廚房——男人的領地

A Real Man's Place Is in the Kitchen

廚房—男人真正的歸屬地

When a previous generation of men saw women leaving the kitchen and entering the workforce, they watched with more than a bit of trepidation. They were losing something—or so they thought. But a new generation of men has seen the oven light.

當父輩們看到女人們離開廚房走上工作崗位時，他們感到很惶恐。他們失去了一些東西，或許是他們這樣認為的。但是新一代男人們看到烤爐就會兩眼放光。

Men of Generation X (my generation) are all but elbowing women out of the kitchen these days. We don't own the stove outright—yet—but we're well on our way. Consider a new report from the University of Michigan, which has been tracking 3,000 Gen Xers for 25 years as part of the Longitudinal Study of American Youth. It finds that, while young married women report cooking 51 meals a month, their husbands are catching up: They cook, on average, a whopping 34 monthly meals. That works out to roughly eight meals a week cooked by men, who are also doing nearly equal levels of grocery shopping—not to mention getting hooked on food TV, food magazines and food blogs.

我們這一代的男人們幾乎都在將女人們趕出廚房。我們不完全擁有火爐，但是我們自得其樂。在密歇根大學進行的一項針對美國年輕人的縱向調(diào)查報告中，研究者對某代的3000對夫婦進行為期25年的追蹤，發(fā)現(xiàn)年輕的妻子每月做飯51頓，而她們的丈夫們也迎頭趕上。丈夫們每月平均做飯34頓。這樣，男人們除每周做飯8頓之外，去雜貨店購物的次數(shù)也不比女人們少，這還不算男人們在研究美食頻道，美食雜志和美食微博上花的時間。

A man's place, it seems, is increasingly in the kitchen. And why not? We did actually lose something when we gave up our golden-but-stressful status as the family's sole breadwinner. But we're replacing it with our status as the family's only sourdough-walnut bread-maker.

這樣看起來，廚房似乎越來越成為男人們的歸屬地。為什么呢?當我們放棄作那個光鮮亮麗但壓力十足的養(yǎng)家人時，我們確確實實失去了一些東西。但是當我們變身為這個家的核桃面包師時，我們又會得到一些別的東西。

At least that's how I like to look at it. As journalists, my wife and I put in identical hours for nearly identical pay, and we're about equally beat when the evening rolls around. After the birth of our first child, we faced the nightly dilemma confronting millions of American two-income families: Somebody had to wrangle the baby and somebody else had to get dinner on the table.

至少，我是這樣認為的。我和我的妻子都是記者，我們工作同樣的時間得到幾乎同等的報酬，夜幕降臨時，我們一樣筋疲力盡。我們的第一個孩子出生后，我們和千千萬萬的美國雙職工家庭一樣面臨著夜不能寐的困境：有人要哄孩子，有人要做飯。

Given the choice between dinner and diapers, pans and pacifiers, this was a no-brainer. I chose dinner, and not because the men in my family had any history of cooking. My mother made every home-cooked meal my father ever ate. Ditto for my grandparents, on both sides. Back in their day, American popular culture wasn't exactly saturated with positive images of male chefs. John Wayne's dexterity with a Colt .45 hadn't yet been replaced by Bobby Flay's with a mesquite grill, or Thomas Keller's with a Viking Range.

如果要選擇做飯和洗碗，換尿布和哄孩子，我選擇做飯這件無需用腦的事。然而，這并不是因為我家的男人們有任何烹飪歷史。在我家，我媽媽做飯，我爸爸吃飯。在我祖父母家也一樣。在他們那個時代，美國還不流行男性廚師。巴比.福雷家的燒烤架或者托馬斯.凱勒家的自助餐不能代替約翰.韋恩家對45柯爾特手槍的精準使用。

I was exploring uncharted territory in my family, but before our daughter even learned to crawl I started to get a sense of how good I had it. Time to bathe our little darling? Strip that baby bare and suffer all those earsplitting screams? Sorry, I'll tune in again at bed time, but right now I've just got to hand-sharpen my new Japanese carbon-steel knife and mince shallots for the red-wine reduction sauce I'm slathering on those dry-aged rib-eyes that I got from Joe the Butcher, my new best friend.

我一直在探索我家的未知領域，當我們的女兒開始學著爬行時，我開始意識到我的選擇是多么地正確。我們的小寶貝在漸漸長大?給光著小屁股的小家伙換尿布并忍受他們刺耳的尖叫?哦，不，每晚睡覺的時候忍受這些還不夠嗎?但現(xiàn)在我要做的是，打磨我那把日本碳鋼刀，將切碎的洋蔥頭摻進紅酒醬并涂抹在排骨上，而這排骨還是我從我的新朋友—肉販喬那里買來的。

And sure, maybe the wife doesn't even want a dry-aged rib-eye or a big platter of that buttermilk fried chicken I'm making about once a week. But that's the other great thing about taking over the stove as the baby's needs are trumping all others—as even the family dog, for example, begins to outrank me on the implicit priority list. (Yes, the dog needs a walk. But don't try telling anyone that Dad needs time for the gym.) Cooking dinner, that unassailable participation in domestic labor, also provides a man with a way to care for himself, to make himself a truly soul-satisfying meal when nobody else can possibly be bothered.

當然，妻子們也許并不想要我每周做的碳烤排骨或者炸雞。但是這是除了照看孩子外最重要的另一件事——甚至家里寵物狗的地位也開始比我高。(是的，狗需要去遛。但是不要試圖告訴任何人爸爸需要時間健身)。毋庸置疑，準備晚餐就是一項耗費體力的活動，它也為男人們照顧自己找到了一條出路。無人打擾時，他們就可以自己做一頓令人滿意的晚餐。

“Dad is no longer the sole breadwinner. But he is the family's only sourdough-walnut bread-maker.”

“爸爸不再試家里唯一養(yǎng)家糊口的人。但是，他是這個家里唯一的核桃面包師。”

We've all seen little boys shoot baskets for six hours straight, or practice that same dumb skateboard trick 400 times in a row. There's something primal in the male mind that craves competency in concrete, tactile, real-world skills—like we used to get from changing the oil or mending the fences.

我們都見到過小男孩6個小時不停地投球或者排成一長串練習滑板。男人的頭腦中有一種最原始的超能量使他們擅長于各種具體的，可感知的技能，比如我們過去常常換油或者修籬笆。

But even professional mechanics need specialized computers to make sense of the family sedan these days. So the kitchen fills this void, too: Ever wondered how to make bacon? Tie up a roast? No better time than dinner-prep to settle down and learn. But learning takes time and concentration, so now we get to claim peace and quiet as we drink wine and set up our mise en place, just like the guy on that cooking show—and, if you think about it, just like our own fathers, back when they tinkered in the workshop or stopped by the corner pub on the way home.

然而，現(xiàn)在即使專業(yè)的機械工也需要專業(yè)電腦才能修理房車。自然廚房也是一樣的。有人想知道如何做熏肉嗎?掛起一塊烤肉?沒有比準備晚餐更好的學習方法了。但是，學習也是需要花費時間和集中精力的，所以當我們喝酒的時候和準備晚餐的時候，我們需要安靜，就像那些家伙們調(diào)酒時那樣。

Of course, kindergartners don't necessarily want Dad's latest take on octopus stew. Dad may have to bend to a night of burgers or red sauce on spaghetti. But this brings rewards, too. Children need less and less of their parents, as they get older, and the family meal remains one of the key moments for connecting with them, passing on whatever we've got to pass on—even when we're keeping the meal modest.

當然，幼兒園教師并不需要像爸爸一樣烹制出最新的章魚湯。但爸爸們就必須要用一整晚的時間準備漢堡或紅醬意粉。自然這也是有回報的。孩子們慢慢長大，越來越不需要父母們，而一家人一起用依舊是維系與他們之間關系的最好時刻，傳承者，繼續(xù)著，不管我們烹制的晚餐有多么清淡，多么簡單。