12420

research-article2017
SOR0010.1111/1467-954X.12420The Sociological ReviewNeuman et al.

The
Sociological
Article Review
The Sociological Review

Masculinity and the sociality

2017, Vol. 65(4) 816­–831
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1111/1467-954X.12420
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12420
everyday lives journals.sagepub.com/home/sor

Nicklas Neuman
Uppsala University, Sweden

Lucas Gottzén
Stockholm University, Sweden

Christina Fjellström
Uppsala University, Sweden

Abstract
This article explores how 31 Swedish men (22–88 years old) talk about the sociality of domestic
cooking in everyday life. We demonstrate how domestic cooking – for oneself, for others and
with others – is part of the understanding of contemporary Swedish men and how the expressed
sociality of cooking is intertwined with accomplishments of masculinity. The sociality of cooking
is not only about homosocial leisure but also a way for men to maintain heterosocial relationships
and assume domestic responsibility. We discuss a potential cultural transition in men’s domestic-
meal sociality and suggest the need for studies of gendered divisions of domestic work and the
sociology of food to analyse how cooking shares similar properties to those of commensality, and
the implications of this regarding gender relations.

Keywords
commensality, cooking, domestic meal sociality, gendered division of housework, homosociality,
masculinities and masculinity

Introduction
Historically, everyday domestic food responsibilities have been put on the shoulders of
women while men have mostly cooked in particular settings, primarily restaurants. When
men have cooked at home, it has been said to be mostly for leisure (DeVault, 1991;

Corresponding author:
Nicklas Neuman, Uppsala University, Box 560, Uppsala 75122, Sweden.
Email: nicklas.neuman@ikv.uu.se
Neuman et al. 817

Lupton, 1996) or taking care of specific tasks (Adler, 1981; Murcott, 1982; Ekström,
1990). However, quantitative (Kan et al., 2011) and qualitative research (e.g. Aarseth
and Olsen, 2008; Szabo, 2013, 2014; Meah, 2014a, 2014b; Klasson and Ulver, 2015;
Neuman et al., 2015) indicate that this is changing, especially in Scandinavia. When
men take care of foodwork and cooking, they also do it out of responsibilities for
others (e.g. friends and family). Thus, the boundaries between ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’
domestic cooking is becoming increasingly blurred, as are the cultural meanings of
domestic cooking as a gendered practice (see Aarseth, 2009; Meah, 2014a, 2014b).
However, the social relations associated with meals are not merely a matter of (gen-
dered) divisions of housework but also one of sociality. Remarkably little attention has
been paid to the sociality that permeates men’s everyday cooking and how this interacts
with constructions of masculinity, whereas the role of gender relations throughout the
entire life course in both everyday cooking and commensality is well established in the
literature (Fjellström, 2009; Davidson et al., 2009; Fischler, 2011).
In this article, which draws on interviews with 31 men (between 22 and 88 years
old) in Sweden, we explore how men understand domestic cooking as a sociable prac-
tice in everyday life. We demonstrate how everyday domestic cooking – for oneself,
for others, and with others – is ingrained in the (self-)understanding of contemporary
Swedish men and how the expressed sociality of cooking is intertwined with masculin-
ity. The article builds on existing work on the gendered division of domestic (food)
work and gendered meal sociality. We extend this work by illustrating an overlooked
phenomenon; how the practice of cooking has similar social functions as those already
associated with commensality and how it is intertwined with accomplishments of mas-
culinity. To cook can mean more than merely preparing a dish – it can be a way to
establish sociality with others; with other men and women and with children. This
masculine sociality of cooking is not only expressed as a matter of male homosociality
or leisure, but also a means to build and maintain heterosocial relationships and to
share domestic responsibilities.

Masculinities and the sociality of meals

According to Connell, a definition of masculinity, ‘to the extent the term can be briefly
defined at all’, should be understood as simultaneously being ‘a place in gender relations,
the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects
of these practices in bodily experience, personality and culture’ (Connell, 2005 [1995]:
71). Masculinities are socially constructed positions in a given gender structure ‘that are
accomplished in social action and, therefore, can differ according to the gender relations
in a particular social setting’ (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005: 836). Understood in
this way, masculinities can also be negotiated and challenged, which implies both poten-
tials for emancipation from, and reinforcements of, asymmetrical gender relations.
Central to Connell’s conceptualization is that masculinities are relational; they are
accomplished in social relations between men and women as well as among men, who
enact and grant each other different gendered positions in relation to each other; a prac-
tice referred to as ‘homosociality’. Homosociality has been used as both a hierarchical
concept in which men strengthen their powers over, and bonds between, other men and
818 The Sociological Review 65(4)

women and a horizontal concept that opens up for more inclusive and emotional relation-
ships (Hammarén and Johansson, 2014).
It has been suggested that ‘[h]omosocial relations among male cooks, chefs and gas-
tronomes’ and gender-segregated work in restaurant kitchens have laid the foundations
for an overwhelmingly androcentric gastronomic culture (Neuman and Fjellström, 2014:
280–281). But male homosociality regarding cooking is not restricted to the history of
restaurant kitchens and culinary elites. There is also evidence of cooking in other male
homosocial environments in different social and historical contexts (Mechling, 2005;
Deutsch, 2005; Wilk and Hintlian, 2005), including domestic cooking (Natalier, 2003;
Meah and Jackson, 2013; Julier, 2013). What these studies show is not only that several
settings exist for men to engage in cooking with each other. They also demonstrate how
homosocial cooking results in different forms of masculine practice, such as negotiated
expressions of care, ‘traditional’ notions of being a good man or boy, expressions of
friendship, sexuality and domestic responsibility (Mechling, 2005; Deutsch, 2005; Julier,
2013; Meah, 2014a).
Others have analysed men’s cooking sociality in a domestic setting in media represen-
tations of male chefs (Brownlie and Hewer, 2007; Leer, 2013). These studies analyse
cultural images of men cooking together, and what this means in terms of masculinity.
However, this says nothing about sociality in men’s everyday lives or their relationships
with women and children. Scholars have discussed how domestic foodwork and cooking
display how masculinities and gender relations are transformed (Aarseth, 2009; Meah,
2014a, 2014b). In Norway – a country that is comparable to Sweden in terms of gender
equality ideals – Aarseth (2009: 431) argued that cooking has turned into ‘a new degend-
ered domestic devotion’ of middle-class lifestyle projects.
Regardless of whether one would go so far as claiming that Scandinavian domestic
food practices have become degendered among the middle class, Aarseth’s theoretical
point is important; men’s and women’s engagements with food are indeed changing –
not merely in terms of the time devoted to different activities but also in terms of their
gendered meanings. This theoretical point is important to apply when studying meal
sociality as well. For example, some men see domestic cooking as a source of family
sociality (Aarseth and Olsen, 2008). Similarly, studies from different parts of the Western
world have indicated that food responsibilities have for some become incorporated into
fathering (Metcalfe et al., 2009; Owen et al., 2010; Namie and Timmons, 2014). In addi-
tion, some men who enter into (heterosexual) partnerships strive to improve their cook-
ing for the sake of their partners (Bove and Sobal, 2006; Kemmer et al., 1998; Sellaeg
and Chapman, 2008).
A study of the meal practices of middle-class Swedish families highlighted the nego-
tiations of domestic responsibilities among people living in a country that espouses an
ideology of gender equality (Anving, 2012). However, although the study details the
negotiations to create a gender-equal relationship through meal practices, we learn very
little about the men. Sweden is not only a country in which gender equality is a cultural
norm but also one with decades of public efforts to construct caring and domestically
responsible masculinities, for example, through educating men in domestic chores and
parenting (Hirdman, 1998; Klinth, 2008). As early as the 1990s, Jansson (1995) sug-
gested that domestic food practices were considered a responsibility that Swedish men,
Neuman et al. 819

in contrast with their British counterparts at the time, were expected to assume, and not
merely a choice for men to make depending on whether they considered cooking fun or
not. A recent qualitative study also suggests this (Neuman et al., 2015), and the Swedish
gender gap in time devoted to housework stands out as small compared to other countries
in the European Union (de Bonfils et al., 2013). However, quantitative studies fail to
unpack the meanings and expressed sociality of the tasks that they measure. Consequently,
we are interested in specifically examining how masculinity and sociality are constructed
through men’s stories about everyday domestic cooking.

Method
This study is based on interviews with 31 men, aged between 22 and 88. Most interviews
were conducted with two men at the same time, with two interviews carried out in groups
of three and three individual interviews. Thus, a total of 16 interviews were conducted,
lasting between 47 minutes and just over 2 hours. The recruitment process is best
explained as purposeful sampling, in which the researcher is actively striving to select
what s/he considers to be ‘information-rich cases for in-depth study, [. . .] central to the
purpose of the inquiry’ (Patton, 2015: 264). The interviewer asked men in public places
(a gym, activity places for older people, on the street), contacted them through social
media or through gatekeepers. The primary contact was informed about his rights as a
research participant and then asked to bring a male acqaintance to the interview. The
same information was then given to the acqaintance(s). The majority of interviews were
conducted in the homes of one of the men; however, some were conducted in separated
rooms of public places.
Individual interviews were conducted if the primary contact did not find a suitable
acquaintance to bring to the interview. The groups of three were spontaneuos in which a
third person joined the interview unanticipated. The only systematic difference that we
have noticed due to different compositions of the interviews is the extent to which the
interviewer intervened. When more than one man was interviewed, they interacted and
discussed more with each other. But in terms of the research questions – those of the
sociality of cooking in everyday life – we contend that there were no systematic differ-
ences in the content of the material that was generated by participants. Despite the lack
of systematic differences in content it is yet plausible that ‘socially desirable’ accounts
were given. We do not consider this to be a bias, however. In fact, socially desirable
responses offer an insight into our interest in ideas about ‘Swedish men’ generally; what
we can learn about men, masculinities and gender ideals in a Swedish context.
The interview was open but with an interview guide comprising several broad themes
which were covered. The opening question was ‘What is food?’ Depending on the direc-
tion in the proceeding discussion, further questions were asked. Examples of questions
related to this article were ‘Do you like to cook?’, ‘Who cooks in your household?’,
‘Who cooked when you were growing up?’ and ‘When did you learn to cook?’
Interviewees usually came around to the subjects of cooking for or with others as a result
of the broader questions that were asked.
Our specific interview approach – with acquainted men talking to each other – was
inspired by previous work analysing men’s talk from different sociolinguistic perspec-
tives (Coates, 2003; Edley and Wetherell, 1999; Gough and Edwards, 1998). We were
820 The Sociological Review 65(4)

interested in seeing what happened when men struck up conversations with each other,
and with the male interviewer (the first author), about subjects so strongly associated
with women and femininity, such as everyday domestic cooking (see also Neuman et al.,
2015).
One middle-aged man was unemployed, one of the younger men was a caretaker, and
a few of the older men were working-class retirees. Apart from these informants, we
define the majority of men as middle class (based on occupations) or highly educated
(e.g. university students). Whereas class is still an important aspect in the social relations
of food (cf. Atkinson and Deeming, 2015), we found no clearly class-related patterns in
our analysis. Instead, the unequivocal differentiator was age. Most interviewed men
lived in the same Swedish city but originated from different parts of the country. Two
lived in Stockholm, three in a smaller city in the middle of the country and two in a rural
municipality. One was an immigrant from another Nordic country and two others men-
tioned other ethnic backgrounds than Swedish (albeit born and raised in Sweden). There
was also a wide range of interest in food represented among interviewees. This too was
purposeful; we wanted to interview men who loved food and cooking but also men who
were uninterested.
All interviews were transcribed and thematically analysed (Braun and Clarke, 2006).
In the process of analysis, all transcriptions were structured in a coding scheme using a
spreadsheet program. Each participant was lined up in his respective horizontal row and
each code in a vertical column. If the discussion topic represented by a code was talked
about by a participant, we marked the code on this participant’s particular row with a ‘1’,
and if not, with a ‘0’. In this way, the spreadsheet illustrated who had which codes and
which of the participants’ codes appeared more or less frequently. The purpose of this
coding strategy was to identify qualitative patterns in the data that were central as
opposed to merely peripheral.
The codes were structured into several narrow themes, which, after further analysis,
were assembled into broader categories and, finally, put into three general categories. In
the analysis, we systematically looked for discussions about cooking. The quotes are
chosen as examples of patterns and diversities. As the reader will notice, there are no
clear distinctions between the categories; the differences are fluid and the categories
overlap. For purposes of anonymity, all the participants’ names have been fictionalized.
The letter ‘N’ denotes the interviewer.

Findings
The three categories that we identified in the analysis were about cooking for oneself, for
someone else and with someone else. These are elaborated in the following.

For oneself
The first category of cooking sociality had to do with how the men framed domestic
cooking as an act for themselves. For example, Karl, a 23-year-old university student,
expressed rather self-oriented reasons for cooking. ‘I think that I want to be able to cook
for my own self-worth’ he said. Not being able to cook was for him ‘as if you had some-
body who picks you up from school and drives you there every day [. . .] it feels like
Neuman et al. 821

you’re you’re not paying your dues.’ His ability to cook and to offer food to others thus
seemed to be a matter of his own self-respect and doing the right thing. His friend and
fellow student Lee agreed and considered cooking almost a social obligation. His parents
had cooked for him and thus, he said, he was expected to do the same as a man. Karl
continued:
Karl: 
But it’s also a bit like this when we, like I feel in any case, guys our age who
have just left home and stuff. Yeah like ‘Can you cook?’ Oh well, kind of
things like that. [. . .] it’s well known that you, yeah us guys aren’t supposed
to be able to cook (Lee: Hehe) if you [N] know what I mean (N: Mhm).

The discussion among Karl and Lee suggests an interesting phenomenon of young men
who positioned themselves as domestic cooks by primarily fulfilling a perceived cultural
duty as a man of his age. As if their main social reasons for cooking were to prove their
own competences rather than, say, to express friendship or love.
Michael, a 24-year-old university student, enjoyed giving food to others, but he also
said that he enjoyed ‘having really good food as a self-reward’. His friend Philip, 23
years old and also a university student, gave a similar account but focused more on the
reciprocity of giving; he liked to hunt and to make something out of his kill to offer his
friends and his girlfriend: ‘. . . it’s extra cool (Michael: Yeah it’s really cool like) [. . .] it’s
like “Yep, I’ve shot this one” and then you can tell them a bit about how it all happened’.
It is clear that these men gave self-oriented accounts of their cooking, especially Philip’s
hunting which is a leisure activity with traditionally masculine connotations (cf. Aarseth,
2009); to shoot something and to boast about it. But the self-orientation was not without
considerations of others. Later in the same interview, they both took a clear stance on the
limit to how much they, as men, could accept cooking as only a gift to themselves.

Philip: It’s that attitude, I think it is more common in our generation (N: Mhm),
you know, that it should be equal. Well, I don’t want anybody to be cook-
ing for me, so (Michael: [Laughs]) . . .
[. . .]
Michael: 
[Laughs] That was the first thing my grandma asked when I told her I’d
got together with [name of girlfriend], my girlfriend [Laughs] (N: Mhm)
‘Does she cook for you then?’ [puts on a voice] (N: [Laughs]) ‘and
clean?’ [Laughs] I don’t know how to answer that.

The excerpt suggests that as egalitarian Swedish men the informants cannot just accept
that someone else does all the cooking. Michael’s self-rewards in private and Philip’s
moments of success with his own culinary projects (hunting, cooking and serving)
seemed to be self-oriented and a matter of cooking as a lifestyle choice (cf. Hollows,
2003). But at the same time, they expressed unselfish reasons for cooking, and thus in
concordance with their own moral imperatives. But that was where they drew the line.
For these young men, the very idea of putting all responsibilities for food on women’s
shoulders rather seemed to be a remnant of a gender-unequal past, symbolized by
Michael’s grandmother.
822 The Sociological Review 65(4)

Fredrik, a 53-year-old divorced father and freelancing journalist, found it ‘incred-

ibly boring’ to eat alone. Eating alone was a boring necessity for Fredrik; nothing
more than a necessary evil in order to ingest food, and this did not motivate him to
spend any time on cooking. In contrast, Fredrik discussed his take on eating when his
son is at home.

Fredrik: 
. . . when my son comes over of course, or friends or people, then, then it’s
like really fun to make food (N: Mhm), to cook and stuff so that, that’s
very closely linked together. This eating on your own, it’s something that
I, that kind of creates [. . .] a different way of thinking. Then you become,
then you become just some kind of prehistoric reptile [. . .] just fulfilling
[basic needs].

Here cooking is framed as closely connected to commensality. In one sense, it was for
others but by no means framed as entirely altruistic. He expressed it as more enjoyable
to cook, both as a gift to others and for his own sake; solitary eating and cooking simply
seemed to be boring and strictly functional, whereas commensality was more fun. His
friend Andreas, a 50-year-old consultant and professional cook, said that he cooked most
of the food for his wife and five children. He agreed with Fredrik that solitary meals can
be made in ways described as insufficient (culinary or nutritionally) in contrast to meals
prepared for the family. However, for him, solitary cooking could also symbolize a per-
sonal freedom to gratify himself with something tasty and simple.

Andreas: 
. . . occasionally you can take the opportunity to eat on your own in a
way that you perhaps wouldn’t necessarily do with your whole family
(N: Mhm) like, like some. I can’t come up with a very good example but
sometimes my meal has consisted of a big piece of meat and possibly a
tomato salad [. . .]. I don’t know if I’d serve it to my family in that way
like (Fredrik: No!). Then I’d of course make sure that there was a bit
more to it (N: Yeah). Some carbs and some salad and whatever. But when
it’s just me, I can put together such a must-have thing (Fredrik: Mhm) a
pound of sirloin steak [. . .] on the odd occasion [. . .] just to be time-
efficient sometimes (Fredrik: Mhm, exactly), it’s just such a simple way
like (N: Mm), sear it on both sides and then eat it.

Family cooking was not de-emphasized (cf. Szabo, 2014) but solitude could still be used
as an opportunity for individual leisure and artistry. Somewhat later in the same inter-
view, Andreas also mentioned the financial constraints of serving a family of seven such
large amounts of sirloin steak. So there seemed to be several aspects of his unconven-
tional solitary meals that did not really fit his life as a family father. Fredrik could iden-
tify with such meals, and generally their respective stories were very similar on this
subject. Both emphasized their fatherly duties, although this was clearer in the accounts
of Andreas, who still had small children at home. This responsibility, and this reason for
elaborate cooking, was mentioned by all the younger and middle-aged fathers but not by
the older men.
Neuman et al. 823

The self-orientation that we argue for here is twofold: the self-provision of food but
also the self-satisfaction expressed in sharing or parading the fruits of one’s efforts. In
relation to masculinity, this section demonstrates that the stories indeed contain elements
of cooking for the sake of self-satisfaction that are similar to an often-discussed dis-
course of masculine cooking as self-oriented leisure. As we can see, there are also ele-
ments of self-orientation that centre on the image of a proper (and egalitarian) Swedish
man as well as on the personal joy of commensality and the appreciation of one’s efforts.

For someone else

Another way of talking about the communal aspects of cooking was to frame it as per-
formed entirely for the sake of others. Let us return to Fredrik and Andreas; they talked
about ‘quality’ and were asked to further explain what this meant to them. For Andreas,
quality had to do with the time spent and the ‘act of love’ of providing for someone else.
This led him to talk about his family.

Andreas: 
. . . quite generally, sometimes I long for quality, meaning like, tasty,
tender, unusual, different [. . .] once in a while it can feel really good to
treat the family to something (N: Mhm) that isn’t everyday food [. . .] I
like that.
N:  Can you come up with any examples of that? Something a bit different
that you like to treat them to?
Andreas: 
Yeah, if I find fresh lamb (N: Mhm) and it’s not stupidly expensive, I buy
it even if I had something else planned for dinner (N: Mhm) [. . .] I think
it’s good if my kids can eat something else than, than um chicken and
pork (N: Mhm). So that they understand that there’s (Fredrik: Mhm) a
bigger, a bigger spectra [sic] (N: Mhm). Or if there’s a fun [i.e. unusual
and interesting] vegetable or a fun fruit that maybe I myself have never
seen before.

His story seemed to go from what he enjoyed himself to giving something extra to his
family to a fatherhood responsibility of teaching children about a broader spectrum of
available foods. In the interview with David and his colleagues Thomas and Lars, all
three of whom were research engineers for a private company, a discussion came up
about why, as they perceived it, the gendered division of domestic foodwork was in tran-
sition and why famous chefs were almost exclusively male (a perception that most par-
ticipants shared). When asked whether this was something that they, apart from their
perceptions of Swedish society in general, could recognize in themselves as well, they
responded:

Thomas: 
It’s like there’s two sides to it. The one side has to do with basic needs,
since (N: Mhm) when nobody else is home, then we’ve got to cook. And
if the missus is not home, then the husband has to do it or yeah, maybe
even if the missus is home, the man cooks. And then the other side has to
do with fun, and you’re going to have a celebration and throw a party or
824 The Sociological Review 65(4)

something and cook some kind of food. There’s like two sides (N: Mhm)
that don’t exactly go together, I think.
Lars: 
It also has a lot to do with how much time you have (Thomas: Mhm). On
the weekend, you often have time (Thomas: Mhm yes). Then we bake and
stuff. And if we cook, it’s often for [the children].

A distinction is made here between domestic responsibility and elaborate cooking for
parties and leisure activities, which are portrayed as essentially different (cf. Kaufmann,
2010). The rationalization of the division of everyday housework and the mealtime com-
pany seemed to be their own reasons for cooking, which appeared rather mundane in
general but increasingly important when children were involved. Their scepticism of the
influence of celebrity chefs was not a general pattern in the data, however. Informants
had very different views on this matter; some thought that it affected men considerably
and others did not.
Christian, a 22-year-old student, and his friend Patrik, a 25-year-old administrator,
lived in different mixed-sex collectives, and they made it clear that cooking for others
meant putting more care and attention into it.

Christian: 
Like you, you gladly invest a lot more resources in your cooking if it
like, if it makes people happy, no matter if it’s yourself or other people.
Um but then it’s also like you [Patrik] said earlier, when you cook with
other people, there’s like, well, a little bit of pressure that, that you
need to cook food that’s as good as everyone else’s (N: Mhm).
Patrik:  Well, I think, I would probably say that it’s about giving actually. [. . .]
I really think that my, those I cook with would accept, with no com-
plaints, a lower standard than the one I keep and sometimes the one
they keep (N: Mhm). Um so I think it’s about that. No, but I want us to,
yeah partly for my own sake, I want to eat good food, but I also want
them to eat good food (N: Mhm). It makes them happy, and it makes
me happy that they’re happy like, yeah that they’re happy.

In this quote, Christian and Patrik expressed gift-giving and other-oriented care. Several
other interviewed men did the same. Similar findings among men have also been dem-
onstrated by authors such as Meah (2014a), Mechling (2005) and Deutsch (2005). For
such men, the gift focused on friends. However, this was not a gift that totally lacked
reciprocal enjoyment but still an effort expressed as intended for others. Furthermore, it
was not without a perceived pressure to perform; something too that several of the
younger men talked about.

With someone else

The men also talked about cooking together and accounted for it as something more than
just the means to an end. According to Ernst, a 79-year-old retired geographer, there was
‘a small group of men who are really enthusiastic about cooking’. He pointed out that he
was not one of them, but he assumed that there must be some people, men and women,
Neuman et al. 825

who enjoy meeting up to cook together. He also mentioned cooking courses for older
men; a type of course that another of the older men in the sample, Gerhard, a 79-year-old
retired glazier, had actually participated in. This course had consisted of ‘just regular
guys [. . .] there wasn’t anybody special’.
However, cooking together with other men and women of the same age was clearly a
more profound part of the lives of the younger men. In a few instances, older and middle-
aged men portrayed ‘younger’ people as also having a different approach to dining com-
pany than what they recognized in their own lives. In a discussion about Swedish men’s
cooking and foodwork in general, Andreas said the following.

Andreas: 
. . . I look at my oldest, who’s twenty-four, turning twenty-five this year
(Fredrik: Mhm). Um and he’s now single [. . .] I seem to get this kind of
impression that he and some of his friends make such one-off efforts (N:
Mhm) where they’re really focused on cooking, from scratch, and it can
take its time and sometimes they do it together [. . .] Like one day, ‘Yeah
well on Saturday come to my place in the afternoon, we’ll play some
good records, (Fredrik: Mhm) have some coffee and then cook dinner
together’ (Fredrik: Mhm). That’s how they spend time together some-
times (N: Mhm)
N: Him and his male friends then?
Andreas: 
Yeah (N: Yeah). Not that they’re food nerds (N: No), but because it’s, I
think that they just, I don’t know, a fun way. And they don’t always do it
(Fredrik: Mhm) but I’ve noticed that it’s a regular feature . . .

Andreas’s son and his male friends shopped together, listened to records, had some
coffee and prepared some food, ‘there’s no stress’. Fredrik agreed with Andreas’s story
but also advanced the argument to include a broader type of social interaction among
younger generations, exemplified by his 23-year-old daughter. He had observed that:

Fredrik: 
. . . it’s like a thing, you cook together and spend several hours together.
And it’s not like one of you have got everything ready and stands there
like a host holding (N: Mhm) a napkin and like, ‘Welcome!’ (Andreas:
Mhm) and all those classic things, the way that I’ve maybe been brought
up (N: Mhm) and that I still usually do, which, which is nice. But this
thing is like when people, people flock in (Andreas: Mhm) they bring
something and if they’ve forgotten something, they go and buy it…

Fredrik described less structured and less formal types of sociality among young adults,
an even more profound blurring of young people’s private boundaries than what Andreas
mentioned. This is described by two onlooking middle-aged men who explicitly saw this
as something positive ‘as you would have wanted it to be’, as Fredrik put it. This is also
something that he contrasted with ‘the classic’ dinner practices of a single host waving a
napkin and welcoming guests to an immaculate home. He did not proclaim the death of
the formal dinner party but expressed awareness of a generational transition. And as our
data from younger men show, Fredrik’s and Andreas’s observations are confirmed.
Michael’s and Philip’s stories serve as an example.
826 The Sociological Review 65(4)

Philip: Yeah, but I guess it’s mostly when you have time to cook [. . .] then the
cooking itself is a large part [. . .] you don’t just eat dinner together but
you perhaps cook the meal together and then you do, you do something
together (N: Mhm) (Michael: Mhm) [. . .]. It becomes, yeah, it becomes
like a hobby where you disconnect from everything else. It’s like any-
thing else, like going to the gym and stuff. Cooking can be the same
(Michael: Mhm). That’s what I think.
Michael: 
Yeah, it’s a blast when you have time to cook something that you think
will taste really good. That you can [. . .] like, when you’ve stood there
all day and done it as a fun activity (N: Mhm) together so you can eat it
together and enjoy it together.

Cooking was framed as yet another social activity when time allowed, and not only eating
together. Commensality was indeed an important aspect of their stories, but their expressed
domestic-meal sociality went beyond commensality, and equally important was the actual
preparation of food. Philip also enjoyed fishing, hunting and picking mushrooms because
‘then it becomes extra (Michael: Mhm) fun that it’s the whole chain (N: Mhm). It may be
that you’ve done, you’ve done everything together with the people or the person you’re
going to cook with.’ The hunting, the fishing and the cooking thus had functions of social-
ity for him. It is not as if one is ‘more social’ than the other, it is rather expressed as a chain
of meal sociality. Neither Michael nor Philip expressed any ambitions for culinary extrav-
aganzas, however. And the same can be said for the two friends Marcus, a university stu-
dent who enjoyed cooking, and Peter, a teacher who did not. However, they also discussed
a mutual scepticism of ‘pretentious’ food (Marcus’s own words) and social expectations
to cook elaborate food. Marcus told a story about a ‘group of guys’ who regularly dined.
Sometimes they had ‘made pulled pork or something’. But one time, before a gig, he
could not be bothered and suggested hot dogs. ‘Everyone was like, “Yeah, that’s fine!” [N:
Laughs] It doesn’t like get any better.’ Simple things like hot dogs and beer sufficed in the
right company. It was enough to merely hang out; cooking with friends could be one of
several activities, but the main thing was the company, and not the food to be eaten. Later
in the discussion between Marcus and Peter, Marcus continued on the subject of expecta-
tions and his own preferences. He argued that:

Marcus: 
… you can cook food together (N: Mhm) um it can be a nice thing like
(Peter: Yeah) ‘Yeah, just chop some onion and I’ll peel the potatoes then
we’ll cook a steak’ and then it’s, it’s kind of good, the cooking itself
becomes a social thing too (N: Mhm) and I think that it can be a lot of fun
to just stand there and shoot the shit and drink beer and like cook (Peter:
Mhm)

Once again, the practice of cooking and not the food itself was in focus; chopping
onions and peeling potatoes were considered a ‘nice time’. The quotes represent a clear
case of male homosociality and also a masculine leisure of drinking while cooking (cf.
Szabo, 2013). But it is nevertheless interesting that a task with such strong historical
associations with women and femininity, such as domestic cooking, has become an
event for men to socialize. Previous works about male homosocial cooking have studied
Neuman et al. 827

male-dominated settings (Mechling, 2005; Deutsch, 2005; Wilk and Hintlian, 2005),
media representations (Brownlie and Hewer, 2007; Leer, 2013), or domestic cooking
without any theorizations of its sociable functions similar to commensality (Natalier,
2003; Meah and Jackson, 2013; Julier, 2013; Meah, 2014a, 2014b). The most striking
difference in our findings is the seemingly low priority of the finished meal. The culi-
nary end-product did not seem to be more important than good enough for Marcus – it
was the sociality of the cooking that he emphasized.
Last but not least, in addition to the social aspect of cooking with friends and partners,
some men also mentioned the sociality of cooking with children. David, a 46-year-old
research engineer, claimed that his cooking skills came from his years of raising a daugh-
ter (in her late teens at the time of the interview).

David: 
. . . I guess it was mostly when my child was little actually, I started to have
a go at all this (N: Mhm) and recipes and stuff [. . .]. Baked a bit with her
and stuff like that too (N: Mm) and that was kind of fun to do [. . .]. But
apart from that, I’m like um, I’m no great cook, um myself like (N: Mhm).
I don’t have much interest (N: No). But I wish I was better at it.

As the quote suggests, cooking was not as closely linked to eating for David as it was for
Fredrik and Andreas, but rather to socializing with his small daughter. In sum, cooking
with others was based on three main relationships: father–child, (female) partners and
friends. Common to all three was the practice of cooking as the glue of social bonds. In
addition, cooking had more than an instrumental value as the means to a greater end (the
meal); it was a social activity with inherent values.

Conclusion
This study demonstrates how contemporary men and masculinities in Sweden can be con-
nected to general transitions in the gendered division of domestic work and in the sociality
of meals in everyday life. As part of a desirable masculinity (loyal friend, responsible
father, good husband or boyfriend, etc.), everyday cooking – both in stories about some of
the men themselves but also in stories about ‘other’ men – is included in a cultural image
of contemporary Swedish men. A cultural figure said to represent a ‘new’ (caring, domes-
tically responsible, and egalitarian) masculinity is the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver
(Hollows, 2003; Leer, 2013). Hollows (2003) has argued that Oliver ‘incorporates what
have traditionally been seen as elements of feminine domestic practice into a domestic
culinary masculinity’ (p. 237); a public man who cooks for family and friends but in a
‘laddish’ way free of obligations, avoiding seriousness and rejecting elite cuisines.
In contrast to this public image of a domestic masculinity enacted by a trained culinary
expert, the men in our study who claimed to cook regularly said that cooking had social
values even though they were not necessarily experts and definitely did not see them-
selves as ‘lads’ without obligations. Domestic cooking was expressed both as a responsi-
bility that modern, gender-equal Swedish men ought to assume but also as leisure and as
a way to demonstrate one’s talent under the gaze of women and other men, such as
828 The Sociological Review 65(4)

Christian and Patrik in their mixed-sex collectives or Philip’s hunting and fishing. Thus,
it comprised a wide variety of social functions: caring, proving one’s worth as a modern
man, giving, showing off, treating oneself, and building communion.
Gorman-Murray (2008) argued that changes in domesticity and homemaking have
reconfigured masculinity, but also points out that ‘domestic masculinities’ are not by
default a matter of increasingly egalitarian gender relations. Rather, domestic mascu-
linities can both reproduce and challenge ‘traditional’ patriarchal relations in the home.
While his discussion focuses on domesticity generally, our study has seen similar ten-
dencies in relation to cooking. Furthermore, the domestic kitchen has been suggested as
a space for ‘shifting spatialized power and gendered subjectivities’ (Meah, 2014b: 684)
where we can see that gender relations are changing whereas a male privilege of choice
might still occur as a power imbalance deriving from social expectations on women to
nurture children and keep a clean home (cf. Lupton, 2000; Cairns et al., 2010). Moreover,
men’s appropriation of the domestic kitchen might also result in a loss of influence over
the private sphere and an increased burden of doing the less enjoyable household chores
(e.g. washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen) for women. We agree with this but
would also like to add that in our findings the expressed social functions of cooking was
not discussed in terms of ‘taking over’ or rejecting any other foodwork responsibilities.
Rather, it seems as if the traditionally ‘feminine’ traits of incorporating food with
responsibilities for building and maintaining relationships have become part of men’s
lives and gender practices as well. Although we cannot speak to whether or not expressed
values are practised in the home, this is how their food responsibilities and social values
were expressed. A recent study also showed that this sense of Swedish men’s self-
evident responsibility can be expressed about foodwork generally, not only about
cooking (Neuman et al., 2015). Thus, not only have we contributed further to the
research on gender and domestic work that suggests a transition in gender relations, but
also to the literature on gender, food and sociality. Meal sociality, it seems here, can go
beyond commensality.
Homosociality was expressed both in terms of how the men socialized with other men
around cooking and in the actual interview situation with the acquainted men and a male
interviewer talking with each other about food and cooking. However, sociality was even
more clearly part of cooking responsibilities, not only leisure but also part of fathering
and building and maintaining heterosocial relationships. And the men expressed sociality
through a presence of others that was not only physical, as when they cooked with others,
but also psychological and emotional when they cooked on their own. Men’s practices
might still be mainly homosocial in particular areas of society, but everyday cooking
could be a practice in which sociality transcends barriers of gender and age; as we have
shown here through discussions about men cooking for and with men, women and chil-
dren. However, the character of food responsibilities as a more fun option, or at least less
boring one, still persists. Based on our findings we suggest that sociological studies on
gender, food and the gendered division of domestic work need to further acknowledge
how cooking shares similar properties to those of commensality. The explanatory value
of the meal situation as the bearer of sociality might become weaker (at least in the
Western world) as gender relations and the status of domestic cooking are transitioning.
Neuman et al. 829

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the men who participated in the study and Philip K. Creswell for language
assistance.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.

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