Yesterday there was an interesting conversation in the <a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/2011/01/17/how-much-do-you-cook/#comment-3926" target="_blank">comments section on my blog</a> about boys and girls cooking. Thanks @Bobby, @Apcho and @Gingi for your insight!!

I wonder if the girls cooking vs boys cooking has to with traditional gender roles in Bulgaria.

In the States for example, mothers cook the majority of meals in a house. A task that is tedious, monotonous and seemingly without end. It's then perceived as work rather than something pleasurable.  Ideally the final product is relatively quick, healthy and tasty. Cooking at its worst is then drudgery. A duty. And at it's best nurturing your family.

Girls I think, often learn these lessons (and more) about food subconsciously.

While for boys the lessons are different. My dAd for example, cooked for my MoM maybe three times a year--her birthday, their anniversary and for Mother's Day and he obligingly grilled hamburgers.  He's tell us: we're doing this for your MoM. We're doing this to says thanks. We're doing this to give her a break. Then she'd clean up. I knew from an early age that my dAd used more pots and pans than my MoM thought necessary in his fores into the kitchen.

The pleasure of the two experiences is different for men and women. As are the expectations of the experience.

In someways, I think that young women who don't cook do so because they are uninterested. And they are uninterested in this given a life time of good reasons. Young men though, as pointed out in the conversation, have more to gain through cooking.  More to prove.

(Just FYI: now that the kids are out of the house, I think that my dAd  cooks almost as much as my MoM does. I am not sure what changed but it's  true. I was amazed the first time I saw this first hand. He also cooks  with tons of veggies!!)

In Bulgaria, among young people who do you think has primary responsibility for cooking? Or is it shar