Homosocial heterotopias and masculine escapism in TV-cooking shows

This chapter argues that Spise med Price belonging to a tendency in contemporary cooking shows in the UK and Denmark in which men are portrayed cooking in women-free zones, far away from everyday-like context and far from women. It argues that male hosts are using food and cooking to escape the constant negotiations of the post-traditional life and to create culinary counter-spaces. The overall point in the analysis will be that the homosocial heterotopia evokes, constructed through, a series of outdated discursive repertoires of masculinity. It also argues that Spise med Price is an example that referred to as a masculine-cooking-as-escapism tendency, and that Nak og d and Jamie at Home can also be considered examples of this tendency. The homosocial spaces are constructed around imagination, fun and nostalgia, and appear to be explicitly impenetrable to women, or to dissolve themselves if penetrated by women or disturbed by feminised objects.