海外文化:男性下廚成新潮流

Men are spending more and more time in the kitchen encouraged by celebrity chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, according to a report from Oxford University.

The effect of the celebrity role models, who have given cookery a more macho image, has combined with a more general drive towards sexual equality, to mean men now spend more than twice the amount of time preparing meals than they did in 1961.

According to research by Prof Jonatahn Gershuny, who runs the Centre for Time Research at Oxford, men now spend more than half an hour a day cooking, up from just 12 minutes a day in 1961.

Prof Gershuny said: "The man in the kitchen is part of a much wider social trend. There has been 40 years of gender equality, but there is another 40 years probably to come."

Women, who a generation ago spent a fraction under two hours a day cooking, now spend just one hour and seven minutes – a dramatic fall, but they still spend far more time at the hob than men.

Some commentators have dubbed the emergence of men in aprons as "Gastrosexuals", who have been inspired to pick up a spatula by the success of Ramsay, Oliver as well as other male celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Marco Pierre White and Keith Floyd.

"I was married in 1974. When my father came to visit me a few weeks later I was wearing an apron when I opened the door. He laughed," said Prof Gershuny

"That would never happen now."

The report, commissioned by frozen food company Birds Eye, also makes clear that the family meal is limping on in far better health than some have suggested, thanks in part to a resurgence in cooking from scratch by some consumers.

Two-thirds of adults claim that they come together to share at least three times a week, even if it is not necessarily around a kitchen or dining room table.

Anne Murphy, general manager at Birds Eye, said: "The evening meal is still clearly central to family life and with some saying family time is on the increase and the appearance of a more frugal consumer, we think the return to traditionalism will continue as a trend.”

However, Prof Gershuny pointed out that the family meal was now rarely eaten by all of its members around a table – with many "family meals" in fact taken on the sofa in the sitting room, and shared by disparate members of the family.

"The family meal has changed very substantially, and few of us eat – as I did when I was a child – at least two meals a day together as a family. But it has survived in a different format."

牛津大學的一份報告顯示，受戈登•拉姆齊和傑米•奧利佛等名廚的激勵，如今男性下廚的時間越來越多。

模範名廚們爲烹飪增添了更多男子氣概，再加上性別平等問題變得更爲普遍，使得與1961年相比，如今男性下廚的時間增加了兩倍多。

牛津時代調查研究中心負責人喬納森•格爾舒尼教授開展的研究表明，如今男性每天下廚的時間爲半個多小時，而在1961年僅有12分鐘。

格爾舒尼教授說：“男性下廚是一個更爲廣泛的社會趨勢的一部分。性別平等已有40年的歷史，但可能還會有下個40年。”

上一代女性每天花在做飯上的時間不到兩小時，而如今僅爲一小時零七分鐘——雖然時間少了很多，但還是比男性下廚的時間長很多。

一些評論家將新涌現出的愛下廚房的男性稱爲“愛廚男”，這些男性受拉姆齊、奧利佛以及休•弗恩利-惠汀斯托爾、馬克•皮埃爾•懷特和基思•弗洛伊德等其他男性名廚成功的激勵，開始下廚操刀。

格爾舒尼教授說：“我1974年結婚。婚後幾周父親來看我，我去開門時正繫着圍裙，他見狀後大笑。”

“但現在再不會是這樣了。”

這項由速凍食品公司Birds Eye委託開展的調查還表明，家庭烹飪健康飲食的情況比一些人之前預想的要好很多，這一部分要歸因於一些消費者開始學習烹飪。

三分之二的受訪成年人表示，他們每週至少和家人聚餐三次，即便不一定是圍坐在廚房裏或者餐桌旁。

Birds Eye公司總經理安妮•墨菲說：“晚餐對於家庭生活仍然很重要。一些人稱家人在一起的時間有所增加，而且消費者如今更加節儉，我們認爲傳統主義的迴歸將成爲一種趨勢繼續下去。”

但格爾舒尼教授指出，現在一家人很少全部圍坐在桌邊一起用餐，其實很多時候大家會坐在客廳的沙發上用餐，家庭的各個成員則一起分享家宴。

“家庭聚餐發生了很大變化，現在我們很少有人能與家人每天聚在一起吃至少兩頓飯——就像我小的時候那樣。但它以另一種形式延續了下來。”