Fifteen Minutes: In the Kitchen with Prof. Mansfield

Slicing a red pepper into thin, elegant pieces, Harvey C. Mansfield '49 sips a glass of red wine a la Julia Child. "I have never made cupcakes before," he said, responding to a suggestion that they be served for dessert. "I once did baking powder biscuits." As a junior high schooler, Mansfield took Home Economics. "They taught us how to sew on a button," he recalls painfully. "This might be quite useful...for a man without a wife."

The "Prince of Conservatives," as Harvard Magazine recently dubbed him, is almost at home cooking the first full meal of his life. While he is more comfortable teaching a popular class on ancient and medieval political philosophy or conducting research on his new book, entitled Manliness, Mansfield also enjoys being provocative. His hyperbole becomes campus controversy. He calls gay sex "shameful." He speculates that the rise in black students at Harvard has led to grade inflation. He repeatedly warns against the dangers of disrespecting manliness.

This week FM puts Mansfield in his place.

"My wife makes steak with a nice sauce. She is very good with sauces. It's a very manly dish," he said, tossing a thrashing lobster into boiling water. "I hardly ever eat fish in public because it is so PC to eat fish. Oh yes, and I would never be caught dead eating tofu!"

Mansfield believes in distinct male and female roles. Although he admits to making his own breakfast, the kitchen is his wife's domain. "I do a lot of the rest," he insists, in his soft-spoken, even shy voice. "I carry out the garbage. I carry out the trash." Pressed to name other responsibilities--apart from the overwhelming burden of carrying out both the trash and the garbage--Mansfield responds curtly. "I'm not going to list them all. Either it would be boasting, or it would be holding me up to ridicule."

The noodles boil over.

Mansfield describes manliness as confidence, willingness to stand up to a risk or challenge. A "manly man" takes charge. He is brave, frank, aggressive, competitive, loyal, stoical. "It is harder for women to be manly," he said, slipping on the hot mittens and taking out the cupcakes. "The whole idea of bullfighting, for example, is ridiculous manliness. A woman would never do that." The archetypal "manly" woman is Margaret Thatcher, according to Professor Mansfield. "[She] is an outstanding example: the iron lady. And yet she was quite feminine, I was told, with her husband. Even when she was Prime Minister, she was a bit coquettish."

The professor sees a difference between sexy and manly. An inherently sexy man is boyish, cute, even (God forbid) effete. "A manly man is not sexy. He can be attractive to women only by virtue of his manliness rather than his sexiness," he says. Think John Wayne, not Marcello Mastroianni.

Mansfield judges the lobster ready and takes it out of the pot. Cracking the shell, he extracts the meat. "The big question is whether men should be forced to change diapers," he said removing the lobster's alimentary canal, "my reasoning for not doing it is that I would not be able to look at them, all grown up, and still respect them."

A splash of white wine follows a slow and deliberate stir. Within minutes, dinner is served. A manly man does not pay too much attention to what he eats. "He is not an aesthete." A self-described wine connoisseur, Mansfield views the manly man as uncultured and unintellectual: "He must be unrefined." Asked if a scholar can in any way be manly, he said, "[only] if he gets women to do everything for him."

Mansfield's Manly Recipe: Seafood Delight

1 Lobster

8 Shrimp (pre-cooked)

1 Red Pepper

3/4 lb. of asparagus

1 Portobello mushroom

2 shallots

2 tbsp. of canola oil

A splash of White wine

4 sliced carrots

1 clove of garlic

1 package of oriental spinach basil noodles

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1) Steam lobster until it is red.

2) Boil noodles.

3) Chop vegetables.

4) Add canola oil to Toss all vegetables into wok and let simmer lightly for 20 min.

5) Cut up lobster meat into bit-size morsels.

6) Remove the alimentary canal.

7) Toss in the lobster and shrimp into the wok.

8) Add a splash of white wine.

8) Stir for a few minutes.

Serve the stir-fry on top of noodles. Garnish with Parmesan.