To think heating food is not cooking?

[pouracupofambition]

So, this is lighthearted.

DH cannot cook. He can spend hours pouring over a cookbook, following step by step instructions but end up producing inedible mush. We are supportive as a family and try to eat any offerings as best we can.

DH made lunch today and it was fine but it was all foods that were heated up. Quorn sausages, Aunt Bessie roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings, M&S green medley microwaved. You get the drift. It was an ok lunch and DH was very pleased but heating up isn't cooking, is it? Cooking is adding ingredients to make a new dish. Or am I wrong?

Does it matter? He produced a meal which you didn't have to make.

You're splitting hairs over something that's a non issue. Cooking can be heating stuff up, or starting from scratch. If there's heat and food involved it's cooking. 🤷

Cooking is "the preparation of food for eating by a heating process" so it is technically cooking.

I do know what you mean though. There's a definite difference in cooking from scratch and using a jar/freezer food.

Sounds like he does try, given you said he spends hours trying to follow a recipe.

I'd just thank him for the lunch and act pleased too

Think I've got the concept wrong. I always thought cooking was taking food and mixing it to make new food.

I think we were told that at school in the 80s.

Most of my cooking consists of things that are heated up, the result is an edible meal and I'm happy that I haven't had to fart around adding ingredients to make a new dish.
I hate cooking.

We're always very thankful for any food produced.

Would you more so consider it cooking if he'd chopped up and roasted the potatoes himself? Or chopped and boiled his own veggies? Because even if he had, he still wouldn't be mixing ingredients together to make a new dish.

I kind of get what you mean, but I think your definition is flawed, because there are many things you could make that don't really include mixing different ingredients together to make something new.

If I steamed some fish, roasted some potatoes, and boiled some green beans, I'd definitely still consider that "cooking" a meal rather than simply "heating up" food, although I still haven't mixed ingredients together.

Sounds like he cooked it to me.

Get a BBq outside, grab a load of charcoal, hand him a big bag of meats and let him crack on.
There's something about BBqs that make men happy... 🤪🤣

Could you have eaten the food straight from the fridge, if he hadn't cooked it?

A salad does not involve cooking. Oven chips and frozen pizza do.

Not everybody is a good cook! Just do it yourself if you're going to be a fussy bugger OP!

I don't see that it really matters what the definition of what he did was.

But essentially I agree with you that I wouldn't call it "cooking" if I just put some ready made stuff in the fridge for a bit.
But if I did that, and then said "I've cooked lunch" and DH started nitpicking about the definition of cooking, I'd be annoyed.

If you are warming up food so it’s hot, that’s heating up food. If you have to warm it up so it’s cooked, that’s cooking. So unless you could have chosen to eat the lunch cold, your DH has cooked.

YABU.

I completely agree wit the first reply.

I would call it cooking even though it’s low hassle convenience food.
I learned to cook as an adult and started with dishes like cooking a stir fry (protein+ ready prepared stir fry veg+ ready made sauce + stir fry noodles) I can now cook harder dishes but without the easy dishes, I may not have got here.

Not fridge, oven. Obviously

I would cheer and say good job!

Who care?

Sorry - I disagree with that!!!

I can't / don't cook, I have heated up for years.

My mother couldn't cook either, goodness knows how we survived before ' heating up ' food appeared in the shops.

Did it taste at least as good and have similar nutrition in comparison with the food he usually makes? If so it sounds like a positive step!

I mean cooking sausages and putting a meal together is cooking Imo do you never make sausage and Mash. ?

Yes this is probably what I meant. I'm having roast chicken today I've put it in the oven to cook I'm not heating it up.

There's a difference between cooking and "getting food on the table", I agree OP. Otherwise all those generations of hapless men whose wives, when they left on short trips, filled the freezer with a week's worth of meals, were actually cooking when they heated them up. Although @Trickabrick has a fairly good definition there.

I'd argue that Vietnamese summer rolls are cooking though, although no heat might be involved necessarily. ;)

I suppose I don’t really consider heating something in the oven and putting on a plate “cooking”, but I say it depends on how many different elements to the meal there is. It’s still making lunch. I wouldn’t “cook” a salad but it might have a lot of different ingredients and need a lot of preparation.

At the end of the day he’s prepared a meal, that you presumably enjoyed. I’d be annoyed if I made a similar meal and DH said that he didn’t consider that I’d “cooked” it. Whereas if I’ve just put a pizza in the oven then that’s fair enough in my opinion. (DH would never say such a thing cos he would get told where to shove it and would then have to prepare his own dinner every night)

It's an abomination that people buy ready made roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. Aunt Bessie is quite literally Hitler.

No it's not cooking, although it doesn't really matter unless he's making a fuss about how well he's cooked, or unless you are particular about UPF.