To ask what you'd class as cooking?

[Mouldyfoodhelp]

Having a discussion with someone and their stance is: just getting a chicken breast out the pack and into the oven with a few potatoes is good enough cooking, doing the same with a ready meal, or buying a pie.

My stance is that whilst that's cooking in its absolutely most basic sense ( bar the ready meal), it's not what most people mean when they cook. Now I'm not being snobby we have more than our fair share of crap food but I say actual cooking has more processes like let's say a roast even though you're putting a chicken in the oven you're seasoning it, portioning it afterwards and you've got the veg to sort out, Yorkshire, stuffing etc. Other food ideals are for example a carbonara, shepherds pie, lasagne type stuff meals.

And even if some people do just put stuff in the oven I argue it's not literally just a plain chicken breast normally and they generally do some work for the meal.

It's more about expectations of results when each is cooking because I know they wouldn't be happy If that's all I did all the time as well.

But it is

The process of cooking doesn't require any great skill or knowledge and it's just snobbery suggest so

Cooking = prepare food using heat

So toast in a toaster is cooking

Totally agree. Anyone who just "bungs a roast in the oven" and does nothing else isn't going to produce a roast that I want to eat.⁹

The best roast potatoes are par boiled and then bashed a bit to give wonderful crispy edges. And then there's herbs or honey glazing on the veg, seasoning the meat and keeping it moist, using the meat juice for the gravy etc....

What you describe isn't a good roast.

Generally if it needs a knife it's cooking.

Kudos to those who open bags of frozen chips with a knife.

Yes quite. Okay so it’s not complex by any means, but it certainly takes a bit more than what’s described above.

I’m not surprised that so many people can’t stand a roast dinner, from some of the descriptions thereof I’ve read on MN over the years...

A great roast takes planning, skill, time and effort. I make everything from scratch, including stuffing, gravy and Yorkshire puddings where appropriate plus two or three sides, at least one of which will be an actual dish like a gratin or a warm salad rather than just boiled/roasted veg.

Mind you, I have the time and the inclination.

We're all different.

Well fair enough, but all the roasts I’ve had all taste more or less the same. Never order one out and rarely ever ‘cook’ one. To me it’s all just saturated in oil, stodgy and way to bland.

To me it’s all just saturated in oil, stodgy and way to bland.

There's a reason it's so bland if its just chicken lobbed into an oven! 😂

Tbh, I very rarely cook roasts - just Xmas Dinner and maybe one or two others a year. But I when we have one, we want it to be nice, so we pay attention to making it flavourful.

So how complex does have a meal have to be to be classified as cooking?

DD (aged 11) makes a pasta dish involving bacon, garlic, peas and cream cheese. It involves chopping and frying the bacon and garlic, boiling the pasta and peas and combining it all over heat. Is that cooking to some people?
We classify it as a quick and easy dinner.

For me it's anything than requires something more just taking the food out of the freezer and putting it to the oven, like frozen lasagne. When I have days when I eat frozen pizza, these are my non-cooking days. I don't care what other people do or qualify as cooking though, as long as everyone likes what they eat.

Yes, of course its cooking. It requires preparation of ingredients and heating/cooking them in various ways (frying/boiling).

Just because something is a quick and easy meal doesn't mean it's not cooking.

For me it means fresh food, cooked from scratch.

But if people eat frozen food, (& there is a place for it) then that’s their cooking.

I noticed some people say they are making salad or toast … I’d say you prepare salad, & unless you’re baking bread & making the butter you are not making it.

If you're reheating (ie ready meal or oven chips) you are reheating.

If you're making a salad, your making a salad.

If you're cooking, then you're cooking.

HTH 🤣

Who cares? As long as I'm eating the food I want to eat I don't care what anyone else does. If you want to invite me to eat with you and it's a lasagne made with a jar of red and a jar of white sauce I'll be just as grateful even if I wouldn't cook it myself.

Anyone who doesn't like what I am 'cooking' or 'not cooking' as the case may be is welcome to make their own

Oh and if it's hot food on a plate it's cooked, if it's a sarnie & a bag of crisps it's not cooked

I would be terribly disappointed to be served a lasagne made with jars of sauce. Thankfully none of my friends have ever served that. They tend to be really good cooks. Obviously like minded people etc etc.

There's a difference between cooking and coming a good meal. I cooked scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast, had to whisk and cook the eggs, toast the bread, chopped some tomatoes added olive oil, salt and pepper and put them on a tray in the oven. Was it complicated no, but for was cooked during the process.
This evening I'm making a pork apple and cider casserole from scratch, baked potatoes, shredded sautéed sprouts and steamed tenderstem broccoli , that'll take a bit more effort.
Putting frozen waffles and nuggets in the oven isn't what I would think of as cooking but I guess technically you're taking something inedible and applying heat after which it is cooked?

If you are taking food and applying heat to it, you are cooking.

Making toast is cooking. Microwaving some veg is cooking.

Let's not be unbearable snobs about it, eh?

I'd be disappointed with anyone rude enough to judge people for using jars of sauce, but that's just me.

Ultimately what difference does it make, really? A tomato based sauce is more or less the same whether it comes from - gasp - a jar or if you bash a few tomatoes together yourself.

This has to be one of the snootiest condescending threads I’ve ever read. Hyacinth Bucket anyone?

I think this boils (pun intended) down to who 'someone' is and how much their thoughts about cooking impact you. My guess is adult child, living at home, on a cooking rota with other adults in the household, but it's not clear from your posts. If so, I think it's fair enough to ask them to put the same cooking effort in that everyone else does, even if they aren't great at it. If they're just cooking for themselves, let them crack on with their bland chicken and you can cook or not cook as much as you enjoy too.

It's really not the same.

Judging and being disappointed are not the same. I don't care what people cook, I don't judge them for using jars.

I simply don't like them and would be disappointed to be served them. Would you really not be disappointed to be served a food you disliked?

I’d class cooking as making a meal of which an element has been cooked - I don’t care how - could be oven, microwave, whatever. Generally from raw ingredients (which could involve putting a prepared chicken breast into an oven with some chips or making chips from a potato or more substantial effort like making a curry from scratch).

How insightful 🙄

I think most of the examples mentioned on this thread are ‘cooking’.

It doesn’t have to involve hard work or lots of time or lots of doing things to count as cooking. People might do complicated or simple cooking, but both are cooking. They might use lots of ingredients or very few, but it is all cooking. Some people enjoy a more complex meal and would be disappointed with a plain chicken breast which is cooked in the oven….but that chicken breast has been cooked. So we have different ideas about what we like and don’t like or would do regularly or irregularly, but it doesn’t mean what others do isn’t cooking. And one type isn’t necessarily more worthy than the other…..that’s what the implication is through this thread from many - that certain things are less worthy and don’t ‘count’ as much and a good parent ‘should’ be doing the complex stuff.

Chopping and frying onions and graphic, browning mince and adding chopped vegetables before adding a jar of sauce and cooking some pasta or rice or potatoes certainly seems like cooking.

Putting a chicken breast or a few slices of bacon or a pork chop from the fridge onto an oven tray and into the oven seems like cooking to me. What would actually be the difference if the chicken breast or pork chop came out of the freezer?

Chopping up some vegetables and frying them, and cooking some pasta or noodles on the hob and then mixing together with a sachet of sauce seems like cooking.

I suppose processed food that comes from the freezer or fridge has already been prepared. It might need just heating up, or the meat might need cooking.

I suppose we can agree that food we prepare ourselves is better for us than processed foods. However, as many say, through the source of a week or month, most people have a varying mix of processed and non-processed food and many meals contain a mixture of both in reality. Lots of people make a lot of use of processed food, such as prepared meat products, sauces and side dishes, but often alongside items that aren’t processed. I’d consider most of those meals to be cooked meals.

In the end, I guess we can be surprised at other people….not everyone feeds themselves or lives as we might do due to choice or necessity. Some will be surprised to see that almost every meal involves shaking stuff out of bags or boxes from the freezer onto oven trays or onto a microwave plate. Others will be surprised to see people chopping multiple ingredients and being invovled in fairly labour intensive preparation and making meals that take many hours to be ready. They all produce a plate of hot food.