gendered food
18 Jun 2006 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatI don't know how much most people think about the intersection between gender and food choices, but it was driven home pretty strongly to me today when the OH and I went to the Fresh Choice salad bar restaurant for lunch at around 11am.
On the way over, we drove past a breakfast place called Stacks, which we ate at once many years ago and thought was only so-so. Usually there is a small line on the weekends, but today there was a line halfway down the block.
Usually Fresh Choice becomes fairly crowded almost immediately after opening at 11am. Today it was almost completely deserted.
I can only theorize that people don't think of salad bar restaurants as appropriate Father's Day destinations, because, you know, salad is for women.
On the way over, we drove past a breakfast place called Stacks, which we ate at once many years ago and thought was only so-so. Usually there is a small line on the weekends, but today there was a line halfway down the block.
Usually Fresh Choice becomes fairly crowded almost immediately after opening at 11am. Today it was almost completely deserted.
I can only theorize that people don't think of salad bar restaurants as appropriate Father's Day destinations, because, you know, salad is for women.
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no subject
Date: 19 Jun 2006 07:11 am (UTC)But when I lived in Pennsylvania, I got a very strong sense of "gendered food" when I went out with friends. There were "male" dishes: beef, with cheese, fried onions, and all kinds of other rich and/or fatty sides, and any and all vegetables had to have been through some kind of transformative process (sauerkraut, pickles, ketchup, etc). Then there were "female" dishes: chicken with fresh salad vegetables.
I noticed that people would be visually inspected by the waiter if they ordered "wrong-gendered" food - "yes, she's skinny enough she's allowed to eat rich foods"; "is he henpecked or on a diet or both?".
I got very tired of the dichotomy in the menu, so one day I asked for a Thai beef salad. The menu had Thai chicken salad. Now my previous encounters with this dish in Australia had always been Thai beef salad, so I couldn't see what was going to be so difficult about the beef option. But I had to explain very carefully before the waiter understood what I had in mind.
I don't think I've ever noticed as dramatic a dichotomy anywhere else I've been. And when TOILW and I go out, we usually mutually decide on two things and then swap half-way and the world has not fallen down yet.