“Boys Who Can Cook”: This Absurd Instagram Account Is Sharing The Cooking Memes We All Need
Interview
You don’t have to be Gordon Ramsay or Anthony Bourdain to like cooking. In fact, you don’t even have to like cooking to have a taste for cooking memes.
Because let me tell you that the culinary world is one of the biggest sources of absurdity, where anything that can go wrong will and where all common sense can be ignored. The result is high-quality entertainment, just like this Instagram page known as “Boys Who Can Cook.” Buckle up your seatbelt for some of the most random cooking memes that somehow speak to your inner occasional chef.
“Food is more than nourishment,” the pediatric dietitian and feeding expert Rachel Rothman, MS, RD, CLEC, who is also the owner of Nutrition in Bloom, told Bored Panda via email. Scroll down for Rachel’s insights about the significance of food in our culture, as well as why social media is obsessed with it.
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Food is about culture, history, joy, memories, and tradition, Rachel argues. “From a social standpoint, food connects us with friends, family, acquaintances, and coworkers. When you think about get-togethers with others, how often does it involve food?”
“The universality of food connects us in a way that not many other things can. The smell or taste of a specific food can trigger vivid memories from the past, both positive and negative. The creation and repetition of these memories form traditions that are critical to the bonds which bring us together,” she explained.
This is actually the content I want from CNN. I would love to watch the news and be delighted.
We asked why food plays such a big role in internet culture and social media. Rachel explained that since eating is an essential, universal daily activity, there's a very large potential audience for content about food.
“When you combine that universality with the internet's obsession with authenticity, niche food traditions can explode into the mainstream in exciting ways,” she said.
“The same virality can also have questionable consequences, whether by amplifying fad diets, introducing odd creations (pink sauce, anyone?) or playing into the negative stereotypes about what constitutes a healthy body size,” Rachel commented.
Similarly, in our previous interview with Dana Harron, Psy.D., a licensed clinical psychologist and the founder of Monarch Wellness & Psychotherapy, explained that "food is a big part of internet culture because it's a big part of our lives! Food is not just about nourishing our bodies, it serves a social function.”
According to her, gathering around shared food has been a vital part of cultures for millennia. “We find connectedness through sharing something that is so vital to our survival."
Meanwhile, in the internet age, Dr. Harron argues that social bonding over food takes a somewhat different form. “We 'meme' about food as a way of staying connected to our bodies and each other. Food has also come to serve an outsized function in many cultures; for example, in American culture many foods are seen as taboo but also reified, leaving many people with a deep conflict when they desire desserts or other foods that have been deemed 'unhealthy,'" Harron explained previously.
Imagine how much better it would taste if there was real cheese on it. And if it wasn’t burnt.
Nope. Kraft American singles beats any other grilled cheese worldwide. I've traveled enough to know that the rest of the world is doing it wrong.
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A cheese sandwich with fake cheese and fake bread! You should be allowed to pay with Monopoly banknotes.
I usually use sharp cheddar for my grilled cheese, but be that as it may, I've never paid much attention to food snobs of any variety. They're entitled to their opinions, and the rest of us are entitled to ignore them. ;-)
It was Velveeta slices for my family when I was a kid XD but same, friend, same
Velveeta. I didn't know what cheese was until I was 21
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I tell the haters it"s a slice of cheese sauce, no one expects it to be full cheese.
Same with Velveeta. My mom made our grilled cheese with it when I was little. Now in my 50’s and can’t eat one with any other cheese. So salty and gooey. My one guilty food. And yes, I’m American.
"American cheese" as in plastic wrapped singles are awful. I was raised on them. Then when I was 20 I met a guy who made me a toasted cheese for breakfast. Fresh sliced cheddar, no butter! How delicious and easy...fast forward to when I met my husband and he hated cheese. His mom only used a Kraft singles too. He likes cheese now. Not as much as I do but he appreciates the different flavors and will try them. Also "America" makes some great cheeses. If you live near an Amish community or any farmland you probably know how yummy and fresh the cheese are!
The small rural town I grew up and lived in most of my life was home of Arnold Nawrocki. The man who invented the machine that wraps individual slices of cheese in 1959 or there about. The cheese plant was eventually bought out by Schriber Foods who still make a particular cheese call Cooper sharp and it comes wrapped in the original label bearing the plant name.
is it weird that I hate grilled cheese? I don't see why anybody likes it.
This is why Kraft singles are still around. They do ONE thing right and they do it SO DAMN RIGHT.
If nostalgia had a flavor it would be this. A grilled cheese with Kraft singles and a can of Campbell's tomato soup.
Rogue River Blue was voted best cheese in the world by 250 judges in Italy 2019/2020. It was made in Oregon USA
That‘s only because of nostalgia for you. I had a grilled cheese with German bread and a mix of Gouda, Edamer and Mozarella…. Yumm. And the cool thing is: there are so many cheeses, the possibilities are endless!
My mom used to make grilled cheese sandwiches with American cheese and white soft bread as one of the first things I could eat after being ill, and some chicken broth. Both super easy to digest so easy on the tummy.
“Kraft cheese”…? Is that those weird orange squares that are individually packed that y’all have?
Saying american cheese isn't real cheese is like saying meatloaf isn't meat.
I've got to say best grilled cheese I've made was Gruyere cheese on Texas toast slathered with butter and garlic powder. The cheese was amazing. I've got provolone I want to try that with next. 😋
And there is such a thing as non-processed American Cheese it's usually at the deli counter and tastes much better.
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I am one of the worst food snobs in the world and I cook most everything from scratch. The only time I eat white bread with american cheese slices is this one thing. And this one thing is perfection. I am not saying a grilled cheese with 4 different cheeses on sourdough isn't great, but it's not this..lol
The importance of social bonding and its benefits on people’s well-being is backed up by science too. This study from the University of Oxford has revealed that the more often people eat with others, the more likely they are to feel happy and satisfied with their lives. The results suggested that communal eating increases social bonding and feelings of well-being, and enhances one’s sense of contentedness and embedding within the community.
Professor Robin Dunbar of the University of Oxford’s Experimental Psychology department argues that 'This study suggests that social eating has an important role in the facilitation of social bonding, and that communal eating may have even evolved as a mechanism for humans to do just that.”
let’s make a group, pandas against seedless watermelons and catholics
Moreover, according to Prof. Dunbar, previous studies have already showed that social networks are important in combating mental and physical illness.
“A significant proportion of respondents felt that having a meal together was an important way of making or reinforcing these social networks. In these increasingly fraught times, when community cohesion is ever more important, making time for and joining in communal meals is perhaps the single most important thing we can do – both for our own health and wellbeing and for that of the wider community.”
when i was a child i always showed off my sauce collection, pokémon cards are for suckers
🎶Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet - But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat🎶
I rarely eat breakfast. I'm more of a coffee and a cigarette kinda guy, its the breakfast of champions
The key is to look the waiter/waitress right in the eye while saying it and raise one eyebrow and speak in a serious tone. You just know the waitstaff thinks the names are as stupid as you do, we can laugh together XD
Once, I was really mad at my partner, so I put an apple, some butter, and cinnamon into the oven to make the house smell like there was going to be pie. But there was no pie.
you know it’s good when your partner goes digging for the plastic chicken leg that was mechanized so you could take a little bite out of it
charsouperie board is what i always put out when i’ve got friends over
Note: this post originally had 112 images. It’s been shortened to the top 49 images based on user votes.
I am born and raised in America and I am the biggest cheese lover. From feta to every kind except for American "cheese". I knew at a very young age that it was NOT real cheese. My mother never bought it, and I would not buy it nor expect my children to eat it. Oil is right.
I am born and raised in America and I am the biggest cheese lover. From feta to every kind except for American "cheese". I knew at a very young age that it was NOT real cheese. My mother never bought it, and I would not buy it nor expect my children to eat it. Oil is right.
