Why do most men like grilling better than cooking in a kitchen?

Grilling is FIYA! Manly manly FIYA! Kitchen is women’s work. Except my hubs is in there now putting together a yummy pasta salad. He does most of the cooking.

Once I fired up the grill. My ex (before he was my ex) said, “You’re not supposed to know how to do that! It’s a guy thing!” Sigh.

It’s a primitive thing, when Grog first discovered fire and found that roast mastodon was out of this world delicious. From Sabre tooth tiger to steak. lol

GA, @Coloma. That was the funniest answer I’ve read here in quite a while! ROFL

Lots of reasons.
Here are some, but the list is not totally inclusive:
1. It creates two completely different social spaces. The kitchen, where the women talk about women stuff, and the grill area, where the men talk about men stuff.
2. It is practical. Why heat up and smoke up the kitchen when you can do all of that outdoors and spare the kitchen the environmental problems of indoor cooking? Guys tend to be practical.
3. As you said, certain foods taste better grilled. Such foods are usually, in order of superior flavor on the grill, beef, chicken, fish. There is no subtlety involved in the cooking of such critters. It is either cooked just right or over cooked. Guys tend not to be that subtle.
4. It is fun. Working the grill is a form of tinkering, something guys love to do.
5. It involves fire. Human beings are mystically intrigued by fire, but guys, for whatever reason, are into fire more than women. Women are more into water. Why? Who knows, but it is a fact.
6. A grill has more personality than an oven. It is more temperamental, more unforgiving. Guys like the challenge, for the same reason they do not ask for directions. Why set the temperature dial on the oven, when you can personally work through temperature problems by your own initiative and ingenuity?
Etc.

In addition to the excellent reasons above, it gives us big hairy Grog-types license to wear an apron—as long as something silly is printed on it, of course.

FIRE!

The primal je ne sais quoi about the whole combustion process is like the blues; if you have to ask, you will never understand.

Because most people believe in myths of gender essentialism (“Men are like this, but women are like that”), such as those on josie’s list, and, under the pressure to follow cultural norms, arrange their likes and dislikes accordingly.

@Josie gets the cigar. Grills and grilling are sacred man passions like big block v-8 engines and Peckinpah movies. There are just too many things involved with grilling which fulfill forbidden boyhood fantasies. What 8 year old doesn’t dream of dousing stuff with flammable liquids and igniting the pile in glory. As soon as I can concoct a need for a big block v-8 equipped grill requiring the use of explosives, the financial security of me and my heirs should be satisfied for generations.

@2davidc8 That was inspired by talking about Gary Larsen in another Q. That guy is so brilliant, my favorite humorist/cartoonist of all time.

I so miss Gary Larsen. What happened to him? Oh shit. We’re in General….

@josie best answer!!

@josie Really excellent answer! I think there may be something to the guy’s area vs. girls area creating social zones. The “grilling is manly” thing is completely artificial and cultural, which is why it makes sense that there are cultural causes behind the scenes.

I like cooking (not baking though… too tempermental). Grilling always makes me nervous because it’s so easy to overcook/undercook your proteins. Timing and temperature are critical.

Maybe it’s a universal thing, in NZ too it is overwhelmingly men who seem to be in charge of the barbecue.

We’re socialized that way. Men typically do it, so they continue to do it. Generation after generation. Fire and the outdoors. Man stuff.