Personally, I don’t* but I was curious what others think.
*some sandwiches excluded like a Cubano or chicken parm; those do require cooking.
It’s only cooking if it’s done in the Cooke region governed by the Earle of Sandwich. Anything else is sparkling food preparation.
Cooking (in the English I was taught) involves the application of heat - frying, baking, roasting, boiling etc are the names for specific ways to do this. A sandwich would be made or prepared.
Some go as far as saying cooking requires a chemical change, else youre just heating
Just for the heck of it, if you heat protein enough to denature it but have no Maillard reaction (let’s say you’ve just made a hard boiled egg), would that not be considered cooking by that definition?
My understanding is that denaturing is a physical structure change, not a chemical one (and according to Wikipedia can be reversible in some cases), not a biochemist or food scientist though so totally accepting that my understanding is incorrect/incomplete.
Yeah - an application of heat to create a chemical change. You’re correct there. My answer was incomplete.
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.
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.
If you cook it, like a grilled cheese, then yes. Otherwise, it’s sandwich arts.
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.
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!
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.
“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.
But what if you toast it?
Is combining microwave rice and a frozen meal portion cooking then? Or to they have to be heated together?
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.
Does it take unreasonably long compared to the time to consume the food?
Yes.
Does it use ingredients?
Yes.
Is it worth the effort?
No.
Sounds like cooking to me.
Is it worth the effort?
No.
Sounds like you suck at cooking, my guy.
Just because you don’t enjoy it doesn’t mean you suck at it
They did not say “do I enjoy it?” they said “Is it worth the effort?” and if having food made exactly to your taste is not worth the effort you either have no standards and would be fine with microwave slop and fast food, or you lack the skill to make something that satisfies you.
Either way, skill issue.
The one exception would be if you’re disabled or something, and I don’t mean “I have adhd” disabled, I mean “I physically can’t stand at the stove for 20-30 minites” disabled.
I don’t think it’s cooking unless you are applying heat to cause a chemical reaction. So, making a grilled cheese sandwich counts as cooking, but a BP&J does not.
Beenut putter?
Butter, peanutbutter and jelly?
Butter, Peanut butter, and Just a little more peanut butter
Lol whoops. I’m leaving it.
Making ceviche or sushi officially not cooking confirmed - how dare those posers call themselves sushi chefs.
Just because it’s preparing food and not cooking doesn’t mean that it is lesser.
I think of a chef as a “preparer of food” not necessarily “food cooker”
So sushi chef is still accurate to their opinion, disclaimer I agree with them so I could always be rationalizing it.
chef is french for chief. they are the head of the kitchen.
They still have to cook the rice.
gotta cook the rice for sushi. checkmate.
Sashimi: do I not even exist, bro?
Ha, you actually believe in Sashimi? Crazy.
Slap a whole fish down in front of you.
You: “Not cooked”
slice filled of fish off and present it.
You: “Not cooked”
slice filled into small bite size pieces and squirt some neon green horseradish next to it
You: “Dis is cooked!”
?
Yea, it looks fucking delicious. Thank you for cooking me a fine meal!
What if I want my raw spam musubi extra crunchy?
Then you should opt the spam out for soused harring.
Some of the constituent ingredients have to be cooked, but ceviches and sushi rolls aren’t cooked any more than salads or burritos. They’re assembled or prepared.
You’re ignoring the chemical process in ceviche.
Yea, ceviche is cooked with acid rather than heat - you can also cook some foods with salt!
You could cook using an exothermic reaction between ingredients, but I don’t think that’s what’s happening when making ceviche, so a ceviche is not cooked.
Cc @SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
The proteins are being chemically denatured.
By heat?
Ceviche is said to be “cooked” with acid, even if that’s not the most accurate term. And most forms of sushi are made with cooked rice, at minimum, and not uncommonly with other cooked ingredients. So those things kind of muddy the waters for your point. But a clearer example may be something like beef tartare, a garden salad with a vinegarette, or sashimi. Those things are “prepared”, not cooked, because no cooking is involved in their making. Cooking is specifically the preparation of food utilizing heat. Chefs prepare plenty of dishes that do not involve the act of cooking.
The acid from the lime is doing the cooking in ceviche.
I agree - and it specifically isn’t doing so through an application of heat.
What if I microwave it?
You can cook with a microwave, but if you’re just reheating something that’s not cooking.
Eh… why are we trying to gatekeep cooking?
It’s not gatekeeping, it’s a discussion of semantics. The official definition of cooking is the preparation of food by using heat.
Buy my book
Yes Mr Sherman. Everything stinks.
Talking about definitions and how far they go is not gatekeeping. There’s no gate here, just a bunch of people with sticks drawing lines on sand and seeing where the others drew their lines.
It you cook the sandwich, the bread, or any part of the filling, yes. If you toast your bread and warm up your ingredients in a pan, why not ? But if you are just cuting and filling. You’re assembling a sandwich, not cooking it.
The question is inadequatly phrased. You must describe what kind of sandwich we are speaking of. Unless op is speaking about cold sandwiches exclusively, many sandwiches require cooking.
Croque Monsieur
Grilled Cheese
Cubano
Monte Cristo
Panini
These are just a few that I came up with off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many more.
