Last week, I found myself sitting on my couch in the crispy cold air of my new air conditioner watching the Food Network. The Barefoot Contessa was on and the topic was chicken. The first demonstration showed how to perfectly roast a chicken. Ina Garten pointed out that this particular recipe had been dubbed “engagement chicken” because some women at Glamour magazine had passed around this particular recipe amongst themselves and each woman became engaged after she had prepared it for her boyfriend.
Intrigued, I ran to my kitchen and picked up my copy of The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. Sure enough, there was the recipe for roasted chicken that she had just made. The Spanish onions, the lemon, the garlic, the recipe for the gravy that looked seemingly effortless–engagement chicken at my fingertips.
After watching Ina Garten roast a chicken on this episode of The Barefoot 
Contessa, I realized one thing: this is a dish I need to know how to make. Because it’s a dish your wife would make. And it’s true, she would. Because she’s an adult and adults know how to cook adult things. I’m not even married, but I feel like if I want to be married I should know how to roast a chicken.
What a terrible thing to think. I can’t get married unless I know how to roast a chicken?! I can’t believe I even thought that. Why should I be depended on to cook the family dinner? It’s the 21st century, aren’t we over traditional gender roles? Can’t my future husband roast the damn chicken? Or maybe my future precocious 12 year old daughter could take on the task of cooking dinner, it seems right up her alley. Or maybe my future next door neighbor could invite us over for a monthly chicken roast. That sounds very kind and neighborly.
On the other hand, thinking of my future family, I also started to feel a little guilty because I find chicken carcasses to be disgusting. How can I roast them a chicken or a Thanksgiving turkey when the idea of putting my hand inside poultry makes me want to vomit? Who am I to deny my starving, protein-hungry future family of their succulent roast chicken dipped just because of my own bird carcass-touching shortcomings?
Despite the fact that I consider myself to be a modern woman and thus beyond the expectations of traditional gender roles, I still feel like it’s my duty to know how to roast a chicken. Gender roles aside, to me, there is nothing more satisfying than plopping down a fabulous dish in the middle of a table full of people like it ain’t no thang. Engagement chicken is the type of dish that not only woos diners, but also gives the cook a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in his or her own cooking abilities. I always enjoy a good cooking challenge, so I think it’s time to overcome my fears and stuff a chicken carcass full of onion and garlic deliciousness.
Ramblings 
Putting your hand in a chicken is gross. I’ve done it. Same goes for turkeys, etc. Being able to cook is a good life skill regardless of gender. Same can be said of being able to sew a button on your shirt or change the oil in your car.
If you do get married at some point, you’ll negotiate the tasks that are yours. Maybe your husband will be a chef and you will be responsible for the car.
Good points! Tasks should be shared. I’d love to do the cooking, but someone else will need to stuff the bird.
I got such a kick out of this, Sonja. I read that article in Glamour and had no idea it was a Barefoot Contessa recipe (love her!). As someone who is married, I still don’t feel like I have the obligation to stick my hand in raw poultry (gross!) and readily admit my husband can be a better cook than me. This enrages me on occassion because shouldn’t I be the one who does the awesome cooking?!? But guess what? My folded laundry looks like Van Gogh materpieces and his looks like my 5 month old daughter did it. Booyah.
Haha, thanks for the comment, Emily. I’m glad to know that I don’t have to feel obligated to touch raw poultry when I’m married. Phew! However, I could use a few tips on folding laundry. Mine certainly looks like a child folded it. Whoops.
The Engagement Chicken recipe, know it well and sill have the clipping from Glamour Magazine. I always wondered about the significance of stuffing large lemons into the chicken’s cavity..still makes giggle when I recall Julia Child preparing chickens. I don’t remember plotting to make this dish for my now husband, but of all the dishes I cook for him (having had his own culinary magazine a number of years ago he is my main obliging tester of my Downton Abbey recipes), it is my roasted chicken he insists we have on a weekly basis. A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach…