The Cookbook:

Published in 2005, Cooking To Hook Up is the bachelor’s go to cookbook for trying to get lucky. This book focuses largely on bachelors using food as a means to get laid and is blatantly confirmed by the book’s title “Cooking to Hook Up”. In 2005, dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble didn’t exist and dating itself seemed like a primitive competition, so how were men supposed to impress the large pool of women of the time? Cooking. The book itself walks through date night from the beginning to the absolute end touching on topics such as how to present your home, what staple ingredients to have such as butter, eggs, etc., tools to get a hold of like measuring cups and hand mixers, and lastly how to choose the perfect items to impress your girl like wines and magazines/books. (Campbell & Michaels, 2005) The book also sections itself into various generalizations of women. The table of contents shows how the cookbook contextualizes the recipes because all of the recipes are named after a type of girl that would presumably be on the date (like a Spice Girl) with whomever would be cooking. Some examples are such as “The Athletic Girl” or “The Indie Girl” making it to be as if the people who identify in those categories all eat the same diet or the same cuisine. I definitely think that the identity categories of social culture around a certain group and even gender are used as this is almost specifically a book targeted toward men who are cooking for someone they are likely going on a date with to get intimate. I don’t believe that this book alludes to any historical context, however I feel that they use a lot of generalizations about certain types of women to categorize the recipes provided.

About the Authors:

Drew Campbell and Ann Marie Michaels were both married to one another in 1997, however due to minor differences their marriage fell apart in 2003 and they decided that they made better writing partners than life partners! After resolving their marital issues they soon discovered that their shared love for food and their experience in the dating field was the perfect concoction for their book Cooking to Hook Up. Both Drew and Ann’s love for cooking came at an early age with Ann learning from her self-taught gourmet chef of an older sister and Drew taking on the cooking skills of his mother which he began showing off in the middle of his high school career. Drew Campbell had since gone on in his life to pursue his job in teaching Technical Design at the University of Texas in Austin following his studies in theatrical design at Brown University and the University of Illinois. He has also since settled down with a now wife having married her in July of 2004. As for Ann Marie Michaels, she got her degree in film from the University of Texas in Austin and has been employed with some of the most notable and famous internet consulting firms and ad agencies. She herself identifies as on of the personalities mentioned in her own cookbook or rather a mixture of two of the personalities those of which are a Gourmet/Indie girl hybrid. She is yet to remarry, but is loving her life in solidarity freelancing as an interactive producer and a writer. I also believe that the authors of this book really showcase their identities in this book not only because they obviously co-authored it, but because especially Ann shows things in the gourmet and indie girl sections that were likely things that attracted her to Drew when they became husband and wife. I believe that they really bend the gender roles by showing that men can cook just as much and and just as well to win over a woman that likely isn’t used to being served. They themselves did mention that “Women will always choose men with wooden spoons over men with Gold Cards”

Who is this Cookbook for?:

It is made quite evident that the cookbook is specifically targeted toward men that identify as bachelors looking for a good time or at least a solid date night plan. Due to the fact that the book runs through a step by step time frame in which the readers are told to do certain things like go grocery shopping, cook, put on music, and speak about certain things it shows that the audience is meant to be either quite new to dating or pretty bad at it since it is so meticulously laid out. I believe the book also varies in range of skill level as just about every type of girls’ recipe has a Easy, Medium, or Hard section which continuously increases in grandiosity and level of cooking skill, however there is also sections that explain things that someone who has never cooked in their life would need like various ways to cook an egg and a list of the various type of wine (as well as how to pronounce them so you don’t make yourself look like a fool). Again, because this is designated for men attracting women it is made clear that the intended audience is nothing more or less than straight men trying to sleep with one of various types of women. There is no gender fluidity for those of a different gender identity or those of a different sexual orientation.

Linkages to Class:

As for how this connected to the classroom, I felt that this brought me back regularly to the article we were presented on obesity (as an epidemic) and how certain women were affected by the societal pressures to look and eat a certain way because the recipes seemed very catered toward thin and healthy women and were also quite high class in name. I am to believe because of the very stereotypes way the book was set up that these were the expectations the authors had of these women which were quite generalizing. Also, these recipes reminded me of the otherizing and traditionalizing subjects as I felt that these ingredients and wines that they were suggesting for these men to buy were some of those things that were supposed to make the men seem like the knew more than the average person about gourmet food or any food for that matter. The way that the recipes were explained and the wines specifically were talked about exemplified cultural capital, in my opinion, and it felt as though these foods/drinks were a way of creating an esteem where these men were to feel of higher class than they may actually have been due to their supposed knowledge of culinary practices that they would be putting forward for these women.

Citations:

• Campbell, D., & Michaels, A. M. (2004). Cooking to Hook Up: The Bachelor’s Date-Night Cookbook (1st edition). Guilford, Conn: Globe Pequot.
• Drew Campbell. (n.d.). Retrieved April 15, 2019, from http://www.amazon.com/Drew-Campbell/e/B001IXPU94%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
• Timeline of online dating services. (2019). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timeline_of_online_dating_services&oldid=876650548
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