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I think that cooking in general seems hypersexualized. If you're not Gordon Ramsey, cursing your way around the kitchen, then you must be Nigella Lawson, Paula Deen, or Rachel Ray - a domestic goddess, downhome pork-lovin' grandma, or the bubbly cheerleader next door.

In so many other areas, modern men and women defy traditional gender roles - is it so hard to imagine a woman firing up a grill? Or a father serving warm milk and cookies to his children when they come home from school?

I am a straight (non-gay) man who loves to cook but I'm not afraid to utilize large sausages in a my cooking but only if the recipe calls for it. I feel that anyone no matter their orientation has the right to enjoy football but it should not be played with a raw chicken that would be sick and perverted. I also happen to have it on good authority that Emiril uses a female stunt double which would not make him gay but might give us a clue as to why he uses the same jokes every show. Surely Food Network, if you can afford to put caviar on dog biscuits you can by Emiril a new joke book.

Killacook

Thanks for the piece, Adam. You brought your always charming sense of humor to an unlikely discussion for a standard food article.

My sexuality is generally a bit enigmatic to folks when they first meet me; I have very effeminate mannerisms and tastes in many respects, but in many others I don't fit the "gay archetype" that seems to have its place in our collective psyche. But I can recall a very specific conversation I had with a female once... we'd been chatting, having a good conversation, it steered to food and I confessed, excitedly, that one of my favorite hobbies was cooking.

She literally let out this, "Oooooooh," as if suddenly everything made sense.

So while I think some of the comments are right, we've come along way in certain respects regarding stereotypes and breaking boundaries, I think you also hit something worth remembering: regardless of progress, "gay" still conjurs a handful of images, and included among that handful is the well-groomed sophisticate hosting a themed dinner party ("Exotic Foods of the South Seas," lisp included) complete with color-coordinated place settings.

Whatever the cost... if my being queer has anything to do with my ridiculously good french onion soup, so be it. It will continue to entertain my dinner party guests for many years to come. :)

This topic is particularly interesting to me because recently I've faced more than a few encounters where people have questioned my gender due to the fact that I more than happily pronounce cooking and baking as my favourite hobbies. I came back to Malaysia after spending a couple of years in Canada doing my undergrad where I learned to cook and developed a somewhat obsessive passion for it while there.

During my undergrad years (which wasnt that long ago) a bunch of us students (3 guys and 3 girls) lived in the same building and I would be the resident cook almost every weekend. We'd all come together at someone's apartment to eat while watching TV, playing poker, mah jong or just spend the whole night chatting. I found it kinda awesome that by my cooking meals for my friends every weekend I could bring everyone closer together as a group. It was almost like family. So the kind of satisfaction you got out of it was more than any words could describe.

So after coming back, when I met new people, of course I happily declared my passion. I loved doing it because I could make people happy. But more often than not, the people I've met so far raise their eyebrows when you tell them your favourite thing to do in the world is cook and bake. They go "Erm, yeah ok...you like to cook. Sure." and promptly change the topic of conversation. A female colleague at work even asked me "You like girls right?" just to make sure. It was shocking to say the least that I was considered effeminate by virtue of the fact that I liked to cook and was proud of it. Such a far cry from how it used to be.

I dunno. Maybe it's a cultural thing. Asian culture (at least back in Asia) is still very much paternalistic and a lot of the times women are still considered subservient to men. In other words they do the cooking, cleaning, laundry etc. So maybe it's just that cooking in the domestic environment is still so entrenched in the minds of many as a woman's domain that people just don't see that it really isn't gender specific anymore. It never was.

I'm a straight woman who used to be a chef and honestly, most restaurant kitchens are brutal places. It's hard, hot, heavy work that most women are not remotely interested in doing. There are tricks we learn to get things done, supporting the wrist with the other hand when lifting a heavy pot, for example. I will, if necessary, ask a man to carry something that I cannot safely move. I've never received any negative comments for it because it was a matter of safety.

I worked at one very small restaurant for a while and worked the kitchen alone on Saturday lunch services. I often brought my son (who was a preteen at the time) to make sandwiches and salads for me. It was a great bonding experience for both of us and completely safe for him.

My son's culinary education really blossomed at home, and with minimal verbal instruction he can make almost anything. He's 21 now and I'm sure that he will be the cook in his family as his fiancee can barely make a sandwich and I'm pretty sure she can't boil water.

Yes, quite a few people over the years have assumed he was gay, the long purple hair probably didn't help. One poor boy was so in love with him he would follow him around like a puppy. I felt very sorry about Danny's broken heart, but my son never led him on and told him from the beginning that he was straight.

So, my answer is no, cooking doesn't make a man gay and football and beer don't make a man straight, either.

This is just six kinds of stereotyping and I am appalled that it was written by a gay person, being gay myself. There are several openly gay male and female chefs in NYC and around the country; there have been articles written about it. The women certainly have not been shy about it but then neither are the men I know.
No one I know even thinks twice about a straight man cooking; that's so last millenium. Catch up!
But the comments ("I'm a straight male and I bake...No, I'm a straight male and I cook....I'm a straight male and I liked your article" seem to make your case for you.
And Ted Allen? Not a chef, tv personality...okay?

I'm a confused mess . . . or so it appears to many around me. In fact, I'm not confused at all on the inside. But I'm a straight man with many qualities generally characterized as "feminine" or "gay." I love to cook; I have two cats; I grow orchids and other houseplants; I used to garden when I had a yard. Along with these more "feminine" characteristics and interests, I have many that are more "masculine." I love sports; when I owned a vehicle, I was my own mechanic; I love building things out of wood using power tools; etc. I laughed aloud when I read a post above by a man who cooks on the holidays, and is received strangely by other straight men because he doesn't know which teams are playing in the bowl game. Just this week, I accidentally made plans to cook for a group of friends on Sunday . . . then remembered it's SuperBowl Sunday . . . and moved my dinner party to Saturday because I want to cook this weekend, but I don't want to miss the game! Also, like one of the other posters who wrote that he began cooking to impress girls, I did too; but unlike him, I had great success with the approach!

However, when it comes to people who barely know me making assumptions about my sexual orientation, they usually assume I'm gay. This is true not only of homophobic men, but also gay men, and straight and gay women. Why? I think it's likely a combination of my hobbies and, perhaps, my mannerisms. But who really knows?!?! Historically, I've had no problem finding women to date, and for several years now I've had the perfect girlfriend. I live in the heart of my city's gayborhood and am hit-on by guys regularly, which I find flattering.

I guess this is all just a long-winded way of saying that the characteristics and hobbies that our society has identified as "masculine" and "feminine" have no dependent or causal relationships with sexual orientation. What's truly sad is that I've known people who have been drawn to particular activities (including cooking) but have refrained from practicing them out of fear of being perceived as gay--letting their own homophobia oppress them. I don't care what people perceive my sexual orientation to be and, as a result, I've long felt free to be who I am--whatever that means.

I was not an 8-year-old boy growing up in Oklahoma, but one growing up in the 50s on a wheat farm in western Kansas. I think Easy Bake came a little after my time, but I remember asking for and getting a bake set (with instant mixes) and a farm set (with a metal barn and rubber animals) the very same Christmas. Maybe back then, people weren't so aware of or at least so worried about people's sexuality. Or (as I truly know), my dirt-poor, Methodist-church-going, Bob Dole-come-to-visit-our-house Republican parents just loved me so much that it didn't matter that I always seemed to want both a "girl-toy" and a "boy-toy' for Christmas. I have a light-flashing robot and a pristine play China set that I've kept to this day.

But in regards to cooking, my mom could make about anything from lard, flour, fresh milk, and eggs. Her philosophy about cooking was that we'd have to be able to cook to teach a wife "how to cook". She didn't think that any of the girls of those days were learning how to cook at home. This has especially come true with my fisherman/hunter, retired railroad worker, older brother who cooks much better than either of the two wives he's had. He loves to pickle things, bake, and all kinds of other cooking. My other brother can cook, but his wife does pretty well on her own, learning to make my mom's recipes. My sister, too, cooks well, but now that she's widowed is more like me, a single gay man. We both enjoy cooking, but living alone, we mostly cook fast and easy.

I also remember back them some farm wives out on the tractor, and maybe a comment was made by a few others about that, but if the field needed plowed, it needed plowed, and that was about it.

I think these days, people sometimes worry too much about the "hows and whys". There's nothing more feminine or masculine about driving a tractor than there is about peeling a potato. In the end, they both need to just get done.

Adam Roberts makes some very interesting points.

I'm gayer than laughter, and have been since I was about 4, when I remember having an erotic dream about Li'l Abner. It was around that time that I became very interested in food and cooking, and my mother really encouraged me. We cooked together regularly, and I learned a lot from her and from my aunt, who lived with us at our summer house in Lakeside, Ohio. Today I review restaurants and write cookbooks and cook and cook and cook. I have to say I never really thought about whether cooking made me gay--it probably helped--but whatever did it, I'm very grateful!

As for openly gay chefs, there are precious few. I know three in Manhattan, and I know about 100 male chefs. I know two lesbian chefs here.

By the by, TOP CHEF did indeed feature one gay and one lesbian chef along the way.