Cookers vs. cleaners

We hear the phrase "cooking and cleaning" so much that we might think the two activities naturally go together. All they share, though, is their private, domestic setting — the phrase usually signals how domestic or not-so-domestic a woman is, or is expected to be.

Cookers are more corporeal and in touch with their senses, capable of feeling joy, and attentive to others. Cooking can be a social activity, at the very least the meal is social (unless you're dining alone). The cook makes a choice to include others in the meal (they could have prepared a smaller quantity of food), which shows their thoughtfulness.

Cleaners are more cerebral and cut off from their surroundings (which they feel are dangerous or contaminating), rarely experience elation, and are more self-focused. Cleaning is never fun, social, or for the benefit of others (always for the self — get those yucky germs away from me / straighten up the living room, and if it happens to benefit others living here or passing through, then lucky for them.)

Cookers are more likely to be found in pastoralist cultures, while cleaners are more likely to hail from farming cultures. Farming leads to sedentary high-density living, making for a dirtier and more infectious environment, and putting farmers more on their guard for tidying up and napalming household surfaces. Livestock herding allows people to spread out more thinly and to pick up and move away from a nasty area, not to mention the central role of hospitality and providing meals for guests. The culture of honor is the culture of hospitality -- an obsession with reciprocity, whether in a helpful or harmful manner.

You don't find too many symmetric-stackers and containerizers in Southern Europe, where they'd prefer to prepare sensual meals that hit the spot. Farther toward the Balto-Slavic Northeast, people are more likely to be vacuum junkies and make a point of showering every day. Along the faultline running through Germany, folks are known for both — the Swabian housewife who is always sweeping outside her house, in between preparing homecooked meals for her family and the community. Even if they're outside their native habitat, like the Alpine Amish in America.

Southern cooking, but Northern efficiency.

That ought to be a warning sign about women — those who bring up how much they like to clean, trying to lure the man in with dreams of domestic devotion, only to find out that she cannot and will not cook, and that her senses don't light up even when someone else prepares a sumptuous meal for her. Like, what response were you expecting from a neat freak?

Also ties in with the con-artistry of Balto-Slavic gold-diggers and Asian mail-order brides. The magazine holder is dust-free, but my belly is empty. A word to the wise.