Why does eating alligator seem more manly than eating chicken? Is coffee more “masculine” than tea? This week, comedian Michael Ian Black talks with Dan about manliness, and how it relates to food — a conversation they have as Michael decides to order salad at a pizzeria. "Are we really still going through this dumb, ritualistic flexing of our masculinity over the fact that I just want some greens?" Michael asks. "It’s so representative of something so destructive." Michael also shares some controversial pretzel opinions, and Michael and Dan bond over dad life in the suburbs.
This episode originally aired on August 6, 2018, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, Aviva DeKornfeld, Rob McGinley Myers, and Dan Dzula. The Sporkful production team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Johanna Mayer, Tracey Samuelson, and Jared O'Connell.
This episode contains explicit language.
Interstitial music in this episode by Black Label Music:
- "Kenny" by Hayley Briasco
- "Sun So Sunny" by Calvin Dashielle
- "The Huxtables" by Ken Brahmstedt
Photo courtesy of Dan Pashman.
View Transcript
Dan Pashman: Warning: This episode contains explicit language and, it begins with strong opinions about pretzels.
Michael Ian Black: I like a thin crispy or thinnish crispy pretzel. I don't like the very flat pretzel chips.
Dan Pashman: Hmm.
Michael Ian Black: And I eat it in the manner of a lumber mill processing lumber.
Dan Pashman: Yes.
Michael Ian Black: I —
Dan Pashman: That's how I do — right. Do you do, like, a bundle or you do one at a time?
Michael Ian Black: One — oh God. One at a time, always one at a time.
Dan Pashman: No, you gotta get a few to maximize the crunch.
Michael Ian Black: No, that's never going to happen. That's never going to happen.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING]
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it’s not for foodies it’s for eaters, I’m Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people.
Dan Pashman: Before we get into the show, heads up Houston, I’m coming to you! I’m doing a special cascatelli themed dinner event at Weights and Measures in Midtown. I’ll be in conversation with Culturemap Houston food editor Eric Sandler. And get this, your ticket includes a 3-course meal featuring cascatelli, plus a box of pasta to take home! It's dinner and a show! This is through the Houston chapter of Tufts University alums. I went to Tufts, but it’s open to the public, so everyone is welcome. This is on Monday March 7th, so just 4 weeks away and tickets are limited so get yours now at Sporkful.com/live. All right, let's get into the show.
Dan Pashman: Michael Ian Black first got famous in the ‘90s as a cast member on the MTV sketch comedy show The State. Since then, he’s starred in multiple TV shows including Another Period on Comedy Central, and movies, like Wet Hot American Summer. He’s also written more than 10 books for both adults and kids, including Navel Gazing: True Tales of Bodies, Mostly Mine (but also my mom’s, which I know sounds weird). Yes, that’s the whole title. He talks a lot in that book about body image and aging. He’s also hosted a long-running podcast called Mike and Tom Eat Snacks, with his friend Tom Cavanagh.
Dan Pashman: Michael’s a deep thinker, including about snacks. He has even more to say about pretzels …
Michael Ian Black: I eat pretzel sticks in a very specific way. I do not deviate from that. So I go in, go in, go in. Then I kind of hold them into my mouth. Go and go and go and go in with another one. So I'm bundling now, but just one at a time. And then there's something texturally very satisfying to me about swallowing, the sort of mostly chewed pretzel, but not entirely chewed pretzels. So I'm sort of feeling it descend into my larynx and down into my stomach.
Dan Pashman: Do you ever get like poked on the inside?
Michael Ian Black: Yes! Yes!
Dan Pashman: And you enjoy that?
Michael Ian Black: I don't enjoy the poke. Like you have to be — like, you really have to be masterful about this.
Dan Pashman: Hmm. I actually eat my pretzel sticks the same way, like the woodchipper approach. Although, I put my multiple sticks in my mouth at once and chomp, chomp, chop them down.
Michael Ian Black: Uh-huh.
Dan Pashman: But my, my — what I don't love about the pretzel sticks, I think they have a bad ratio of exterior to interior because — so you get a lot of salt on the exterior without much unseasoned inside to counteract that. So they're very salty.
Michael Ian Black: I like a very salty chip.
Dan Pashman: Okay.
Michael Ian Black: That is a real problem with me. That is enhancing my bloated appearance.
Dan Pashman: Yeah, yeah. You’re retaining a lot of water, Michael.
Michael Ian Black: A lot of water. A lot of water! It's a real problem.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]
Dan Pashman: To meet up with Michael, I took the car ferry from where I live, on Long Island, across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where he lives. Michael and I are both suburban dads — a little older and chubbier, slower and lamer than we used to be. We’re domesticated. And I wanted to connect with him on that suburban dad level. So I wanted to eat with him at a place he likes to go with his family. He picked a pizzeria called Toozy Patza.
Dan Pashman: So where are we here, Michael? Set the scene for us.
Michael Ian Black: Were in one of the country's only jazz-erias. I think that's what they're still calling it.
Dan Pashman: They — I did notice that sign.
Michael Ian Black: Yeah. It's a jazz themed pizzeria here in the wilds of Connecticut, where I live.
Dan Pashman: Michael and I started off comparing the dinner routines in our respective households. He says most of his fights with his wife happen around that time of day.
Michael Ian Black: Sometimes it's the cleaning up.
Dan Pashman: Hmm.
Michael Ian Black: Sometimes it's the, uh, going over the events of the day, which can lead to bickering.
Dan Pashman: Yeah.
Michael Ian Black: Really, it could be anything.
Dan Pashman: [SIGHS] Sometimes I run into an issue cause I like to cook. My wife's a good cook also, but I'm more the one who enjoys who enjoys it.
Michael Ian Black: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: Which is a double-edged sword, because it means that ±
Michael Ian Black: That you then become responsible for it.
Dan Pashman: Responsible, which that I can live with. It's more that like there's a double-edged sword to caring —
Michael Ian Black: Uh-huh.
Dan Pashman: About the food.
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: Because on one hand, I get pleasure from putting effort into a meal and having it come out well and having my — make my family happy. On the other hand, like sometimes like they're just coming, they're rolling in the door at 5:30, and they need dinner at 5:31.
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: The kids walk in the door, cranky. My wife's been dealing with them. So she's cranky, understandably. And I've spent the past hour, like trying to craft this meal. I think it's going to please all the different constituencies that I need to please. And it will be delicious for us. And then when they come in, no one's in a good mood, and half — and the kids don't want to eat the thing I made. Then I fall to pieces.
Michael Ian Black: Yeah, you’re devastated at that point, because you've given everything.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Michael Ian Black: And all you want is their approval.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Michael Ian Black: All you want is their love, ultimately, in the way that they can show you their love is by enjoying your creation.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Michael Ian Black: And when they don't do that, it's like, they're rejecting you.
Dan Pashman: Right. So how do I deal with that?
Michael Ian Black: You leave them.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING]
Michael Ian Black: You say, I'm going out for a pack of cigarettes and you don't come back.
Dan Pashman: Right. You day, I'm — instead of interviewing Michael Ian Black in New York City, where I am frequently, I'm going to choose to take a boat to Connecticut.
Michael Ian Black: That's right.
Dan Pashman: I won't be back for a week.
[LAUGHING]
Michael Ian Black: Right. It's a rowboat to Connecticut.
[LAUGHING]
Dan Pashman: Your kids are teenagers now, right?
Michael Ian Black: 17 and 15.
Dan Pashman: Who does more cooking in your house?
Michael Ian Black: [SIGHS] Quantitatively, my wife. Qualitatively, me.
Dan Pashman: Would she agree with that statement?
Michael Ian Black: Probably. Like last night, I made dinner and she — we were just on vacation in a foreign land. And when we returned, really, all I wanted was something simple because we'd been eating at sort of fancy-ish restaurants for the last 10 days.
Michael Ian Black: So I just basically threw some chicken in the oven and some salad and some rice, and she was upset with me because I hadn’t planned a sort of — a more ambitious dinner, but I didn't want a more ambitious dinner. And as it happened, it was exactly — it was perfect for me.
Dan Pashman: What about for her?
Michael Ian Black: Not my problem. And this is — this is a perfect example of the kind of quarreling — it wasn't a quarrel. She gently admonished me and then I got defensive.
Dan Pashman: That's why sometimes it's better not to care.
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: Because if you — like, I would not have gotten — so this — I — the story I told you is one that this is what happened to me last night. I cooked dinner. The kids came back. They were coming back late from camp and they were — they’re always exhausted after a day at camp. And so never in a great mood, which puts whatever parents are with them not in a great mood, understandably. And I was emotionally invested in the meal I had prepared and I —
Michael Ian Black: What did you make?
Dan Pashman: Nothing super special, but — well, my younger daughter has really like, has gotten pickier and pickier.
Michael Ian Black: How old is she?
Dan Pashman: Five.
Michael Ian Black: Uh-huh
Dan Pashman: And I — so I, I really — she'll basically eat pasta and I really took it upon myself, like, I'm going to try to do something creative that's going to get her to eat a little something with some nutritional value. And we had leftovers from a barbecue from the weekend, leftover corn and leftover grilled zucchini. So I said to myself, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to make a big batch of pasta. I'm going to split it. I'll take half of it and add grilled zucchini and corn and some Parmesan cheese and olive oil and salt. And that'll be for my wife and me. I know she'll like that. I know I'll like that.
Dan Pashman: My daughters won't want grilled zucchini in their pasta, but I didn't want to just give them pasta with cheese and sauce. So I took the corn, which my younger one has been eating a little bit of. I took it off the, the, uh —
Michael Ian Black: Cob.
Dan Pashman: Cob, thank you. And I say, I'm going to have an elaborate game to get them really into this meal. I have melted butter. And I said, you're going to get to paint your food. And I gave them a food brush and I said, "Here's the butter. You can paint it on the corn in the bowl, yourself." It's you'll have it — it'll be interactive and it will taste good also. And they'll eat some corn. [SIGHS] But I was very worked up that this strategy was going to work. I put a lot of pressure on myself and when they came in already cranky and the younger one said, "I don't want this", I got upset. And then my wife, Janie, was just like, "I'm just going to go sit in the living room because no one at this table’s in a good mood right now." I did get the younger one to eat some corn. She did paint the corn and she had to eat some of it. And so that felt like a small victory, but not without effort.
Michael Ian Black: That's all you can get. It's — look, with a five-year-old. That's what you're going to get. You're going to get small victories.
Dan Pashman: Hmm.
Michael Ian Black: Congratulate yourself on being a great father.
Dan Pashman: Really?
Michael Ian Black: Sure. You got her to eat a little corn. You did better than your wife did.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]
Michael Ian Black: She removed herself entirely from the situation.
Dan Pashman: Should we go up there and order some pizza?
Michael Ian Black: Yeah, I can't. I don't think I can eat pizza.
Dan Pashman: Okay.
Michael Ian Black: But I'm going to get something.
Dan Pashman: So you picked a pizza place and now we're not going to eat pizza?
Michael Ian Black: I picked the pizza place before I had been to France.
Dan Pashman: Hm.
Michael Ian Black: And before I realized that I was going to come back from France, feeling morbidly obese. So I feel like I need to do a little better.
Dan Pashman: I know that at one point in your life, your waist size and length on your pants was 30 x 32.
Michael Ian Black: That's right.
Dan Pashman: And then it went up to 32 x 32.
Michael Ian Black: Yes.
Dan Pashman: Where is it now?
Michael Ian Black: [IN A SMALL VOICE] I don't know.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]
Michael Ian Black: I don't know. I think it's probably still around 32 x 32. I'd like it to get — I'd like it to get down to about 15 x 32.
[LAUGHING]
Dan Pashman: That sounds very healthy.
Michael Ian Black: Oh no. I have a very healthy body image. I do. I'm doing great.
Dan Pashman: Do you remember when you first started to be aware of that?
Michael Ian Black: Well, for a long time, I thought I was too skinny and then one day I was too fat. Probably around 40, 41, 42, somewhere in there. And part of me is like, Michael, you're rapidly closing in on 50, like chill out. Calm down. Like it's not going to get better for you. So maybe just be all right with it. I can't —
Dan Pashman: We live in similar sort of areas. These sort of distant suburbs and I feel like we — you and I both also kind of like go into the city for work somewhat regularly and the body images and body types that you see when you're in the city versus when you're in the suburbs —
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: Radically different.
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: So I try to like, hang out with the suburban dads.
Michael Ian Black: Much better.
Dan Pashman: Yeah. [LAUGHS]
Michael Ian Black: Much better strategy.
Dan Pashman: Yeah.
Michael Ian Black: Cause guys gave up a long time ago.
Dan Pashman: Right. By that metric I feel like I'm doing great.
Michael Ian Black: Oh, you are.
Dan Pashman: You know?
Michael Ian Black: By that metric ...
Dan Pashman: Right?
Michael Ian Black: You're very handsome.
[LAUGHING]
Dan Pashman: It's funny, because coming to see you — so I have two pairs of sneakers.
Michael Ian Black: Okay.
Dan Pashman: I have my like cool city sneakers and my suburban dad sneakers.
Michael Ian Black: Uh-huh.
Dan Pashman: Um, they're both New balance Sneakers, but one are kind of like funky and they're like the old, the retro New Balance ones. And the other ones are just kind of like jogging shoes for someone who doesn't jog.
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: And I was really torn, which to wear to come see you.
Michael Ian Black: Wait, let me see if I can identify just by looking at them. Cause I'm not sure I can tell a funky pair of New Balance from a not funky pair.
Dan Pashman: I think you'd be able to tell.
Michael Ian Black: Oh, those are funky.
Dan Pashman: Yeah.
Michael Ian Black: I like those. Blue suede sneakers with yellow netting a top it. And then where the laces are.It's a, it's a, it's a .... it's a kind of a sky blue, orange tongue, red laces. Now that sounds like a riot of colors. I know, but when viewed all together, somehow inexplicably, it works.
Dan Pashman: Thank you. But then I, you know, I was on the boat to come here and I thought to myself, "Why am I putting on airs for Michael?"
Michael Ian Black: Well, the rest of you doesn't look that great. I mean, the F.U.V. t-shirt, I'm not... I'm not blown away by it. I mean, it's all right. Like, those shitty shorts you’re wearing, I mean, it's — it was really all about the sneakers for you.
Dan Pashman: Yeah, yeah. But, I was like part of the reason why I wanted to interview you here sort of in your natural habitat is cause like, I feel like we have this kind of like suburban dad [Michael Ian Black: Uh-huh.] commonality. And so I was like, I should have just shown up in full-on suburban dad mode.
Michael Ian Black: Is this not full-on — the only difference would be the sneakers. I'm guessing?
Dan Pashman: No, this is one of my cooler t-shirts.
Michael Ian Black: Ohh.
Dan Pashman: But — [LAUGHING]
Michael Ian Black: Wait, we have to order cause now I'm really hungry.
Dan Pashman: Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Let's order.
Michael Ian Black: Now, I liked the pizzas here. I do. I do really like the pizzas and you'll see that they're jazz themed a lot of them. So you've got like the David S. Ware. That was a jazz musician. The only reason I know that is because it's on the menu and so I'm just assuming. And I've gotten that one before. It's escarole, white beans, garlic, sausage Parmesan, and chili oil over the light tomato sauce. Um ...
Dan Pashman: That sounds really good.
Michael Ian Black: It is really good.
Dan Pashman: I'm actually not a big meat on pizza guy.
Michael Ian Black: Okay. What about the contadina, which is a vegetable medley of mushrooms, peppers, onion, broccoli, and tomatoes? Too many vegetables?
Dan Pashman: Too many. Yeah, cause you put the vegetables on the pizza. They release water when they cook. Now the crust gets soggy.
Michael Ian Black: The thin crust, feta cheese, plum tomato, hot oil, shredded mozzarella. I mean, I feel like that's a happy compromise, but maybe I'm wrong?
Dan Pashman: I like that.
Michael Ian Black: I'm probably going to get a salad of some sort. I think it's going to be the Greek. I like a Greek salad.
Dan Pashman: Let's do it.
Michael Ian Black: I'll have the thin crust pizzas with the feta cheese, plum tomatoes ...
Dan Pashman: Michael’s decision to get salad, and his concern for his waistline, got me thinking about masculinity. It’s something Michael has thought about a lot over the last few years. Back in 2018, after a string of school shootings committed by boys or men, he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times. It was called “The Boys Are Not All Right.” Michael wrote that it’s not socially acceptable for men and boys to talk about emotion and vulnerability — and as a result, he says, “Too many boys are trapped in the same suffocating, outdated model of masculinity, where manhood is measured in strength, where there is no way to be vulnerable without being emasculated, where manliness is about having power over others.”
Dan Pashman: And in 2020, he wrote a book on similar themes called A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son. Michael writes about everything from his complicated relationship with his own father, to the nuances of ordering coffee vs. tea as it relates to manliness. He also talks about the rituals and posturing of traditional masculinity and writes, “Manhood, or at least my manhood, is quiet and simple and straightforward.” I was curious to get his thoughts on how this definition of what it is to be a man relates to food.
Dan Pashman: So I ordered pizza, but I don't like meat on my pizza.
Michael Ian Black: Uh-huh.
Dan Pashman: You ordered a salad.
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: [SIGHS] And it's interesting to me that there's this idea that like meat is masculine. Eating a lot of meat makes you more manly.
Michael Ian Black: Yup.
Dan Pashman: So when you go into a restaurant and order a salad for your meal, like, is that something that's going through your mind? Like how do you ... how do you feel about that?
Michael Ian Black: So, one of the things that I have discovered is that masculinity is more or less, and I would say more, a language more than anything else. And the language is designed to sort out men by social status. And so every single thing that you do as a guy can be put on this scale of masculinity. So you can rank any food, as absurd as this is, by how masculine it is. So you could say, so you're talking about meat. Yes. Meat for whatever reason, and we could talk about the reasons, is more masculine than vegetables.
Dan Pashman: Do you remember the first time you ordered a salad for your meal and felt okay about it?
Michael Ian Black: No. In my early twenties, when I was living in New York, by myself, there was a Greek diner across the street from my apartment building. Every now and again, when I felt like I just needed to replenish my body in some capacity, I would get the Greek salad which is what I got today. And the Greek salad with chicken can be a very masculine salad. It's a kind of rustic salad. It's got a lot of ingredients.
Dan Pashman: Especially, if there's grill marks on the chicken.
Michael Ian Black: Exactly. And so I never felt particularly — actually, I shouldn't say that. now that — I mean, I haven't thought about this before, but I guess maybe I did at times feel like, "Oh, geez, I'm ordering a salad here at this diner." Uh, yeah, I think I did have a kind of consciousness about it.
Dan Pashman: So, would you, especially when you were a little younger, would you have been less likely to order a salad if you were out with other guys?
Michael Ian Black: Probably. I probably would have been. Yeah. I have a friend who had this exact thing. He's just a guy, just good guy, regular guy. And he was with a dude, friend of his, they went out to lunch or something and he ordered a salad and the friend said something like, "You want to purse with that?" And my friend is like, "Are you serious?", like are we really still going through this kind of like dumb ritualistic flexing of our masculinity over the fact that I just want some greens? On one hand, it's sort of like, oh, he's just making a dumb joke. On the other hand, yes, but on the other it's so representative of something so destructive.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: Coming up, Michael and I get much more into this conversation. Why does eating alligator seem more manly than eating chicken? Why is coffee more manly than tea? And how do we move beyond this narrow definition of what it means to be a man? Stick around.
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+++BREAK+++
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I’m Dan Pashman. Coming up next week on the show, we have a pasta update! It is part 8 of Mission: ImPASTAble and we have some big news to share. Something that I’ve had to keep secret for a whole year. And just a heads up, that episode will drop on Tuesday, instead of Monday. Don’t miss it.
Dan Pashman: Okay. Back to my conversation with Michael Ian Black. Let’s just pick it up where we left off. We had ordered, and we were talking about food and masculinity.
Michael Ian Black: You could probably very easily rank meats according to masculinity. So we would go, let's say, buffalo is probably more masculine than cow. Alligator is probably more masculine than buffalo. Why? And you're not disagreeing with me. Right? Like you're going, yeah, that seems right.
Dan Pashman: Right. It feels like it comes down to sort of like the aggressiveness of the animal.
Michael Ian Black: That's right. I mean, to my mind, that's exactly right. The reason you would say, the alligator's more masculine meat to eat than buffalo is because the alligator, itself, is a kind of more ferocious or aggressive creature. I don't even know if that's true. It may not be, than the buffalo — yeah. So we would have to exert more energy or take more risks to kill the alligator.
Dan Pashman: It's really, uh, dominance ritual.
Michael Ian Black: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: Because eating an animal is, in some ways, it's like an expression of your dominance over it.
Michael Ian Black: Sure. So when you order a salad, you're just saying, ahh, I'm dominant over these plants.
Dan Pashman: Right. That wasn't hard. Like, so you pulled out lettuce out of the ground and it put up a fight.
Michael Ian Black: That's right.
Dan Pashman: So like the most manly thing you could eat would be like a T-Rex?
Michael Ian Black: Uh, no. The most manly thing you could eat would be a human that you stalked and killed. A human of greater strength than you.
Dan Pashman: Hmm.
Michael Ian Black: A human man, greater strength than you.
Dan Pashman: Right, right.
Michael Ian Black: So you get into this problem of defining your maleness as that of dominance. And so you can quickly see how that becomes problematic when you're dealing with other aspects of your life.
Dan Pashman: Yeah. How could this go wrong, Michael?
[LAUGHING]
Michael Ian Black: Right. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with being willful, being aggressive in certain situations, being competitive in certain situations. I don't think there's anything wrong with these ways of navigating our lives. I think there are big problems with if these are the only ways we navigate our lives and we don't allow ourselves as men to, to allow the possibilities of other avenues of expression and other ways of being.
Dan Pashman: So what is it about the topic of masculinity that interests you so much?
Michael Ian Black: What I realized when I started thinking about it in a more serious way is that it had been a topic that had actually consumed me and my comedy for a long time. When I look back at stuff that I've done, a lot of it has been about subverting sort of traditional masculine ideas. And I think a lot of that has to do with growing up feeling kind of out of place with the way I was supposed to represent myself as a guy. I feel like a lot of guys feel like this. And a lot of times that gets mistaken, I think for — there's a kind of a conflation between gender identity and sexual identity, that may or may not be appropriate as the individual goes. In my case, it was never appropriate. Although it was certainly conflated all the time.
Dan Pashman: Even by your mom.
Michael Ian Black: Yeah, by my mom who is gay or was gay — she's dead now — who thought I was gay and didn't want me to be gay because she was worried about how gay people are treated in the culture. I, certainly, understand that having grown up in a lesbian household. But it was never a question for me, my own sexuality. My masculinity or the way it expressed itself was at constant question, this kind of masculine puffery that I just — I never felt comfortable with. I never felt like it was me. And so I spent much of my childhood, adolescence into early adulthood trying to figure out like, how do I navigate being a guy when I'm not this guy? And it took me a long time to just feel comfortable in my own skin.
Dan Pashman: I agree with what you’re saying —
Michael Ian Black: Incidentally this tea is very good.
Dan Pashman: Is it?
Michael Ian Black: Now, this is a very unmasculine tea. It's an organic green with coconut made from fresh brewed tea, and I drink a lot of tea. And if you want to rank these things, coffee more masculine than tea. Black tea more masculine than green tea. Green tea sweetened, probably the least masculine of all. That, of course, is what I'm drinking.
[LAUGHING]
Dan Pashman: But that is — there’s this idea that sweet things are ...
Michael Ian Black: Yes.
Dan Pashman: It's not surprising to me that I think it's — I mean, you know, restaurant kitchens are notoriously sort of a aggressive male spaces.
Michael Ian Black: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: But if there has traditionally been a place for women in male-dominated kitchens, it is more often …
Michael Ian Black: The dessert.
Dan Pashman: The dessert.
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: The pastry chefs are more often women that, you know — the people cooking the steaks, not so much.
Michael Ian Black: Mm-hmm.
Dan Pashman: And so you can see how that bias can play out and can affect people's careers.
Michael Ian Black: Right. And you can also see the how just on this sort of the loose terms that we're defining it to this point, how people would get channeled into those careers. And less men are more likely to go into that because of the bias against sweetness. It's crazy, but that's the — that is the world we live in.
Dan Pashman: But, you know, look, I agree and I can — I agree that like, yes, there's a place for these impulses that are these natural impulses to a point, you know? Yes, it's demoralizing that we don't have more control over them than we do. And that it's demoralizing that they remain such powerful forces in our society, but it's so deeply ingrained.
Michael Ian Black: Yes.
Dan Pashman: And it's not just about like society's expectations. I mean, it goes back to before society, like this is some deep evolutionary shit. Like we are hard wired. And it makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective that the men who are the most aggressive, the most eager to assert dominance over others would be the ones who would — and this is not a good thing, but like the —
Michael Ian Black: Most likely to repopulate or continue to populate the earth.
Dan Pashman: Right. Exactly. So, so, so it would make sense that over millennia that men will become more and more aggressive.
Michael Ian Black: Right. We have these impulses that we were talking about, these impulses of aggression and competitiveness and whatever, that we give sort of free reign to, or freer reign. But we also, as men, have impulses of empathy, vulnerability, love that we suppress, and …
Dan Pashman: Cause they're not considered manly.
Michael Ian Black: Exactly. And so when everything that you're doing in the language of masculinity ranks you on a scale of least masculine to more masculine and where you fall on that scale determines a lot about your social standing in the world? And you see that the sort of more aggressive, hyper-competitive, whatever people are rewarded in terms of being viewed as more masculine, it only follows that you would then suppress those things because you're worried about your own social standing. And that's a — it becomes self-reinforcing. Oh, wow. Thank you very much.
Dan Pashman: That's a beautiful looking Greek salad right there, Michael.
Michael Ian Black: Yes. I was just presented with my salad and my gosh, tremendous. Thank you. Now, traditionally like a diner Greek salad would be mixed together. This is sort of segregated. So I've got all my feta on one side, followed by my red onion, carrot.
Dan Pashman: It's almost like there's a pile of lettuce and then there's stripes of ingredients. A stripe of cheese.
Michael Ian Black: That's right.
Dan Pashman: A stripe of carrot.
Michael Ian Black: Gorgeous. And this is a gorgeous looking this pizza.
Dan Pashman: This pizza has a big cubes of feta and also the shredded mozz. This is basically just like a giant — it's like a dough disc covered with a lot of cheese and a lot of spicy oil.
Michael Ian Black: That's right.
Dan Pashman: And a little bit of tomato sauce.
Michael Ian Black: It smells very good.
[DAN PASHMAN EATING]
Dan Pashman: The crust is very nice. It's got a nice light crisp to it. It's not doughy.
Michael Ian Black: They do a nice job of Toozy Patza.
Dan Pashman: Yeah. The first half of each slice is a little — the crust really got soggy.
Michael Ian Black: Yeah.
Dan Pashman: But I think that's more —
Michael Ian Black: That's the thin crust. That's the problem with a thin crust, you're taking that risk.
Dan Pashman: Well, I would suggest that maybe it's a fault with the recipe.
Michael Ian Black: Hmm?
Dan Pashman: I think that's a great crust, but it just can't stand up to this much liquid. I think they should cut out the fresh mozzarella and just do like feta, tomatoes, chili oil. A lot of oil has been released. And so it's very flimsy. I think I'm going to go fork and knife here. I think there's actually a — I think that there's a masculinity bias even with pizza.
Michael Ian Black: Absolutely.
Dan Pashman: I think that there's something with like that it's somehow considered more effeminate to use a fork and knife.
Michael Ian Black: Of course.
Dan Pashman: That that's a sign of weakness.
Michael Ian Black: You can rank every aspect of every single fucking thing by what's more masculine or less masculine. I'm looking at the pizza. I would say feta cheese for whatever reason is slightly less masculine than mozzarella cheese. Why? I don't fucking know, but I feel like that's right.
Dan Pashman: Right. Yeah. Well, partly because I think there's just an idea that it's like fancier.
Michael Ian Black: Yes.
Dan Pashman: You know, but eating with your hands is perceived as more masculine.
Michael Ian Black: Oh, far more because it's more primal.
Dan Pashman: Right. Basically, like anything that's more caveman- like is considered more masculine.
Michael Ian Black: Right. Anything that's a little more continental or European …
Dan Pashman: Right. Or like evolved ...
Michael Ian Black: Right.
[LAUGHING]
Dan Pashman: Is considered weak and effeminate. I feel like the title of this episode is going to be Michael Ian Black is a man who eats salads.
Michael Ian Black: Yeah. I eat a lot of salad now.
Dan Pashman: Yeah.
Michael Ian Black: Because of my deep body issues, which are entirely related to issues around masculinity.
Dan Pashman: How so?
Michael Ian Black: When I was young ... younger ... young. I'm no longer ...
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS]
Michael Ian Black: I thought I was too skinny, which has its own problems in terms of masculinity, because you don't have the kind of the muscle definition that it's become associated with masculinity, which is a fairly recent development, by the way. Like, if you look at like Superman from the George Reeves, who played Superman in the 1950s and sixties, he just looked like it's just a dad bod, just look like a dude. You know, maybe a little bit bigger, but he didn't have that kind of like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson muscularity [Dan Pashman: Right.] that is kind of demanded of men now, if you really want to be kind of masculine, masculine. A lot of guys, skinny guys, feel very emasculated by their physiques. And I was one of those guys, like I just didn't — I never filled out in, in my mind in the right way. And then one day I woke up and, you know, I had a little gut and I was in my forties and I was like, oh, now I'm morbidly obese and I need to do something about this. And, you know, it kind of presents its own problems.
Dan Pashman: But it's interesting that you did not say to yourself, I have arrived!
Michael Ian Black: No.
Dan Pashman: I have a fat gut. I'm a man now.
Michael Ian Black: No. No. No. Because my vanity, my own male vanity doesn't allow it, which is another thing that we don't talk about, as guys, which is our vanity. Mnd men are vain, but vanity is associated with women. We're not given permission to express those same anxieties. Like if, as a guy, I walk in and I say, "I feel really fat today," like, that's a very kind of mock-worthy thing to say [Dan Pashman: Right.] to a group of guys. They're certainly not gonna be like, “No, no, you look great. Harold, you look great.” Like ...
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING]
Michael Ian Black: Like that's just not going to happen.
Dan Pashman: Right. There's almost an idea that the most macho thing you can do is to be, like, fat and ugly.
Michael Ian Black: Right.
Dan Pashman: Like should not care how you look.
Michael Ian Black: Exactly.
Dan Pashman: To be overweight, to be dressed like a slob, to eat with your hands, and that's the — that's how you are the most manly.
Michael Ian Black: Right. The kind of Harvey Weinstein model of masculinity, which is, I'm just a fat slob and I don't give a shit. I take what I want and I eat what I want and I fuck what I want. And it's all the same thing. It's all the same sort of giving into kind of these primal urges that you were talking about and not giving a shit what anybody thinks or says or does about it.
Dan Pashman: Right. Which brings us back to the dinner issues we had in my house last night. You know, the idea that like, sometimes it's better not to care about your food, which in a way is its own type of masculinity. Being like, fuck it. I don't care. Whatever. Just throw some food on a plate, I'll eat it. As opposed to like, I'm going to make it look pretty.
Michael Ian Black: I'm going to plate it well.
Dan Pashman: It's got to be plated . I want to get nice grill marks on my zucchini, you know? [LAUGHING]
Michael Ian Black: Right. Not caring is more masculine than caring, which is terrible but true.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Michael Ian Black: But absolutely true. Well, I shouldn't say that. Certain things that you care about are very masculine. We care about a sports team, very fucking masculine. If you care about your business and that's all you care about and you're driven by it? Very masculine. But, and we all know this is true, the thing that matters the most, for example, are your kids, your spouse, but caring about those things with the same intensity is somehow not viewed as masculine. I mean, men are viewed as masculine if they're seen as being protectors of their family.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Michael Ian Black: Guardians.
Dan Pashman: Providers.
Michael Ian Black: Providers, but not nurturers.
Dan Pashman: Right.
Michael Ian Black: And as fathers, we need to nurture. We need to be present in our lives and our kids' lives — excuse me — in a way that they know that we're there, we're present, we're listening, we're available emotionally, and that we're modeling the kind of behavior that will hopefully make them turn out to be decent human beings.
Dan Pashman: Well, Michael, thank you so much —
Michael Ian Black: Thanks for lunch.
Dan Pashman: I'm am an admirer of your work.
Michael Ian Black: I mean, you haven't offered to pay for it, but I'm just assuming you will. Thanks for lunch.
Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING] I will pay for it.
MUSIC
Dan Pashman: That’s comedian and actor Michael Ian Black. If you want to listen to more podcast episodes with Michael, you can check out his show, Obscure. In it Michael reads a novel in its entirety — this season it’s Wuthering Heights and he comments as he goes. And the great thing about it is that Michael’s never read the book before — so he’s reacting in real time, and it feels like you’re right there too, just hanging out with him. It’s pretty fun. Subscribe to that show and to The Sporkful in your podcasting app.
Dan Pashman: Remember to get tickets for our special cascatelli dinner and a show event at Weights and Measures in Houston, go to Sporkful.com/live.
Dan Pashman: Remember, next week’s Mission ImPASTAble update is coming next Tuesday instead of Monday. So if you’re looking for something to fill that void, check out last week’s episode, about one of the only cookbooks in the Soviet Union. It was part of a radical Soviet food experiment that transformed Russian cuisine forever. That one’s up now, check it out.
