Does making cereal or toast count as cooking?

[MCheetah]

Cereal? Sandwiches? Canned soup? Toast? Hot dog? Pre-made pizza?
Are all of these cooking or not?

A debate that got big on the internet.

Yes, that is still cooking, as you're preparing your own meals by yourself.

No, that doesn't count; cooking is more than that.

[GoldenAxer]

I think if you can take care of yourself food-wise and clean up without others prepping things for you, that's a start. Might not impress anybody though. I think a lot of the fundamental ability to cook breaks those compound ingredients down to more atomic ones like flour, salt, sugar, veggies, fruits, meats: make your own pizza dough, not use pre-made pizza dough.

I think it's like the difference between someone who can hunt quail at a ranch that has helpless quail everywhere over one that can actually survive in the wilderness with the bare minimum of resources. I'd still say the first person can hunt, sorta, but only in conditions where other people already did like 95% of the work for them.

[GoldenAxer]

And maybe it's like a spectrum like maybe even a professional chef doesn't have to necessarily skin and guts animals, or forage for food, or pick crops, or grind wheat, or milk cows. But I think at the heart of a great chef is the desire to do that, and maybe that's why people like Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White are going on televised expeditions hunting and foraging for their own food. I think the ultimate ideal of a cook is to improvise with what's available without someone else just handing them ingredients where most of the work is already done by others.

[GoldenAxer]

And maybe it's like being an artist. I don't want to undermine people who like to do coloring books and color in between the lines. They're still doing a lot more than people who don't do anything in this respect. But if they are to be considered "artists" making "art", then I think this is the bare minimum to satisfy those ideas.

[GoldenAxer]

But I gotta commend anyone whose idea of cooking even boils down to popping pre-prepped ingredients into a microwave because that can be more than some people who just live on food already heated and arranged neatly for them with disposable utensils. At least they're doing something resembling cooking, even if it's the bare minimum. They're at least applying heat themselves (sorta) or combining more than one ingredient together, even if the ingredients are complex.

[hahahmm]

Cooking is a spectrum from "a trained dog could do it" to "this takes much experience, skill and attention to detail to do". Making toast is technically cooking but since it requires zero skill it's nothing to brag about. Saying, "I cooked toast" is like saying you used both of your feet to walk down the street. So what.

Pouring milk into a bowl isn't cooking. It's a form of food preparation like making a salad -- but a lot less complicated than making a salad.

[pleasestopthis]

It doesn't count on my book. Cooking for me, is turning something from raw to cooked.

[MCheetah]

So making hot dogs, sushi, and carpaccio isn't cooking?

[pleasestopthis]

Hot dog you cook the sausage, sushi you cook the rice, carpaccio is discusable because it takes a least a bit of talent to cut the meat and other ingredients. But canned soup, premade pizza, toast? you only need a heat source and that's it.

[MCheetah]

"Cooking for me, is turning something from raw to cooked."

That was what you just said, though. So saying "You only need a heat source and that's it" would still apply as cooking, based on your own words.

[pleasestopthis]

But a pizza isn't raw, canned soup isn't raw either, you just need to heat it.

[proNutro]

Heck no. I actually laughed at this… it must be a joke to think that’s cooking

[Lliam]

LOL It's about the only cooking I do. Eggs, toast, hot dogs, bacon, sandwiches, canned soup or chili, grilled cheese sandwich, reheating leftovers, warming a muffin or TV dinner in the toaster oven, ...

I don't think cereal counts. Neither does eating fruit or snacks because no cooking or preparing is involved. But the other stuff, yeah.

My wife does most of the cooking at our house. She works, so during the day I fend for myself. But on the nights when she gets home early enough, she makes actual balanced meals. I make meals for dinner on some rare occasions.

[Lionman95]

For me as a rather passionate person about cooking that´s not cooking. Cooking involves a meal that´s needs preparation of several ingrediences. Don´t get me wrong though I think it´s good first step to learn to make a sandwich, cereals or a hot dog, but that´s preparing food for me cooking involves getting all ingredients hot. Making a pizza yourself is part of cooking though.

[t-8900]

My Italian grandparents would also you for asking such a question lol

[t-8900]

Slap

[Brown-Kitty]

Yes, as long as it's food

[karaspara]

Yes absolutely just not gourmet