Men and Cooking: Cultural Assumptions and Everyday Life
摘要
This chapter presents the female perspective on male cooking, which not only is a stroke in the picture of the modern Georgian masculinity but also adds the missing elements to the general picture of female subjectivity. The chapter presents narratives negotiating the male presence in the kitchen as well as those justifying men’s absence there. The women in the conversations with me provide a whole array of reasons justifying men’s absence in everyday cooking and draw the framework within which men’s presence in the kitchen appears possible. As regards the latter, the distinction between ‘male’ and ‘female’ products, access to which is determined by gender, plays a key role. One exception where men unconditionally participate in the cooking sphere is their engagement in baking bread for sale in urban space, which supports the widespread narrative voiced by other researchers that men’s engagement in cooking is only admissible in the context of their participation in the public sphere. The conclusion that can be drawn from the materials reveals the existence of multipolar discourses concerning male cooking, which, however, leads to the opinion widely shared among women that the kitchen is the ‘female sphere’ where the man can only take the position of a guest.