Cooking

From Wikinfo

Cooking is the art, science, profession, and hobby of preparing food and drink for human consumption. The term is often used in the narrower sense of applying heat to chemically transform a food to change its flavor, texture, appearance, or nutritional properties.

Heating can sterilize the food (depending on temperature, cooking time, and technique used), in addition to softening the food by turning collagen into gelatin. However, several studies and experiments showed that uncooked fruits, vegetables and other foods are healthier and more nutritious than their cooked (heated above 110-120 F) counterparts. This is because heat destroys a significant proportion of vitamins and minerals, damages all enzymes, breaks down natural fibers etc. For details see the Living and Raw Foods website, and this article in particular.

A room equipped for cooking is called a kitchen.

After humans mastered the fire thousands of years ago, cooking became a nearly universal cultural feature. Specific techniques and ingredients are often regional. See Cuisine for information about the many regional and ethnic food traditions. Please see food writing for some authors of books on cookery, food, and the history of food.

Some major cooking (in the sense of transforming raw food with heat) techniques:

• Baking
  • High tech baking
• Barbecuing
• Boiling
  • Blanching
• Braising
• Broiling
• Frying
  • Deep frying
  • Hot salt frying
  • Hot sand frying
  • Pan frying
  • Pressure frying
  • Sauteeing
  • Stir frying
• Grilling
• Infusion
• Poaching
• Pressure cooking
• Roasting
• Simmering
• Smoking
• Steaming
  • Double steaming
• Vacuum flask cooking

Other preparation techniques:

• Brining
• Marination
• Seasoning
• Pickling
• Drying
• Coddling
• Microwaving (colloquially known as "nuking")

Vessels for cooking include saucepans, frying pans and woks.

Other information:

• Food and cooking hygiene
• Food preservation
• Cooking weights and measures (includes conversions and equivalences common in cooking)

For recipes, see the list of recipes and the list of cocktails. Also see staple (cooking).

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Cooking" http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking July 17, 2003