Chop talk from the mezzaluna masters

AT a drinks party, a woman in our group drops a clanger.

AT a drinks party, a woman in our group drops a clanger.

She hates to cook and avoids it at all costs. If she could, she would feed the family cornflakes every night. You can almost taste the disapproval. As bad as smoking at the table after the fish course.

It wasn't always so tough to be challenged by a stove-top. Back in the day, public discourse rarely drifted to the best way to handle Wagyu. We thanked the cook at dinner parties but drew the line at deconstructing the dessert.

The silence on the lamb shanks suited the times. The singles were surviving on cheese and chardonnay after a long day in the office and the working mothers were taping lists to the fridge to wrangle the husband and kids into doing their share on the food front. I was bemused when a single colleague revealed she cooked every night just for herself, prepared to julienne the carrots at 9pm, if need be. Get a life, I thought, staggering out for Thai takeaway.

It was not that my generation couldn't cook. Many of us spent every Saturday afternoon as sub-teens getting to grips with the Mixmaster. My mother still has the Country Women's Association cookbook we pored over, so splattered it is hard to read the instructions. Cakes were king back then, the mark of a true cook and far more exciting than the soups and stews we learned to produce at an early age.

Some of my friends kept the faith when they grew up. Several could give Stephanie Alexander a run for her money these days. Serious cooks who know how to fillet a fish (without skiting) and feed you beautifully (without making you feel inadequate).

Still, they have been elbowed out of the way by gen-chef, a demographic that ranges from eight to 80 and is defined as much by its recent discovery of the mezzaluna as by experience in the kitchen. The fixation needs a little leavening. We're in danger of boring the pants off each other, especially at cocktail parties.

Still, the balsamic's out of the bottle and is having a remarkable influence on gender politics. Market researcher Rebecca Huntley noted recently it is the males of the tribe who now head home to cook dinner. Or at least the plumbers and electricians who finish work before dark. It seems the ached-for revolution in the division of labour in the home is being led by the old working class. Thank you MasterChef! Now if we could only get the white-collar lads home in time to blanch the fennel.