What is Cooking?
*spoiler alert: it’s an opinion, not an answer.
Though we all know the general meaning of the word ‘COOKING’, the oxford dictionary defines it as “a process of preparing food by heating”, but do we really need to stop ourselves from understanding it linguistically, or should we go ahead and explore its practical and literal aspect? Let’s consider some factors that build up cooking.
- Heat: Do we really need to heat something for it to be classified as “Cooked”, according to the dictionary it is. Then what about fermentation, is it not a type of cooking? If not then what is it? If we plot a one-axis graph of an article concerning temperature and we’ll take zero as to which if something on the positive side is said to be “Cooked” and that on the negative side is “Uncooked”. But this cannot be standardized because people prefer their food to be cooked to different temperatures (boiled eggs, good ol’ grilled steak, etc.). Also, people might consider the product “RAW” which is cooked below their preferential point on the scale.
- Consistency: It is also highly affected by the temperature to which something is subjected. But are carrots raw if we just blanch them? Or are they cooked when we pressure cook them? The judge is our brain, it compares the consistency (texture is subjective, more on that later) of the carrot with our memorized one i.e. the one which we grew up eating.
- Taste and Flavour: There is a very prominent saying in the kitchens, “We cook to enhance Flavours”. I ask DO WE?! Let’s take the example of bitter gourd. Why do we salt it before cooking? To reduce some of that bitterness right? And bitterness is a class of tastes, is it not? Hence we also deteriorate tastes. So ideally we must say “We cook to enhance agreeable tastes and flavors” (and yes, there is a helluva difference between the two).
- Change in pH: Blah Blah Blah…
- Food Safety: Blah Blah Blah…
We can go on and on and on about the aspects which form the body of the definition of COOKING. But when we really get down to it, there really is no right way. In cooking, the good is what we like, period. And we can not leave this question without considering the point of love. Yes, cooking is first and foremost about love, and only then about art and after that technique.
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