Home Cookery Year: Four Seasons, Over 200 Recipes for All Possible Occasions

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Chen, Rosalind Chia-Yu; Lee, Meei-Shyuan; Chang, Yu-Hung; Wahlqvist, Mark L. (1 July 2012). "Cooking frequency may enhance survival in Taiwanese elderly" (PDF). Public Health Nutrition. 15 (7): 1142–1149. doi: 10.1017/S136898001200136X. ISSN 1475-2727. PMID 22578892. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Home cooking has traditionally been a process carried out informally in a home or around a communal fire, and can be enjoyed by all members of the family, although in many cultures women bear primary responsibility. [47] Cooking is also often carried out outside of personal quarters, for example at restaurants, or schools. Bakeries were one of the earliest forms of cooking outside the home, and bakeries in the past often offered the cooking of pots of food provided by their customers as an additional service. In the present day, factory food preparation has become common, with many "ready-to-eat" as well as "ready-to-cook" foods being prepared and cooked in factories and home cooks using a mixture of scratch made, and factory made foods together to make a meal. The nutritional value of including more commercially prepared foods has been found to be inferior to home-made foods. [48] Home-cooked meals tend to be healthier with fewer calories, and less saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium on a per calorie basis while providing more fiber, calcium, and iron. [49] The ingredients are also directly sourced, so there is control over authenticity, taste, and nutritional value. The superior nutritional quality of home-cooking could therefore play a role in preventing chronic disease. [50] Cohort studies following the elderly over 10 years show that adults who cook their own meals have significantly lower mortality, even when controlling for confounding variables. [51] Types of cooking also depend on the skill levels and training of the cooks. Cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments.

Several studies published since 1990 indicate that cooking meat at high temperature creates heterocyclic amines (HCAs), which are thought to increase cancer risk in humans. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that human subjects who ate beef rare or medium-rare had less than one third the risk of stomach cancer than those who ate beef medium-well or well-done. [39] While avoiding meat or eating meat raw may be the only ways to avoid HCAs in meat fully, the National Cancer Institute states that cooking meat below 212°F (100°C) creates "negligible amounts" of HCAs. Also, microwaving meat before cooking may reduce HCAs by 90% by reducing the time needed for the meat to be cooked at high heat. [39] Nitrosamines are found in some food, and may be produced by some cooking processes from proteins or from nitrites used as food preservatives; cured meat such as bacon has been found to be carcinogenic, with links to colon cancer. Ascorbate, which is added to cured meat, however, reduces nitrosamine formation. [38] [40]

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Chemical processes central to cooking include hydrolysis (in particular beta elimination of pectins, during the thermal treatment of plant tissues), pyrolysis, and glycation reactions wrongly named Maillard reactions. [44] [45]

The interaction of heat and carbohydrate is complex. Long-chain sugars such as starch tend to break down into more digestible simpler sugars. [18] If the sugars are heated so that all water of crystallisation is driven off, caramelization starts, with the sugar undergoing thermal decomposition with the formation of carbon, and other breakdown products producing caramel. Similarly, the heating of sugars and proteins causes the Maillard reaction, a basic flavor-enhancing technique. Organ, Chris (22 August 2011). "Phylogenetic rate shifts in feeding time during the evolution of Homo". PNAS. 108 (35): 14555–14559. Bibcode: 2011PNAS..10814555O. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1107806108. PMC 3167533. PMID 21873223. Barbas, Samantha (Fall 2002). "Just Like Home: "Home Cooking" and the Domestication of the American Restaurant". Gastronomica. 2 (4): 43–52. doi: 10.1525/gfc.2002.2.4.43. JSTOR 10.1525/gfc.2002.2.4.43. Important contributions have been made by scientists, chefs and authors such as Hervé This (chemist), Nicholas Kurti (physicist), Peter Barham (physicist), Harold McGee (author), Shirley Corriher (biochemist, author), Robert Wolke (chemist, author.) It is different for the application of scientific knowledge to cooking, that is "molecular cooking"( (for the technique) or "molecular cuisine" (for a culinary style), for which chefs such as Raymond Blanc, Philippe and Christian Conticini, Ferran Adria, Heston Blumenthal, Pierre Gagnaire (chef). [43]a b "Cutting Boards – wood or plastic?". ReluctantGourmet.com. Archived from the original on 2 July 2006 . Retrieved 21 June 2006. Scanlan RA. (1983). "Formation and occurrence of nitrosamines in food". Cancer Res. 43 (5 Suppl): 2435s–2440s. PMID 6831466.