Personally, I don’t* but I was curious what others think.
*some sandwiches excluded like a Cubano or chicken parm; those do require cooking.
Put butter on the outside, throw it in a hot pan and grill it. Even go further and get a sandwich press. NOW YOU’RE COOKIN!
By that logic, salads and sushi aren’t cooking.
Correct.
I wouldn’t say that they are cooking. They are preparing food.
Preparing food and cooking food are two different things.
I wouldn’t even say making a grilled cheese would be cooking. I don’t think heat has anything to do with it. I mean, am I cooking if I’m microwaving a frozen dinner? Are the “cooks” at an Applebee’s cooking if week they do is warm up bags of premade food and microwave steaks?
I would say cooking requires you to prepare ingredients, combine them, and cook them.
I like this definition the best. If someone is making a super complex sandwich with many ingredients and passion, then I’m fine to call that cooking. Same with a cold soup, a cous-cous salad or a fancy appetizer. Many dishes in top notch cuisine are served cold. In molecular kitchen, there’s even stuff served below freezing. Still all cooking to me.
If someone just warms up a can of Ravioli, microwaves convinience food, etc. I’d consider that rather food prep. If using the microwave is just one step of multiple in a recipe, than that’s fine again.
For me cooking requires a minimum level of effort rather than a minimum level of heat.
I had thought of editing the title to include microwaving food, too. I would say “I cooked it in the microwave” but it at the same time absolutely does not have the same weight as “I cooked this” implying I did all the work and not just re-heating someone else’s.
hm, no, because it is baking instead.
Care to elaborate? Other than toasting it, how do you consider it baking?
the bread is the lynch pin of the sandwich. You can do whatever you want with the rest of the ingredients, but the bread must (usually) be baked.
It’s only cooking if it’s done in the Cooke region governed by the Earle of Sandwich. Anything else is sparkling food preparation.
Only if you say sudo.
I guess that it depends on context? Typically I wouldn’t call it cooking, as it doesn’t involve applying heat to the food. But if I were to teach a kid how to cook, then I’d consider it cooking - as teaching them how to prepare a sandwich would be a good start.
So… we started with waffles and baking. They get to mix the batter and dump things into the bowl, and such.
Though the first thing my nephew made without help was mac and cheese- everything was from scratch, the sauce and the pasta. It might have taken him… uh… hours… to roll out the pasta by hand, but eh, you are allowed to have fun with your food.
If anyone hasn’t, making pasta is not that difficult. I wouldn’t say there isn’t a place for dry pasta; and it’s certainly more convenient, but if you’re interested don’t feel intimidated. (though, if you don’t have a pasta machine, I’d suggest something like Orecchiette; but there’s plenty of other shapes that don’t require a machine or rolling out in the video,)
Mixing batter and preparing pasta seem like great starts, too. The general idea is to not let the kid handle anything with heat or sharp knives until they’re old enough to “respect” the danger behind those things.
My own initiation was whisking mayo (where I live it’s traditional to prepare a potato-mayo salad on Sundays). Then when my nephew was young I kind of tried to teach him how to prepare some onigiri (he already liked them better than sandwich), with already cooked rice and fillings, but he was a bit too lazy to do it, and a bit too eager to eat the ingredients.
Absolutely, on the safety. Another thing to look out for is mixers and other machines.
though, they’re big and scarry enough sometimes they don’t need a warning… but eh… yeah. Those things will take a finger without even noticing.
Cooking is a process of transformation, both physical and symbolic. Combining ingredients intentionally to create something flavorful and nutritious, making a sandwich certainly falls under the act of cooking.
“Cooking” to me, requires the combination of ingredients AND heating them to create a new thing. Making a grilled cheese is basic, but cooking. Slapping meat, cheese and veg on bread is not cooking.
Is combining microwave rice and a frozen meal portion cooking then? Or to they have to be heated together?
But what if you toast it?
No, it’s food preparation but nothing is being cooked.
Depends on your start point. You can bake your own bread, cook/combine your own condiments, and roast/cure your own meats.
You can grow your wheat, and raise pigs, but to really make it from scratch, first you need to create the universe.
IMO, assembling a sandwich from ready-to-eat ingredients without using a stove, oven, microwave, etc. is meal prep, not cooking. If you roast, saute, toast, smoke, or even zap any part of it, now you’re cookin’. (Though zapping might just be reheating something that was cooked previously. Ugh, this is more complicated than it should be. English can be frustrating.)
Personally I’d define cooking as something that creates an irreversible physical or chemical change using heat.
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Maybe a panini.
True, but, turn that into ‘I’m cooking up a sandwich’, and now the phrase potentially expands its domain to basically mean any kind of food preparation.
The addition if ‘up’ makes it less literal, more jovial and less bounded.
True, but, turn that into ‘I’m cooking up a sandwich’, and now the phrase potentially expands its domain to basically mean any kind of food preparation.
The phrase expands into any preparation or invention, even ones that clearly do not have anything to do with cooking. e.g. “I’m cooking up a plan to deal with this.”
If you cook it, like a grilled cheese, then yes. Otherwise, it’s sandwich arts.
No, I would call that “preparing”. Cooking is the act of using heat to prepare food for consumption.
Which means that it might be, depending on the sandwich. For example, you cook a panini or grilled cheese.
What about using my George Foreman grill?
What matters is the loaf. Use the upper cut
