A brief interlude: some thoughts on the phenomenon of food blogging

In my mind, when I look at the world of professional chefs, celebrity chefs, and channels like the Food Network, I don’t see much of a gender imbalance. For every Mario Batali you’ve got a Barefoot Contessa; we recognize Gail’s face just as much as Tom Colicchio’s; and I ‘d venture to say that Alice Water’s protégé isn’t another female bohemian foodie, but more likely…Jamie Oliver? The point is—the faces of the foodies, gourmands and cooks that we see on T.V., in the news and on the cover of cookbooks in Borders are just as likely to be male as they are female, and furthermore, of a pretty wide spectrum of ages.
Then why is it that almost all of the food blogs that I follow (which are quite a few) are written by women? And more specifically, by women mainly in their twenties and thirties who frequently make side references to the husband who despite initial grumblings just loooved the experimental quinoa dish, or the boyfriend who couldn’t get enough of the hearty black bean burgers and even helped with the patty flipping in the process.

Most of these women actually don’t seem that different from me (which is probably why I read their blogs)—interested in nutritious yet delicious tasting food and a healthy way of living based on using fresh and real ingredients (ie butter no marg!), sharing their food experiences with others, and taking pretty pictures of it all. But still, there is something that strikes me that I cant quite put my finger on in terms of how much the “voice” in a number of these blogs sounds quite the same. And how in a weird way this female culinary blogging phenomenon seems sort of a throwback to the 1950’s housewife, baking the perfect cake to serve to her husband when he gets home and then sharing the recipe with all her friends. Women and men may get equal airtime on t.v. set kitchens, but when it comes down to just regular old daily cooking at home, it seems like this is still mainly women’s domain. And now we just have a new outlet to show off, share and compare our culinary notes—the food blog!
(photo = case in point: me with the bf taking a picture of the best coffee and yummiest thing i ate on my recent trip to london)