Personally, I don’t* but I was curious what others think.
*some sandwiches excluded like a Cubano or chicken parm; those do require cooking.
The word cooking, to me, means using heat with a stove. Baking is for the oven. Grilling, is outside on a grill. But a sandwich is only ever “made” in my house. “Will you make me a sandwich?”, “I’m making a sandwich”
Good question though. Never thought about it.
No, it’s food preparation but nothing is being cooked.
IMO, assembling a sandwich from ready-to-eat ingredients without using a stove, oven, microwave, etc. is meal prep, not cooking. If you roast, saute, toast, smoke, or even zap any part of it, now you’re cookin’. (Though zapping might just be reheating something that was cooked previously. Ugh, this is more complicated than it should be. English can be frustrating.)
Personally I’d define cooking as something that creates an irreversible physical or chemical change using heat.
I guess that it depends on context? Typically I wouldn’t call it cooking, as it doesn’t involve applying heat to the food. But if I were to teach a kid how to cook, then I’d consider it cooking - as teaching them how to prepare a sandwich would be a good start.
I don’t think it’s cooking unless you are applying heat to cause a chemical reaction. So, making a grilled cheese sandwich counts as cooking, but a BP&J does not.
Beenut putter?
Making ceviche or sushi officially not cooking confirmed - how dare those posers call themselves sushi chefs.
I think of a chef as a “preparer of food” not necessarily “food cooker”
So sushi chef is still accurate to their opinion, disclaimer I agree with them so I could always be rationalizing it.
gotta cook the rice for sushi. checkmate.
Sashimi: do I not even exist, bro?
Slap a whole fish down in front of you.
You: “Not cooked”
slice filled of fish off and present it.
You: “Not cooked”
slice filled into small bite size pieces and squirt some neon green horseradish next to it
You: “Dis is cooked!”
?
Ha, you actually believe in Sashimi? Crazy.
What if I want my raw spam musubi extra crunchy?
Then you should opt the spam out for soused harring.
Ceviche is said to be “cooked” with acid, even if that’s not the most accurate term. And most forms of sushi are made with cooked rice, at minimum, and not uncommonly with other cooked ingredients. So those things kind of muddy the waters for your point. But a clearer example may be something like beef tartare, a garden salad with a vinegarette, or sashimi. Those things are “prepared”, not cooked, because no cooking is involved in their making. Cooking is specifically the preparation of food utilizing heat. Chefs prepare plenty of dishes that do not involve the act of cooking.
Some of the constituent ingredients have to be cooked, but ceviches and sushi rolls aren’t cooked any more than salads or burritos. They’re assembled or prepared.
You’re ignoring the chemical process in ceviche.
“Cooking” to me, requires the combination of ingredients AND heating them to create a new thing. Making a grilled cheese is basic, but cooking. Slapping meat, cheese and veg on bread is not cooking.
No one ever says “I’m cooking a sandwich”
Maybe a panini.
True, but, turn that into ‘I’m cooking up a sandwich’, and now the phrase potentially expands its domain to basically mean any kind of food preparation.
The addition if ‘up’ makes it less literal, more jovial and less bounded.
True, but, turn that into ‘I’m cooking up a sandwich’, and now the phrase potentially expands its domain to basically mean any kind of food preparation.
The phrase expands into any preparation or invention, even ones that clearly do not have anything to do with cooking. e.g. “I’m cooking up a plan to deal with this.”
Depends on the sandwich. If you’re constructing a sandwich without using heat, I would consider that “making lunch” or “making dinner” but not explicitly cooking. I’m not sure that the difference matters in any significant situations, though. Why are you asking?
Why are you asking?
Boredom.
hm, no, because it is baking instead.
Care to elaborate? Other than toasting it, how do you consider it baking?
If someone told me they “cooked themselves a BLT”, I’d assume they meant they’d baked the bread, fried the bacon, and emulsified the mayonnaise themselves and the slicing and assembly were just the final parts of the process.
Interesting… I wouldn’t have thought of a BLT either, but you do have to at least cook the bacon most of the time. Now I’m wondering what a BLT made with Tactical Bacon (pre cooked and canned bacon jerky) would taste like… 🤔
I guess it would depend on the type of sandwich
. Peanut butter and jelly? No
A simple cheese sandwich? No
Grilled cheese sandwich? Yes
What about a grilled cheese and peanut butter and jelly and pickles sandwich with a side of sourkrout?
I’m going with inedible but yeah that’s cooking
Entirely context dependent.
Who’s cooking tonight? Me, and if it’s sandwiches, salad, etc - still counts.
No cooking in the room. Combining sliced bread with sliced cheese out of the bag - doesn’t count.
Put butter on the outside, throw it in a hot pan and grill it. Even go further and get a sandwich press. NOW YOU’RE COOKIN!
Cooking is simply the preparing of food.
It doesn’t necessarily require the application of heat.
If some one is being proud of a sandwich- let them be proud. We all start somewhere.
