rollsroyceabudhabi

[cienie-isengardu]

My RepCom Musing: Men in kitchen... or lack of thereof

With more than twenty mouths to feed, meals at Kyrimorut had now acquired an industrial scale. The complex was more than a house. It was yaim-part barracks, part hotel, part married quarters, part farmhouse, the archetypal Mandalorian clan home. They were lucky that Laseema, Atin's Twi'lek wife, had worked in a restaurant and so could manage a kitchen. She knew all the complicated stuff about portion sizes and making sure everything was ready at the same time. Ny was happy to take orders from her.

Imperial Commando: 501st

I’m trying very hard to remember that this paragraph shows us the Ny’s POV but even then this does not put men of the RC series in a good light. I’m sorry but oh so genius NULLs who can create a complicated programs presumably based on mathematical algorithms to steal incredible amount of money from banks and who can pilot a hybrid of space and submarine ship just by reading manual couldn’t figure out how to deal with portion sizes or cooking two things at the same time? Even working together, in pairs or ya know, all the six super soldiers putting their big brain to use? I’m sorry, Mandalorian veterans who are soldiers and part of the army all their lives aren’t capable of going into the kitchen to make a proper meal for their family because 20 people to feed is such a horrible and difficult task? Laseema is awesome, sure, but she didn’t married Atin to be tied to kitchen because men apparently are fucking useless in this homestead. Not to mention she worked as waitress and sex-worker dancer, not as cook which is a huge difference between serving food and preparing it.

And yeah, Ny may just assume the Skirata clan is lucky to have Laseema to take care of things because feeding so many people is hard and she is doing so well, but I think it could be much easier if the men actually deign to come to help. Because when it comes to cooking meals, it is Laseema, Besany, Jilka, Ruu Skirata, Ny (on her own choice to help) and even Arla Fett:

In the kitchen, Vau, Uthan, and Gilamar sat at the table watching the holonews, while Besany and Jilka helped Arla serve up the meals. It was the first time Arla had joined them. She looked lost, but then a kitchen was a chaotic, noisy place after years in a padded cell.

Like, SERIOUSLY? I’m so angry I’m willing to quote all the moments when our female characters are mentioned closely tied to kitchen and cooking just to prove this point.

The only two (three) men I’m willing to give some slack are:

ATIN

Who gutted and most likely scraped the fish scales for Laseema:

Ny was surprised by the rebuke, but Jilka didn't snap back. She went on chopping, eyes fixed on the table. Atin came in carrying a plastoid bowl full of gleaming freshly caught fish.

"Kaminoans eat fish, don't they?" he said, as if he was having second thoughts. "I never asked back in Tipoca. We didn't eat with them."

Laseema picked up a fish by its tail. "Did you gut them properly?"

"Of course I did. And it's going to take me ages to get the smell off my hands."

"You're a darling. Now all I need is some gihaal stock to poach them in."

CORR

Corr poked his head around the kitchen door. Ny wondered if Jilka could tell all the clones apart yet.

"Can I hide in here, please, ladies?" He gave them his best cheeky-boy smile and swaggered in. "The atmosphere's a bit intense out there. Aiwha-bait alert."

"Since when does the kitchen have a FEMALES ONLY sign outside?" Jilka asked. "Make yourself useful, soldier."

Corr winked, took the knife from her hand, and began chopping with surprising speed and skill. The more surprising thing was that she let him.

and

"Who's for more eggs?" Corr yelled over the hubbub. He'd volunteered for kitchen detail with Ny this week, probably to impress Jilka, and Ordo decided it was working. She watched Corr when she thought he wasn't looking. "Make the most of these. The nuna can't keep up with you greedy shab'ikase. It'll be boiled mealgrain until they start laying again."

(and yeah, the first mention of Corr’s help was about him trying to hide in kitchen to avoid a tense atmosphere created by Kal meeting a Kaminoan Jedi survivor of Purge and later, he tried to impress Jilka but he at least was in the kitchen helping ladies)

and honorable mention of WALON VAU:

While Besany wrestled with dough, and Scout and Ruu sliced the haunch of shatual that Mird and Vau had hunted, Ny made igatli from scratch, following a recipe on a datapad propped on the kitchen table.

And yes, Fi, Parja and Corr hunted too and generally all members of the clan clan helped with fishing, but the text at least strongly suggests that Scout and Ruu got not so much as a hunted animal to deal with, but skinned (and gutted?) one so the meat is ready to be portioned for a meal or preserved to eat in the future.

That is. The three men who are apparently reliable. And surprise, surprise none of them is Kal or trained from start Kal’s boys. Geez.