Actually, grilling was a marketing thing. Companies realized men were an untapped market for purchasing cooking supplies, but they had to convince men that there was a form of cooking that was ‘manly’ enough for them to do, because when grills were first invented cooking was very, very much ‘woman’s work’ and any man who touched it was ‘weak’ and ‘girly’ and perhaps ‘hen-pecked’.
A grill, which was outdoors (rustic! woodsy! living off the land!), involved fire (manly!), and mostly meat cooking (even more manly!) was basically the solution they found.
Fun fact: this was basically the opposite tactic they took from automatic cars. Everyone loved how easy automatics were to drive. Back then manual gear changes and actual physical steering was hard to do without a lot of upper body strength (and often even with lots of upper body strength). But using physical strength to drive a car was MANLY.
So the ads were basically all like, ‘we know you, a manly man, can handle an manual car. But buy a nice, easy-to-drive automatic for the wife!’ That way guys could save face and claim they were just switching to automatics ‘for the lady’.
Actually, grilling was a marketing thing. Companies realized men were an untapped market for purchasing cooking supplies, but they had to convince men that there was a form of cooking that was ‘manly’ enough for them to do, because when grills were first invented cooking was very, very much ‘woman’s work’ and any man who touched it was ‘weak’ and ‘girly’ and perhaps ‘hen-pecked’.
A grill, which was outdoors (rustic! woodsy! living off the land!), involved fire (manly!), and mostly meat cooking (even more manly!) was basically the solution they found.
Oh god this makes way too much sense…
Fun fact: this was basically the opposite tactic they took from automatic cars. Everyone loved how easy automatics were to drive. Back then manual gear changes and actual physical steering was hard to do without a lot of upper body strength (and often even with lots of upper body strength). But using physical strength to drive a car was MANLY.
So the ads were basically all like, ‘we know you, a manly man, can handle an manual car. But buy a nice, easy-to-drive automatic for the wife!’ That way guys could save face and claim they were just switching to automatics ‘for the lady’.