TWO romantic comedies hit British cinemas this week, “The Five-Year Engagement” and “Think Like A Man”, and both feature a male restaurant chef who (spoiler alert!) ends up running his own street-food van. Maybe that's just a co-incidence, but it's only been a month since “What To Expect When You're Expecting” had both a hero and a heroine with rival food vans. It looks as if Hollywood's comedy screenwriters have hit upon a new favourite career.

Until recently, the chefs in romantic comedies (“The Devil Wears Prada”, “Spanglish”) were outnumbered by architects (“(500) Days Of Summer”, “You, Me & Dupree”, TV's “How I Met Your Mother”). But in rom-com terms, both jobs serve much the same purpose. They imply that the hero is creative, but also he brings in a steady income. The advantage of chefs is that they can impress their paramour by cooking her a delicious breakfast—a scene that is trotted out in both of this week's films. Architects have to make do with showing off their blueprints.

But that's not the only reason why chefs are overtaking architects. A bigger factor is the economy. The subtext of most romantic comedies is the importance of a settled, middle-class lifestyle, so in “The Five-Year Engagement” and “Think Like A Man”, the heroes turn their lives around by starting up their own businesses—and these days it's more feasible to set up shop as a cook than as an architect.

As for the heroines in romantic comedies, they are rarely allowed to try anything as high-powered as architecture. If they are lucky, they get to be chefs (“The Last Holiday”, TV's “Friends”), but more often they're pastry chefs, specialising in cupcakes (“It's Complicated”, “Bridesmaids”, “Run Fatboy Run”, TV's “2 Broke Girls”).

Even more often, though, they're primary-school teachers (“Meet The Parents”, “Bride Wars”, “Valentine's Day”, “You Me And Dupree” again, TV's “How I Met Your Mother” again), a suitably feminine vocation which demonstrates how caring yet fun they can be. And considering that most of the men in Hollywood comedies are overgrown children, maybe the women have to be primary-school teachers to put up with them. If teaching and cake-baking aren't quite girly enough, only dog-walking will do (“Monster In Law”, “In Her Shoes”).

The romantic comedy has yet to be made in which the hero is a primary-school teacher and the heroine is an architect. But either party can work in a hospital (“New Year's Eve”, “No Strings Attached”), and either of them can run an independent bookshop (“Notting Hill”, “You've Got Mail”). Bookshops telegraph that the hero/heroine is cultured and intelligent, but not intimidatingly so. It's also a setting which offers abundant opportunities for eccentric sidekicks and potential love interests to pop in.

If a character of either gender has to be more go-getting, they'll probably work as a reporter or producer on a TV news programme (“Bridget Jones's Diary”, “Knocked Up”, “The Ugly Truth”, “Life Or Something Like It”, “Valentine's Day” again). It's a glamorous job, and it's also one that people in the movie industry know something about, so they don't need to bother with research. For similar reasons, a popular career for both heroes and heroines is print journalism: “His Girl Friday”, “Play It Again, Sam”, “When Harry Met Sally ...”, “Sex And The City”, “The Devil Wears Prada”, “How To Lose Friends And Alienate People”, “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days”, “27 Dresses” ... the list goes on and on.

As a journalist, I'm delighted that my job guarantees me a troubled but ultimately blissful courtship with the woman of my dreams, but I can't help but wonder why hygiene inspectors and chartered accountants shouldn't have their own shot at happiness. When “Four Weddings And A Funeral” came out, it was criticised for not saying what its characters did for a living. But after you've seen ten romantic comedies about a patissier and a reporter finding true love, its discretion starts to seem like a mercy.