"I'm a father of nine, all of them grown up on grits," says Kofi Moyo from his home on the South Side of Chicago, where he presides over his blended family's kitchen with diligence, passion and Southern-inflected love. "All of my kids are grits champions. Maybe that's because I approach grits as something different. Grits with cheese, tomato and pepper. Fish and grits. Lately I've begun working diligently on shrimp and grits. I've knocked a few people over with that one." Moyo, a gemologist by training and a brand builder by trade, belongs to the growing ranks of husbands and fathers who are the primary cooks for their families. He keeps his pantry well stocked with onions, garlic, ginger, fennel, curry and cayenne. And when his kids, now grown, head home for a visit, they phone in orders. "Dr. Moyo, my daughter who's an intern in child psychology, she loves fish-head stew and overripe okra. That's her thing," Moyo explains. "Then I have another daughter who wants Thanksgiving every day. In the summertime they expect all kinds of smoked fish. Catfish, trout, I'll smoke anything."
When not manning the smoker or stove Moyo spends much of his time organizing Real Men Cook, a nationwide cooking- for- charity event that takes place on Father's Day. Real Men volunteers whip up huge batches of their favorite dishes, people buy tickets, and everyone chows down. This year, the event's 16th, Moyo expects 1,000 male cooks to feed 30,000 mouths in 10 cities. Moyo also has a new cookbook, Real Men Cook: Rites, Rituals, and Recipes for Living (Fireside Press; 192 pages). He aims to help local charities, such as Chicago's Community Mental Health Council. In the past 15 years he has raised $800,000. But he also wants to make a point: cooking is not just women's work; it's a vital part of being a responsible man, taking care of business at home.
Moyo and his 1,000 real men represent a larger trend. Over the past 40 years, as women poured into the labor force, the average amount of time that American married men spend cooking has tripled, from seven minutes per day to 22, according to John Robinson, co-author of Time for Life: The Surprising Ways Americans Use Their Time. Meanwhile the number of hours married women spend cooking has fallen from 88 minutes per day to 48. A recent survey by Mediamark Research found that the number of men ages 25 to 54 who cook for fun at least twice a week has jumped 36% in the past 10 years. No wonder Mark O'Connor at the Food Network reports "a definite increase in male viewership."
In many cases, men are home on the range because their wives are stuck at the office. In other households, dads prefer to retreat to the kitchen while their spouses wrangle the kids. Then there are the families in which the guy is just clearly the better or more passionate cook.