Women master cookery at the age of 55: survey
Women only become perfect cooks when they hit the age of 55, according to a new survey.
Attempts in the comments please.
I know there’s a joke in here somewhere
November 1st, 2012 · 15 Comments
Tags: Feminism
15 responses so far ↓
1 Alan Douglas // Nov 1, 2012 at 8:56 am
Displacement activity – very small chance of having a bun in the oven ?
Alan Douglas
2 So Much For Subtlety // Nov 1, 2012 at 9:04 am
No I can’t work one out either.
But I am more concerned about the idiocy of the argument. A 55 year old woman was born around 1960 – ie the last generation that was routinely taught to cook. Age may have nothing to do with it. Generation might.
Even if it doesn’t they are not following women over the course of their lives. They are not even independently testing their food. They are asking them their opinion. May be the menapause makes the women all delusional. They don’t know. It is just bad social science.
3 JamesV // Nov 1, 2012 at 9:08 am
The 1960 generation was not taught to cook, it was taught to heat food through.
4 So Much For Subtlety // Nov 1, 2012 at 9:17 am
Alan Douglas – “Displacement activity”
You could be on to something. I had my dog neutered. He got fat.
3JamesV – “The 1960 generation was not taught to cook, it was taught to heat food through.”
Yeah. I went out with one of those. But I stand by my statement. It was the children of the 60s who rejected that and made sure their children did not cook. It was the slightly older ones who rejected it for themselves. But those about 55 now? They would have had lessons – and better still, Mothers who cooked.
5 Pogo // Nov 1, 2012 at 9:56 am
@So Much For Subtlety: .. bad social science.
An oxymoron if ever I saw one.
6 Michael Jennings // Nov 1, 2012 at 9:57 am
My mother (born in 1939) was not an especially good cook when I was a small child, but as I got older she became a wonderfully good cook. I think it was about practice, and also about the fact that she was open to the influence of many different foreign cuisines which came along in that period.
Oddly enough, my brother and I are both good cooks but my sister would have trouble boiling an egg. I am not quite sure how that happened.
7 theophrastus // Nov 1, 2012 at 10:25 am
I’ve never been able to understand why women need to drive, as there’s no road between the kitchen and the bedroom.
8 Edward Lud // Nov 1, 2012 at 10:35 am
theophrastus, why aren’t your womenfolk bedding down in the stables?
9 bloke in spain // Nov 1, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Presumably they go on to perfect parking….
It did remind me of some sage advice I received as a callow youth from the old stager in the office.
“Bedroom athletics are all very well, lad” he said, “But eventually, like all men, you’ll come to realise what you really look for from a woman is a decent meat pudding.”
I took his advice very seriously & learned to cook.
10 Ltw // Nov 1, 2012 at 2:19 pm
The joke you’re looking for Tim is “cooking lasts, kissing doesn’t”.
Or in light of this evidence, not just lasts but improves!
11 Matthew L // Nov 1, 2012 at 5:37 pm
Pogo @5: An oxymoron if ever I saw one.
That would be a tautology. “Good social science” is an oxymoron, or even just “social science”.
12 john77 // Nov 1, 2012 at 9:09 pm
It is, as always, ridiculous to categorise all people as being the same. My sisters, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother would find being equated with Nigella Lawson nearly as (in some cases more) offensive than I should at being equated with her fat father.
A couple of weeks ago I made our Christmas puddings using my great-grandmother’s recipe forwarded to me by my big sister (who must own the copyright) : the footnote says “this recipe is from some date before 1884″ i.e when she was in her twenties. I was a better cook in my thirties than when I was at 55 (as I’m not a woman this doesn’t actually disprove the headline but my mother was no better at 55 than 40..)
I suspect that the “perfect at 55″ theme is the response of grandchildren who only get granny’s cooking on special occasions.
13 So Much for Subtlety // Nov 1, 2012 at 9:47 pm
Ltw – “The joke you’re looking for Tim is “cooking lasts, kissing doesn’t”.”
That’s a joke? Surely that just sage advice. Unlike “steal the cheese”. I never got that. Surely you have time to steal the cheese afterwards.
The results are self-reported. That alone means they are worthless. It may just mean husbands have forgotten what their mothers’ cooking tasted like. Or they have resigned themselves to it. All of which could produce a false sense of confidence.
14 john77 // Nov 1, 2012 at 10:11 pm
@ SMFS
Not worthless: just that you cannot assume they are representative on a 1:1 basis.
Anecdata *is* data even though it is not the decennial census.
15 Offshore Observer // Nov 2, 2012 at 9:56 am
Has anyone read “the talent myth”? Basically it argues there is no such thing as talent only practise. It take 5000 hours of practice to become proficient at something and 10,000 hours to master a technique. So assuming a 55 year old woman started cooking regularly at the age of 20 and cooks for 1 hour 5 days per week (which is a pretty low time but hey its plucking a number out of the air), by the age of 55 they wil have done about 9000 hours of cooking, right on the target for mastery of the technique.
Of course you can master it much more quickly by doing it full time, so 40 hours per week gets you to 10,000 hours in about 5 years, which is about the time it takes an apprentice t complete his or her training.
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