By David Futrelle
Men Going Their Own Way are determined to let the world know that they really can go their own way — and that they neither need nor desire some dumb taks to take care of the basic tasks of life like, you know, cleaning, or preparing food for themselves.
They seem particularly invested in proving that they can cook at least as well as any dumb broad. And so from time to time they post recipes online — sometimes with pictures of the end results.
And while we may never get to see photos of the charred remains of chicken cooked the A Voice for Men way, or this slightly meat-heavy MGTOW pasta salad, the fellows on the MGTOW subreddit have been posting quite a few photos of their culinary creations and, well, I don’t exactly know how any of these taste, but let’s just say these fellas could work a little harder on the presentation.
Here in all its glory is what I can only call unidentified beige sauce on rice:
Here, allegedly, is a meatloaf:
Apparently the things on the left in this one are chicken breasts, enough for a whole week of identical meals. Or perhaps he’s starting a cult in his basement.
While the MGTOWs sometimes get adventurous and try things like Beef Wellington, most of the meals are either badly-cooked slabs of meat or some sort of glop on rice or pasta.
Other “recipes” barely count as cooking at all, except in the minimal sense of heating something up so you can eat it without dying of food poisoning. Here’s one fellow’s inspired BBQ feast:
This dude decided it was worth posting a picture of some sausage and fried eggs that he had miraculously been able to cook all on his own like a big boy.
I mean, yes, I’d eat that, but come on, dude, cooking eggs in sausage fat is really only a step or two above “making toast” as a culinary accomplishment.
Speaking of which, here’s one man’s, er, unique take on garlic toast.
Even some of the other MGTOWs were underwhelmed by this one. “Not trying to be rude bro,” one wrote, “but its bread with cheese melted on it.”
I know you all would be eager to chow down on any of these delicious-looking meals, but remember to save room for dessert!
“Made my first cake today,” the MGTOW who posted it wrote proudly. “Invest in yourself gentleman.”
Way to show the ladies just who’s the real chef around here!
Actually, I take that back. The real king of the kitchen isn’t a MGTOW or a lady. It’s this dude:
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@Moggie: I’ve not read that guy before but I have seen that “Egg Master” contraption! There’s a British YouTuber who calls himself “TechMoan” and who mostly reviews old audio/visual technology; but every so often, he does a clip about a kitchen gadget and the “Egg Master” was one of these. It’s really revolting-looking, isn’t it? Like something HR Giger would have had in his kitchen. Matt aka TechMoan has mentioned he lost his sense of taste due to a medical condition some years back– in the case of the “Egg Master”, that can only have been a mercy…
@Moggie
I’ve seen a fair number of those egg cooker things before, and they all seem pretty lousy. It’s easier to just hardboil or fry the eggs, and much better in result. The cheap kitchen gadgets that I’ve had the worst experiences with were specialized cutters, like specialized apple or banana cutting templates. They always break and they’re impossible to line up right. It’s easier to just use a knife.
@BQS
And every minute they spend cooking is a minute they’re not hating women on the internet. Win win!
That sounds amazing. What’s your recipe, if you don’t mind sharing?
Someone should put together a collection of the recipes in this thread and others in one place. It could be called We Cooked the Mammoth.
My favorite glop on rice is chickpea tikka masala (a vegan take on chicken tikka masala).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/chickpea-tikka-masala/15989/
@Cat Mara
I watched that video. The results were unappetizing.
@Cat Mara, Icm with you 100% on all fronts there. I ise an Instant Pot when there’s something that would benefit from being pressure-cooked (it’s pretty great to be able to go from dry chickpeas to fully prepared hummus in about two hours!) but for other dishes, nah. Anything short-cooked I prefer to just do on the stove, since between warming-up and cooking and depressuring it doesn’t save that much time, and I prefer ebing able to peek in and taste for doneness. I heard it’s good as a rice cooker but cooking rice is pretty easy anyway. And anything else, like cakes or bread (yes, really! I recently saw a recipe for Instant Pot cornbread and it boggled my mind why anyone would bother), just feels like a gimmick. How could you get a proper browning inside such a moist environment?
(Sort of a disclaimer: I have baked a Christmas pudding in a slow cooker. But that’s not really supposed to be baking anyway, more boiling/steaming, so a slow cooker fits perfectly, and I do recommend it for that type of dish.)
Also, regarding the gadget inspector, that was a magnificent column, and it made me sad to find out he stopped writing it. The Egg Master one will forever make me crack up.
@Hambeast:
Yes, the “It’s Alive!” series is very interesting. I got a Korean recipe book a while back, which sparked my interest in fermented foods, though I haven’t gotten around to trying to make my own kimchi or anything yet. I did make kvass once or twice, but I need to build up a supply of rye bread crusts before I can do it again…
(BTW, there are Brad/Claire shippers on Tumblr. It’s all a bit weird, if you ask me)
@Naglfar: That’s the one. Who on Earth ever sat down to their breakfast and thought, “eggs are nice and all, but what if a gadget that made them look like a pool noodle?” ?
I’d be tempted to buy one for a MGTOW though, if only on the off-chance he might mistake it for a Fleshlight ???
My favourite glop on rice is a huge bowlful of white basmati rice with a can of Tesco own brand hot n’ spicy beans dumped on top. Sometimes if I am feeling fancy I’ll do some fried mushrooms to go with it. It’s delicious, quick, cheap but fairly brown and unappetising looking.
Since going vegan on Jan 1st I’ve really expanded my cooking, can do all sorts of things with tempeh and tofu etc. Got a decent spice collection now and a blender for smoothies, smoothie bowls and homemade hummus. But my rice and beans recipe is my go to for a nutritious dish I can whip up fast when I am feeling sad and not in the mood to do anything more spectacular.
Because of pain medication I take I need to eat A LOT of fibre. I started monitoring my daily intake of food using an app called Cronometer. It’s actually great for seeing if you might be deficient in certain vitamins and minerals, how to balance your macros and yes, how many grams of fibre you’re eating too. I’ve found I tend to need between 50-70g plus a large amount of plain water to keep things running smoothly as it were.
@Cat Mara
This device gets even better. On its Wikipedia page, it says the following:
There are few less appealing verbs when talking about food. Or really anything.
I am not sure why anyone thought this thing was a good idea, but one site describes it as making an “egg lolly.” Maybe that’s a culinary fad somewhere?
(Oy, so many typos in my last comment! Something went weird so I didn’t get the edit option.)
I hate to admit it, but I can’t get into the Brad videos. There’s something too enthusiastic about him, like a human labrador, and while labradors are awesome I wouldn’t necessarily trust one as a cooking instructor. Or something. I dunno, something just rubs me the wrong way and I can’t really tell why. :-/
I liked Clara’s verbal instructions videos, at least the few I’ve watched. It’s a neat challenge and she usually handles it really well.
Claire does really interesting stuff but I skip some of her videos because they can be a bit long for me. Also, as somewhat of a Stella Parks fan, it always feels odd, in Claire videos where she makes stuff that I know Stella had already recreated, to see that she doesn’t use or even mention that resource. I mean, I get that she’s trying to make her own version of things, but I’ve seen her look up resources before, and Stella has really done a very thorough job with her recreations, both in terms of hirtorical research and culinary-science research.
(Also, for those not familiar with the Serious Eats videos, any one of those featuring Stella is a joy, and especiallly the ones who feature both her and Sohla. You’re welcome.)
I’m probably just being some kind of weird snob. I like the BA videos alright, just not as much as others seem to.
I think my favourite cooking channel is Jun’s kitchen. But I don’t watch him for cooking instruction: I just find the videos really soothing, and he has the best-behaved cats you’ll ever see in a kitchen.
Also! I just discovered that Rhik Samadder is now doing more gadget reviews, this time in the “wellness” sector:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/wellness-or-hellness-
I’ll be reading that over the next couple of days!
(He also does the Guardian’s Great British Bake Off “as it happens” liveblogging, for those who are into that. I can’t access the show in real time but read this after I’ve watched because he’s hilarious and often just spot-on.)
@Hambeast, Naglfar
McKay’s Chicken Seasoning, which comes in vegan and vegetarian varieties, is quite good according to people who used to be not vegetarian (I think it is tasty, but cannot compare due to life-long vegetarianism). I’ve also heard the same of Better than Bouillon beef varieties Alan recommended, although not the chicken specifically.
My food adventures outside of sandwiches are pretty basic. Mac and cheese with a can of corn, a can of peas, and a couple of cans of tuna is one. Another is potluck stew, which is made of things from my refrigerator that I need to get rid of. Then the next day, take the stew broth and make rice with it. Nothing major, but its edible.
And to do a 180 on the thread discussion, evidently this is a thing now:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1689960671
At least it’s different? 😛
@Redsilkphoenix
LOL. Finally, Dungeons and Dragons gets combined with satirical erotica.
To tie this back to another topic, did that game that Chuck was working on with Zoë Quinn ever materialize?
@Redsilkphoenix:
There was a Kickstarter for a Chunk Tingle video game almost three years back: ‘Kickstarted in the Butt: A Chuck Tingle Digital Adventure’, in collaboration with Zoe Quinn. Goal for the Kickstarter was $69,420.
@Naglfar:
I suspect at least some of the demand for that thing was to do as salad garnishes or the like. In other words, the tube wasn’t the idea, the end result was having lots of identical slices of egg for use as decoration as much as food.
I miss cooking so much, but work finally gave me full time hours. Baking once a week, sourdough bagels, freezer waffles, boules, a sweet, and pizza dough for friday pizza. Roasted or smoked chicken, stock from the carcass, duck confit tucked away for easy meals, salads from the hydroponic garden, mushrooms from the garage.
*sigh* working sucks
@Jenora Feuer
Did they ever make the game?
So far, the answer is ‘no’.
The last (Backeroos-only) update contained an insistence that despite previously unforeseen events causing delays, Zoe was still working on the game, and that while it had spiraled larger than originally planned, they had a fair bit of design work done.
Unfortunately, that was a year ago.
(And yes, they used the term ‘backeroo’ instead of ‘backer’.)
Yeah, I got the impression that Zoe got overwhelmed. She was also working on her book at the same time as the project. It’s currently vaporware, but I’ve seen games come out of a 5-year vaporware before, so hopefully it makes it through.
I’m sorry for breaking up all the food talk, but I just had some thoughts about an earlier comment from @LollyPop:
I recall that there was another commenter a while back who described a similar situation of financially supporting her partner so that he could do things he could enjoy instead of being miserable in what seemed to be implied to be a dead-end job. Anyway, I bring this up because I’ve been thinking a lot in the past few years about my own relationship prospects. I’d probably end up in a similar situation if I ended up with someone, because otherwise I’d most likely be looking at much younger people, and while I apparently look much younger than I actually am, the general consensus seems to be that a large earnings / career level imbalance is more workable and less creepy than a large age imbalance. But then the question becomes, what do I actually bring to the table then? Society is always giving contradictory messages about this stuff. Some say you don’t have to meet all the qualifications to apply to a job, but then the job gets filled by more qualified people anyway. Some say that capitalist “productive value”, or the appearance thereof, isn’t what’s important in a relationship, but then others (regardless of political persuasion) go around mocking people for not “having their life together”.
Something that I was told here at the beginning of the year was to have a plan. I’ve tried to have a plan for years. I don’t have one. I’ve been throwing things at the wall and seeing if they stick. I have done some work toward getting a better job, and there are a couple of vaguely promising ones I’ve applied to, but I don’t have a lot of hope as of now. So… I’m not a fan of trying to make friends and relationships just to have someone willing to take me in, but I don’t seem to have very many options.
The Tingleverse RPG is apparently out now. I’d forgotten there was to be a video game. Maybe this is a replacement for that when the video game proved too ambitious a goal?
@kupo (re meatloaf):
With you on this one. I have an old friend (went to high school together,
was in her wedding, etc. ) who makes a killer meatloaf, both in looks & taste. Not sure how well it would photograph, tho.
Would love to see your mini-loaves when you make them next.
Re glob over rice or noodles:
my two childhood favorites were meatballs over rice (essentially canned Chef Boyardee meatballs–does anyone else remember those–) heated & served over white rice (usually Minute Rice) and tuna wiggle: tuna mixed with noodles & either cream of celery or mushroom soup.
Both were pretty much the epitome of comfort food (Armor’s dried, chipped beef in a white sauce on toast, aka SOS was also a Sunday breakfast favorite).
Would it kill any of these fucking dweebs to invest in a godsamn cookbook at least? I know they didn’t learn how to cook from their moms because they were clearly uninterested, but there are cookbooks written by men I’m sure they would find sufficiently soaked in enough salty fragile masculinity to make beef jerky.
Once again, MGTOWs seem to be kind of okay at doing exactly what women want them to do.
Like going away.
You might be interested in Maangchi then! She’s a Korean YouTuber who makes tons of dishes from Korea, including a laundry list of different kimchis!
Big into cooking here, gotta get some sleep, so will confine these thoughts to meatloaf.
Instead of bread crumbs — oatmeal.
oo
Plenty of recipes online.
Try it, cook it right, (includes eggs also), and you will LOVE IT!
Also, put something under it, pick it up off the grease while it’s baking.
Don’t have the pan for that? Make ‘twists’ of tin foil to set it upon, in the pan. Guy here may have seen this idea, and did it wrong.
For the interested, look up meatloaf with oatmeal.
Lots of great recipes online 🙂
I’m a remarkably bad cook — I remark on it all the time, as it happens — so far be it for me to make fun of MGTOWs for their similar level of culinary expertise. I’m definitely going to make fun of them for their belief that women are only valuable as live-in unpaid chefs/maids, however, as well as the related belief that we should somehow be sad when they deny us the role of surrogate mommy. Oh, you can cook for yourself? You don’t need me to wait on you hand and foot in exchange for nothing other than (I am guessing here) having to listen to your extremely bad opinions all day?? Oh noooooooo