and forty nights, what man and what woman can do without food? The answer to that is as plain as a pikestaff. No man, no woman, no earthenware vessel under the sun can do without food.

It's an established fact that feeding is a basic necessity for human survival; why then would one shortchange him-herself by not learning this simple yet vital life skill which is almost as essential as the very air we breathe?—the skill of cooking that is.

Why do men believe the process of nourishing themselves is effeminate and a task so inferior that it must be exclusively reserved for the office of womanhood? Isn't that a rather obtuse way of looking at it?

Why are husbands who lend helping hands to their wives in the kitchen said to be henpecked and of the sissy variety? Is the raiment of masculinity to be shorn of tenderness and the capacity for love and care?

Why are our sons dissuaded from being with their mothers in the kitchen where they might pick up these crucial culinary skills? Why do we believe it's mandatory that our daughters be immersed in the art of cookery, but that it isn't necessary for our sons to be?
Are we implicitly stating that our daughters are worthy of knowing how to go about in feeding themselves, but that our sons aren't?

Don't we think it's unwise if one is incapable of slaking his-her hunger unless he-she is to rely on the efforts of others? Isn't that akin to having to urinate with another person's gënitals?

Why is it customary that all women should know how to cook but not all men? Is it that they cook better? – surely that cannot be true -- after all, many of the top chefs in the world are males.

Can we say women have a heightened sense of taste and smell which enables them to cook better than men? Is it that they were born with cooking genes which makes them immanently adept at knowing just how much salt, and how much curry, and how much grinded pepper would suffice in making that pot of stew capable of exciting even the most apathetic taste buds? Surely that is not the case as well.

[...]

The purpose of this piece is to upend the notion that bad cooks make bad wives, and to encourage men to put on those dazzling aprons and learn how to cook—even if it's only the staple delicacies of the climes in which they are domiciled.

We – men – would realise just how numerous the benefits of knowing how to cook are when we give it some thought.

Think of it, if you happen to have just had a huge quarrel with your wife and you know how to cook, you wouldn't have to wait until she comes around before you regale yourself with a nice meal.
Knowing how to cook would also reduce the workload for your wife and anneal the emotional connection betwixt the twain of you, and believe me you when I say your wife would greatly appreciate your contributions and adore you the more.

For the bachelors inept in cooking, do you mean to say that you would live solely on junk food and continue to patronise eateries and ‘Mama Put’ until you decide to take the plunge? Not only is this unhealthy, it's also a major economic misfiring.

This – cooking – is also a skill that could generate lots of income if mastered to an expert degree. There's never a time or season when Caterers and Cooks never flourish – especially in a party-loving, owambe-ridden country such as ours where each week is characterised by the efflux of wedding parties, birthday parties, naming ceremonies, school parties, office parties, etcetera. Why deprive yourself of something which promises such prolific dividends?

[...]

I'm sure some people must have asked us this about our bride-to-be: ‘Can she cook?’. We must have also heard statements like: ‘A woman had better know how to cook, otherwise she would lose her husband to other women’.

Are men now such ‘self-controless’ and debauched beasts that mere food would drive them to infidelity?

[...]

Being the curious philosopher and true-blue adherent of Cartesian skepticism that I am, one of my life's purposes has always been to scrutinize social mores and practices of dubious provenance which we've embraced without questioning, and also in unearthing the reeking worms of falsehood that have bored their slimy selves into the tapestry of our lives—lives which our arbitrary, man-made cultural precepts and conventions have made even more difficult than they are supposed to be. It is for this reason, doubled up with an innate cynicism, that I decided to reevaluate society's stance on the topic of cooking—the pulse-beat of domesticity.

And it was during one of my brooding sessions that I segued into an oasis of inward calmness and clarity of mind which led me to the pearly gates of this interestingly revealing epiphany:

“Before the early men accidentally dropped meat into fire and figured it smelt and tasted better than the raw meat which they ate hitherto -- before that inadventent discovery, the burden of cooking never rested on the shoulders of women. Women were never relied upon for feeding.”

It was in that Eureka moment I realized that women aren't naturally disposed to cooking, they were only socially-engineered to see it as a task requisite to being a valid member of the female gender. In other words, society conditioned women to see the art of cooking as one of the cardinal gender roles which they must embrace.

Now that we know women are not born with cooking genes, men should never use a woman's cooking skills as a yardstick when wife-hunting. Cooking skills should never be used as parameters in judging a woman's personality or character. A man that cannot cook is just as guilty as a woman that cannot.

Now that we know women have no cooking genes, parents should ensure that both their sons and daughters learn how to cook while they are still young and tender. Our sons should not be handled with a free-wheeling hand in this regard.

Now that we know women have no cooking genes, no husband should expect his wife who has returned home after a long day, and who has been treated to the numbing biffs of lassitude, to waddle her way into the kitchen and conjure up a meal in that rest-deprived state. Why couldn't he have fixed himself a plate? Because he didn't know how to cook? What's stopping him from learning?

Now that we know women have no cooking genes, a woman who knows how to cook but doesn't like cooking should not be subjected to derision and name-calling—feminist devil, liberal witch, left-winged Jezebel, Betrayer of the African tradition, etcetera. A woman who knows how to cook but doesn't enjoy it is no different from the man who knows how to cook but shirks from doing so because he derives no pleasure from it.

I cook fairly well too – thanks to my loving grandmother – but were it optional, I'd rather choose not to cook—the heat, the tardiness of the process, the steam, the almost-neurotic stirring and tasting of soup...All these are why I never like to cook except on special occasions. So you should understand why some women, though are excellent cooks, are not smitten in the least by the idea of cooking.

[...]


The ideal thing, especially in this fast-paced, digitalized age where the percentage of housewives dwindles by the minute, is for men to dispose of the notions inherited from our forbears, to let go of the vestiges of the remote and irrelevant past, and to make bold tectonic shifts toward a more progressive and bespoke mind-set—a mind-set specifically tailored for this era, a mind-set which sees clearly the inanity in what society has beguiled us into believing for centuries – the inanity in the belief that cooking is out-and-out a woman's job and that a man need not know how to cook.

[...]

Who says a woman cannot cook from Monday to Friday while her husband takes care of the cooking during the weekends? See? -- now that's what we call a cohesive and tandem partnership.


Happy cooking...

cc: RoyalRoy, Mynd44.

Following

Bad cook has always been highlighted as a strong case in divorce cases in a court of law

making a good meal isn't a rocket science

– but were it optional, I'd rather choose not to cook—the heat, the tardiness of the process, the steam, the almost-neurotic stirring and tasting of soup...All these are why I never like to cook except on special occasions. So you should understand why some women, though are excellent cooks, are not smitten in the least by the idea of cooking.

I swear! I cook well and even go a step further to present well when I serve but would rather have someone else do the cooking. I don't like staying so long in the kitchen, would rather cook for the year and stock the freezer abeg or not even bother at all!Thank God, I'm not so fussy about food although I'm a foodie


To the topic, I agree. However, we are in Africa, a man would be doing himself a grave harm if he marries a bad cook. This is because he most likely isn't a good cook himself, it is expensive to eat out all the time and it is totally unafrican to hire a cook. Your example where the best chefs in the world are men can be easily traced to the western worlds where most families actually eat out. The few ones that cook are either very poor or above average comfortable.

It wouldn't be a bad idea where the man and woman both share the cooking. In fact, it will be really nice but we both know that's a dream with a generic 0.000001% probability of occurrence. In Nigeria, for a long long time more to come, mommy's personal space will include the kitchen!

So, being a bad cook is terrible but surely shouldn't be a criteria in deciding on a spouse. It is a skill easily learnt.

bros! after all your story and epistle, a woman must still be able to cook, no excuse whatsoever can justify otherwise. i personally wnt marry a lady who is a bad cook.
a man should know how to cook too so that u wnt have to be at the mercy of another person at all times.

shegxi:
bros! after all your story and epistle, a woman must still be able to cook, no excuse whatsoever can justify otherwise. i personally wnt marry a lady who is a bad cook.
a man should know how to cook too so that u wnt have to be at the mercy of another person at all times.

No excuse can justify a man that doesn't know how to cook either. Both men and women should know how to cook.

sisisioge:

I swear! I cook well and even go a step further to present well when I serve but would rather have someone else do the cooking. I don't like staying so long in the kitchen, would rather cook for the year and stock the freezer abeg or not even bother at all! Thank God, I'm not so fussy about food although I'm a foodie

Good to know that I have a partner in crime.

Yet society would berate you for being a woman that doesn't like to cook. The problem is we focus too much on what roles we think suits a particular gender rather than on individual ability and personal interest(s). It's just like expecting that every man should grow up loving and being able to play football simply because football is a manly sport. What if the man prefers basketball or badminton?

To the topic, I agree. However, we are in Africa, a man would be doing himself a grave harm if he marries a bad cook. This is because he most likely isn't a good cook himself, it is expensive to eat out all the time and it is totally unafrican to hire a cook. Your example where the best chefs in the world are men can be easily traced to the western worlds where most families actually eat out. The few ones that cook are either very poor or above average comfortable.

It's not African to hire a cook? Who made that law?

We always say we are in Africa, or we are Africans -- are Africans born with two heads or six fingers? I think Africans feel too important and are a bit self-absorbed. African men need to wake up to the coffee smell on the wall, the world is fast-changing and some of our cultural beliefs have grown obsolete with time—e.g that cooking is not a man's job.

Culture did not just magically appear out of thin air, people created culture, and if people can create culture then they should just be able to refuse it as well especially when it doesn't jive with ordinary common sense.

It wouldn't be a bad idea where the man and woman both share the cooking. In fact, it will be really nice but we both know that's a dream with a generic 0.000001% probability of occurrence. In Nigeria, for a long long time more to come, mommy's personal space will include the kitchen!
So, being a bad cook is terrible but surely shouldn't be a criteria in deciding on a spouse. It is a skill easily learnt.

You are right that it's an almost unrealisable dream, but you should also remember that it took millenniums of social conditioning to put in place what we have today. We shouldn't expect that all of that would dissipate within the span of a few heart beats.

We should rather seek to recalibrate the general mind-set little by little, putting it at the back of our minds that a journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step. We can begin to effect this change by raising our sons and daughters differently. It's what we pass down to them that would obtain during their time.

Story.

I won't marry a bad cook and I'm a bad cook.

Bite me

Nice thread Darkrebel.

You are doing the lords work.

I feel men in Nigeria and Africa as a whole are inhibited by their mindsets and culture as against being practical!

There have been many occasions where I could be caught up in traffic till late and hubby has returned home early but he won't start dinner or even feed himself because "his wife should do the cooking"

Where of course it's more practical for the men to cook they still won't! Funny thing is African men who live in the diaspora embrace this your school of thought far better than those residing in Africa!!!!

fellis:
Nice thread Darkrebel.

You are doing the lords work.

Thank you, sir/ma'am.

babythug:
I feel men in Nigeria and Africa as a whole are inhibited by their mindsets and culture as against being practical!

My point exactly, it's almost like reliving the days of slavery all over again—we (Africans) are the slaves while our cultural practices are the slave masters.

This was what vexed Christ into saying: "The Sabbath (Culture) was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; which is why the Son Of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” — Mark 2:27.

What we need to do first and foremost is to emancipate ourselves from our heinous and constricting cultural practices. If a culture isn't practical or has lost its symbolic import then it should be consigned to the waste basket of archival history.

I think we are just afraid of what would come if we were to upset the status quo -- that or we are rather complacent and satisfied with what our ancestors passed down to us.

There have been many occasions where I could be caught up in traffic till late and hubby has returned home early but he won't start dinner or even feed himself because "his wife should do the cooking"

It's partially not his fault, how he was raised must have coloured his perception as well.

It's hard for an adult to abide by what wasn't inculcated in him-her as a child

Where of course it's more practical for the men to cook they still won't! Funny thing is African men who live in the diaspora embrace this your school of thought far better than those residing in Africa!!!!

True.

brilliant write-up darkrebel101.

...@op,even though i as a woman can cook cos i love good food and believe it helps in home dynamics..i kind of agree with you...but most Nigerian/African men would disagree with you,they only cook when they are being paid to do so(professional chefs)..but cook their own food at home..,problem

..I know some really wonderful wives who are not much of a great cook...its either too salty,too watery,too oily,too bland e.t.c..They just cant seem to get the right mix at the right time..but their personalities are amazing and they actually make spirited efforts to improve.


...Besides most divorce cases we read from 'Igando Magistrate Court' e.t.c hardly have poor cooking ability as reasons for divorce so...*shrugs*..

I love cooking, so it hasn't been much of an issue around me.

On the topic, let's blame the bulk cases on upbringing.
Growing up, there was no male/female chores. My brother cooks and clean, I handled 'male' chores too.
For a man who was brought up thinking men don't have any business in the kitchen, it would be difficult for him to change in adulthood.

Come to think of it, why should a human that can eat not know how to cook? If you can't cook you have no right to judge another who can't na, you both should contribute and get a cook .

By the way, I have no business with a man who can't cook and clean. Me sef get taste and choice.

Culturally, men are believed to be providers and women care-givers. It's only pertinent or ideal that a care-giver should possess cooking skills.

shegxi:
bros! after all your story and epistle, a woman must still be able to cook, no excuse whatsoever can justify otherwise. i personally wnt marry a lady who is a bad cook.
a man should know how to cook too so that u wnt have to be at the mercy of another person at all times.

Is that an intended pun on that "mercy"...cause its surely wasn't missed.heard mercy johnson just opened a live kitchen on tv Ha!

This is just the truth, nice one darkrebel

Lalasticlala food don land

troy20:

Is that an intended pun on that "mercy"...cause its surely wasn't missed.heard mercy johnson just opened a live kitchen on tv Ha!

u are sure brilliant!!!

skarlett:
This is just the truth, nice one darkrebel

Lalasticlala food don land

Thanks.

Hmm...

So I invited my friends over to my house to come chill with me and my darling wife promises us a good and tasty dinner.
The D-day came and one can see the thin line separating the water from the waters, the okazi was bitter so it hid its taste; even the kpomos were ashamed...plenty tasteless meat but no reputation.

Op, cooking is the easiest thing to learn if our ladies will put down their heads to learn and stop searching for a guy who can cook to staff their weaknesses- one of their core purposes.

My first afang soup was bad, very tasty...i learnt it once and killed it.

Does that make a 'bad' wife?
No...before guys.
Yes...before your mum & other sanctified mother-in-laws.

So...

Iro nla

One of the attributes of a bad wife is bad cooking skills

true

I prefer Bad cook bt good in bed.. Bt good cook with a good heart nd good in bed is a blessing 4rm God himself.

saasala:
One of the attributes of a bad wife is bad cooking skills

True also

You mean all these long story just because u can't cook

If she can't cook then she is not a complete wife

My question is what has the mother been teaching her daughter if she can't cook. Your maid will snatch your husband with good food if you can't cook.

What else is the function of a wife...
A man provides for everything in the home, some even pay salary to their wife, some wives even find it difficult to wash their husband's clothes.Some husbands even settle for dry cleaners or buy washing machine for their wife(which would also be of benefit to her).
Most husbands leave for work on empty stomach and come back late to meet cold food which has been grudgingly served by the wife or in most cases... The maid
Marriage is a woman's Asset and a Man's Liability
After paying so much as bride price and bearing the cost of the wedding which she made more expensive... At least the least he can get is a good food at home.No wonder the divorce rate keeps going up and Many single and Eligible people don't want marriage commitment.
If Not for Religion, person like me for dey marry and discard any misfit of a wife Annually.

WHAT DO HUSBANDS EVEN GAIN FROM WIVES

everyone is free to voice their opinion. I have just said my opinion like the Op has said his. If you are pained by my comment, Remember there are over 1000 ways to die...CHOOSE ONE

Buy this lie and get one bad cook plus bad wife altogether