Not a snob on cooking and food wise, I found this to be a good question when debating my friend over beans on toast (UK here).
He says it doesn’t really count as cooking cos you’re just buying already produced ingredients to whack in a microwave or pot and that proper cooking is done from scratch.
I argue this is bullshit as you’re still USING common cooking equipment to make as something as simple as beans on toast because you still have to watch it not burn or dry out.
What are your thoughts on what counts as proper cooking? Would you say canned soup counts? Or frozen pizza since you’re still needing to use an oven and watch the food accordingly?
I think the confusion is that in English we don’t really have separate words for cooking-as-chore and cooking-as-art.
Lazy beans on toast or heating a frozen pizza is the first kind but not the second. There’s no creative input, no method. You’re just trying not to ruin your ingredients and end up with something edible. You’re cooking but you’re not cooking.
That’s a very cool perspective, thank you for sharing it
Just reheating precooked food is just that, reheating.
If I have to break out anything more than a plate/bowl and utensils then it’s cooking.
Unless they’re fermenting their own soy sauce out back, or making their own jello/ gelatine (look it up) if say it’s fair to call it cooking.
However, cooking, made from scratch and farm to table are all different.
If all you have to do is heat something up, you are not cooking.
It counts as cooking when you start needing to prepare and combine ingredients.
Canned soup is not cooking.
Making a grilled cheese sandwich to go along with your canned soup would be cooking though, because it requires preparing bread, cheese, and butter (usually) and then combining then cooking the ingredients in a particular way.
Is sous vide cooking?
Yes because you’re applying enough heat to change the chemical composition of the food.
Reheating, nah.
America’s Test Kitchen said it was OK to use garlic powder or granulated garlic and people’s heads exploded.
it’s all cooking
Food Network, Tick Tock, and Youtube have turned everyone into gatekeeping snobs. Tell your friend that Carl Sagan said that it doesn’t count as “made from scratch” unless the first step in the recipe is “create the universe”.
