Personally, I don’t* but I was curious what others think.
*some sandwiches excluded like a Cubano or chicken parm; those do require cooking.
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.
Making ceviche or sushi officially not cooking confirmed - how dare those posers call themselves sushi chefs.
gotta cook the rice for sushi. checkmate.
Sashimi: do I not even exist, bro?
Ha, you actually believe in Sashimi? Crazy.
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.
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.
What if I microwave it?
You can cook with a microwave, but if you’re just reheating something that’s not cooking.
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
Yeah - an application of heat to create a chemical change. You’re correct there. My answer was incomplete.
The word cooking, to me, means using heat with a stove. Baking is for the oven. Grilling, is outside on a grill. But a sandwich is only ever “made” in my house. “Will you make me a sandwich?”, “I’m making a sandwich”
Good question though. Never thought about it.
Sorry. You said “make me a sandwich”
There’s always an xkcd for every forum thread topic.
I see cooking as a more general term. Both baking and grilling are forms of cooking. You can also roast and grill things in the oven. Cooking on a stove also has different specific terms, boiling, simmering, frying etc.
So would you cook a salad?
i think combining watery things and oily things counts as emulsion, which is a cooking sort of word. i thought “cooking” was a word for “changing the chemical properties of” or just “heating up because it’s better hot”
I mean more general than heat with a stove. Not as is every form of meal preparation.
But yes. I would cook a salad - stir frys are basically just cooked salads with some rice or noodles. I would not consider every salad to be cooked though.
Hot German potato salad is a thing.
Nope. In English, if it doesn’t involve the application of heat, you ain’t cooking, you’re preparing, making, or other terminology.
So toasting a sammich is cooking, but making the sammich isn’t?
Pretty much, yeah. Same as grilling a burger and putting it on bread is cooking despite the bread being pre-made.
Afaik, cooking isn’t limited to applying heat to raw foods.
Might be worth saying that I don’t remember which dictionary the definition came from, and that dictionaries only record language, they don’t prevent changes over time. Which means that usage could have changed enough since the last time I looked at any, and now have a different usage added
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 specific language you speak has significant impact here. For some, "to make food* is used to refer to cooking. Where as in English it’s not so clear. I prefer the use in terms of survival. IMO, if you can make any food enough to survive you can cook, because in English there is not a better colloquial verb. Though i wouldn’t call you ‘a cook’ or ‘a chef’ if you can’t apply heat to produce edible food from raw.
Depends on the sandwich. If you’re constructing a sandwich without using heat, I would consider that “making lunch” or “making dinner” but not explicitly cooking. I’m not sure that the difference matters in any significant situations, though. Why are you asking?
Why are you asking?
Boredom.
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!
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.
I guess it would depend on the type of sandwich
. Peanut butter and jelly? No
A simple cheese sandwich? No
Grilled cheese sandwich? Yes
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 all 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.
I mean, you could cook something in the microwave. Like microwaving a potato in order to make mashed potatoes, or heating other things to create a dish. Like I used to microwave spaghetti squash and then shred up the strands to make spaghetti.
But like, if I reheated some leftovers, or put a frozen dinner in the microwave, Id probably say “I microwaved this” or “I heated this”.
By that logic, salads and sushi aren’t cooking.
Correct.
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.
Fair enough. Do you still consider it baking if your bread comes in a bag from the grocery store?
Only if making the sandwich involves cooking, like a grill cheese or something
