Talk:Cooking
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Suggested Revised Opening
"Cooking" (also known as cookery) is the art, science, and craft of intentionally transforming food through a range of methods — thermal (e.g., boiling, roasting, frying) and non-thermal (e.g., fermentation, curing, acid denaturation, enzymatic processes) — to improve its palatability, safety, nutritional value, and cultural significance.
This preserves the structure and tone of the existing definition, while broadening the scope to reflect cultural and scientific consensus.
Conclusion
This enhancement would:
- Keep the historical and heat-based focus intact
- Add non-thermal processes recognized in culinary traditions worldwide
- Ensure consistency across Wikipedia’s multilingual editions
- Increase the article’s accuracy and inclusivity for a global readership
I welcome feedback from the editorial community and am happy to provide additional references or source material.
Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 January 2021 and 19 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shaunbp. Peer reviewers: LilyThue, Vivmm13, Cjaldana.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Fireless cooker
Is there an article on the Fireless cooker, under a different name? I couldn't find one... it's basically an insulated basket or box for keeping food at a high temperature to finish cooking, while using less fuel (and creating less pollution) than usual cooking methods. If an article is to be created here, I think it should be placed in Category:Cooking appliances, Category:Appropriate technology and Category:Sustainable technologies. --Singkong2005 talk 02:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
- This looks like a variation on haybox cooking, which is a form of retained-heat cooking, combined with a form of Slow cooker. --Coconino 10:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikicook book
Do any of you think there should be a Wikicook book? I think there should. Come and tell me what you think! Asteroidz R not planetz 19:36, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I would just like to ask if there's anyone else that thinks having a Wikicook book is a good idea. I think it is. Tell me what you think! Asteroidz R not planetz 19:37, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Hi, first of all, new comments/questions should be added to the end of Talk pages, or the end of any sections on that particular issue. Secondly, there is already a Wiki Cookbook in Wikibooks Cookbook. --Macrakis 22:49, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Food safety
the food safety section is getting too big, particularly since there is also a whole page devoted to the topic. I propose cutting it back to just the part about heating food, which would be appropriate in context (under the 'effects of cooking' heading). FiveRings 17:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't the "danger zone" be expressed in Celsius with the F given in brackets (SI units)?
Scratchedguitar (talk) 19:18, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Definition
"The term cooking encompasses all methods of food preparation including non-heated methods."
Says who? --MQDuck 22:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
- Says anyone who knows anything about the subject. Just go ask any professional chef. All preparation for final consumption is a form of cooking, and all stages of preparation are cooking. Consider that in professional restaurants prep cooks may undertake early phases of cooking by chopping vegetables, portioning steaks, shredding and slicing cheeses, and more. Many foods require no heat application in any stage at all, such as vegetable salads, aiolis and other condiments. Others may only involve heat application only during preparatory stages, like most sushi items (heat is used to prepare the sushi rice, but not in the preparation of the final dish). There are also cases where only the pre-existing ambient heat is employed, such as sun brewed tea, oil infusions, or softening butter at room temperature for spreading on something. In other instances still, chemical processes may be used in place of heat application, such as curing fish in lemon juice, or an (undesired) case of air exposure causing refridgerated meat to oxidize and prematurely brown. And then there are the occasional instances still where refrigeration to avoid heat may actually be a necessary component, so that a perishable ingredient doesn't go bad before the cooking is complete. Look at overnight oats, which requires several hours, during which the milk could very possibly go bad if the whole process weren't taking place in the fridge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:4040:B078:6C00:D5D6:3F78:2A9A:22FD (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
- I've removed this. Chris Cunningham 10:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Ask yourself why not. I see no reason this is false. I am putting it back if no one objects.--209.80.246.13 (talk) 15:51, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
OED definition of cooking "the process of preparing food by heating it." (http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cooking) Scratchedguitar (talk) 19:21, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
Rapeseed and Canola
Canola is just a fancy marketing term for rapeseed oil. That isn't made very clear in the reference in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.129.238 (talk) 16:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
History of Cooking
I feel that the history of cooking deserves its own section, in terms of why humans began cooking at all, and the cultural and physical changes that occurred as a result. In other words, at what point (besides after the discovery of fire) did the human race feel the need to heat their foods? JezSmitty (talk) 11:51, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed. I would also like some archaeologists to weigh in on the claim of "systematic production of flint blades, the habitual use of fire, evidence of hunting, cutting and sharing of animal meat, mining raw materials to produce flint tools from subsurface sources," etc. at the Qesem Cave, a site 400k to 200k years old.
- However, it's not outside the realm of possibility that humans were not the first hominins to cook.
- Human remains spark spat, Nature (2010)
- 300,000-Year-Old Caveman 'Campfire' Found, Live Science (2014) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.118.9.187 (talk) 05:33, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
- Actually, by definition, it IS outside the realm of possibility. The distinction between humans and non-human predecessors is the making of tools. Even the most primitive acts of cooking would have required a manufactured tool of some sort. Even picking up a burning piece of tree from a lightning strike and placing it on an assembled pile of kindling to create a controlled fire would constitute tool making. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:4040:B078:6C00:D5D6:3F78:2A9A:22FD (talk) 20:11, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
Food safety
(since nobody responded to my previous comment about this). There are already pages on Food safety and Food and cooking hygiene that actually have less information than the Food Safety section on this page. I propose moving this page's information to the main Food safety page, and also merging the hygiene page into it. Comments? FiveRings (talk) 02:29, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
- It's been forever since you said this, so you probly did it already, but if not, then yes, I think your idea is good. Carl.bunderson (talk) 00:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
- The image that shows a lady using a chopping board seems an inadequate illustration for a food safety section, unless you want to show a bad example; she works with food with no hairnet, and even worse, wearing a few rings.--200.238.100.15 (talk) 18:52, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Recipes
There should be a wiki coookbook that would be a great idea. Everyone could edit their favourite recipes. I like bread making for example. Wikicookbook would be the ultimate in recipes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Catherinefionarichardson (talk • contribs) 12:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
- Try http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook for thousands of recipes. Velela (talk) 13:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
