My boyfriend does 99% of food buying, preparation and cleaning up. He’s not a huge fan of my cooking (thinks I rely on the microwave too much, for one thing), and I’m a huge fan of not cooking (left to myself I wouldn’t cook more than once a week and consider pasta or rice an acceptable meal on their own. He disagrees). We’re in our late twenties.

My nan (born about 1912) and grannie (born about 1930) did all the cooking for their families AFAIK. My grandad did have a Delia Smith cake recipe he made when us grandkids were coming to visit and my grandpa peels veg.

I always find it interesting whether people who are living together have even talked about who does what chore-wise. In most of the hetero couples I know where it’s not woman-does-everything-and-grumbles it seems to be a man cooks, woman does laundry trade-off.

Growing up, my dad was the pancakes guy. Maybe I’m just clinging to a remnant of my childhood.

But hey, I make great tortillas!

Now, husbeast makes breakfast, but that’s because I don’t eat it (at least not in the morning). He also has this thing where he won’t eat eggs unless he has cooked them. We split other cooking around work/school schedules, with it weighing a little heavy on me making dinner. I’m working on that, especially getting husbeast to realize that shopping isn’t just something you go do, but a chore that requires forethought and planning. And that being my sous chef isn’t a job you can do while sitting on the couch half the time

In the current household, the BF does the most cooking, including special event cooking and breakfasts (his garlic mushrooms are yummy). He certainly can cook up a storm.

I do a very occassional breakfast – soft boiled eggs with toast soldiers (we both like it, and it reminds us of our childhoods). But he does most of the cooking. Recently he mentioned that he likes to cook especially when he’s cooking for someone he loves.

For the most recent end of year festive season, we tried something different, and split the cooking about 50-50. I roasted a lamb (to have cold with lashings of mustard), made potato salad, and baked desert (cherry clafoutis). He did garlic honey soy chicken, bbq’ed prawns (in coriander, chili, and lime and lemon juice) and tomato salad.

I haven’t really been interested in cooking, and after my parents divorced my *big* responsibility was looking after the car, which suited me. Though in saying that my mum makes great food, and she certainly did most of the cooking (big event or otherwise).

Most of the guys I’ve dated long-term/lived with (n=7) have lived on their own for a while and know how to do day-to-day cooking. I did nearly all of the cooking with #1 because I was unemployed (but he’d do special-occasion cooking, including breakfast); and again did nearly all of the cooking with #2 because he claimed he ‘didn’t know how to cook’ (uh-huh); and with the rest we split the cooking depending on our respective work schedules. But each of them had special occasion/specialty dishes they liked to make – which included breakfasts (omelettes in particular; though one guy never cooked or ate anything other than cereal for breakfast), but as often as not were dinner dishes. So I haven’t seen the same consistent trend in my experience.

I have not seen any of my four parents cook breakfast food in over a year; it’s almost always bagels at Dad’s house and kashi or toast or yogurt at mom’s.

My Husband does *all* the subsistence cooking in our house. He likes to cook, I don’t. Except the guacamole – I do it better, and the breakfast food. I love breakfast food so much I put a moratorium on my aversion for cooking for that.

Growing up, my mom did the everyday cooking, my dad did the elaborate dinner-party dishes: the fettucini alfredo (from scratch – and I mean making the pasta), the chocolate mousse, the enchiladas from scratch. It started as a way to give my mom a break, but he started to love doing the big all-day cooking stuff. They split big event meals like Thanksgiving and Christmas about 50-50. But my mom does all breakfasts: eggs and buttermilk biscuits are my mom’s specialty! (except waffles, the waffle iron is one of my dad’s favorite toys.)