厨房——男人的领地

A Real Man's Place Is in the Kitchen

厨房—男人真正的归属地

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.

当父辈们看到女人们离开厨房走上工作岗位时，他们感到很惶恐。他们失去了一些东西，或许是他们这样认为的。但是新一代男人们看到烤炉就会两眼放光。

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.

我们这一代的男人们几乎都在将女人们赶出厨房。我们不完全拥有火炉，但是我们自得其乐。在密歇根大学进行的一项针对美国年轻人的纵向调查报告中，研究者对某代的3000对夫妇进行为期25年的追踪，发现年轻的妻子每月做饭51顿，而她们的丈夫们也迎头赶上。丈夫们每月平均做饭34顿。这样，男人们除每周做饭8顿之外，去杂货店购物的次数也不比女人们少，这还不算男人们在研究美食频道，美食杂志和美食微博上花的时间。

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.

这样看起来，厨房似乎越来越成为男人们的归属地。为什么呢?当我们放弃作那个光鲜亮丽但压力十足的养家人时，我们确确实实失去了一些东西。但是当我们变身为这个家的核桃面包师时，我们又会得到一些别的东西。

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，我是这样认为的。我和我的妻子都是记者，我们工作同样的时间得到几乎同等的报酬，夜幕降临时，我们一样筋疲力尽。我们的第一个孩子出生后，我们和千千万万的美国双职工家庭一样面临着夜不能寐的困境：有人要哄孩子，有人要做饭。

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.

如果要选择做饭和洗碗，换尿布和哄孩子，我选择做饭这件无需用脑的事。然而，这并不是因为我家的男人们有任何烹饪历史。在我家，我妈妈做饭，我爸爸吃饭。在我祖父母家也一样。在他们那个时代，美国还不流行男性厨师。巴比.福雷家的烧烤架或者托马斯.凯勒家的自助餐不能代替约翰.韦恩家对45柯尔特手枪的精准使用。

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领域，当我们的女儿开始学着爬行时，我开始意识到我的选择是多么地正确。我们的小宝贝在渐渐长大?给光着小屁股的小家伙换尿布并忍受他们刺耳的尖叫?哦，不，每晚睡觉的时候忍受这些还不够吗?但现在我要做的是，打磨我那把日本碳钢刀，将切碎的洋葱头掺进红酒酱并涂抹在排骨上，而这排骨还是我从我的新朋友—肉贩乔那里买来的。

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.

当然，妻子们也许并不想要我每周做的碳烤排骨或者炸鸡。但是这是除了照看孩子外最重要的另一件事——甚至家里宠物狗的地位也开始比我高。(是的，狗需要去遛。但是不要试图告诉任何人爸爸需要时间健身)。毋庸置疑，准备晚餐就是一项耗费体力的活动，它也为男人们照顾自己找到了一条出路。无人打扰时，他们就可以自己做一顿令人满意的晚餐。

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

“爸爸不再试家里唯一养家糊口的人。但是，他是这个家里唯一的核桃面包师。”

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.

我们都见到过小男孩6个小时不停地投球或者排成一长串练习滑板。男人的头脑中有一种最原始的超能量使他们擅长于各种具体的，可感知的技能，比如我们过去常常换油或者修篱笆。

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，现在即使专业的机械工也需要专业电脑才能修理房车。自然厨房也是一样的。有人想知道如何做熏肉吗?挂起一块烤肉?没有比准备晚餐更好的学习方法了。但是，学习也是需要花费时间和集中精力的，所以当我们喝酒的时候和准备晚餐的时候，我们需要安静，就像那些家伙们调酒时那样。

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.

当然，幼儿园教师并不需要像爸爸一样烹制出最新的章鱼汤。但爸爸们就必须要用一整晚的时间准备汉堡或红酱意粉。自然这也是有回报的。孩子们慢慢长大，越来越不需要父母们，而一家人一起用依旧是维系与他们之间关系的最好时刻，传承者，继续着，不管我们烹制的晚餐有多么清淡，多么简单。