Strange question from work

[telehort]

A co-worker asked me today if when we are making pizzas in our WFO's do we consider it "cooking pizza" or "baking pizza". I think most would go with cooking, but they tried to make the argument that we are considered bakers when doing our pizzas.
I just wanted to see what others thought.

[CanuckJim]

Re: Strange question from work

TE,

My two cents: no matter how you cut it, pizza is essentially a yeasted, very thin bread, and you bake bread.

Jim

[james]

Re: Strange question from work

TE,

My two cents: no matter how you cut it, pizza is essentially a yeasted, very thin bread, and you bake bread.

Jim

I'll second that.
James

[Ed_]

Re: Strange question from work

Seems to me that baking is a more specific term than cooking. Both are correct technically, but to say "I'm cooking pizza" sounds very odd to me.

Baking, braising, broiling, boiling, poaching, frying... they're all cooking, of course, but most of them would surely do very odd things to a pizza ready for the oven.

So I vote for baking too.

[RTflorida]

Re: Strange question from work

Never gave this much thought. My usual response when my wife asks what are we having for dinner is "I'm making pizza", I've never said "I'm baking" or I'm cooking". If you twist my arm I will say "baking", for all of the previously mentioned reasons.

RT

[brokencookie]

Re: Strange question from work

My wife makes pizza. I toss pizza. Pizza is in a cooking class all by itself and therefore should have unique terms.

Bruce

[SpringJim]

Re: Strange question from work

Sounds like a trick question....another brain exercise eh?

[gjbingham]

Re: Strange question from work

Baking is the technique of prolonged cooking of food by dry heat acting by conduction, and not by radiation, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones.[1] It is primarily used for the preparation of bread, cakes, pastries and pies, tarts, and quiches. Such items are sometimes referred to as "baked goods," and are sold at a bakery. A person who prepares baked goods as a profession is called a baker. It is also used for the preparation of baked potatoes; baked apples; baked beans; some pasta dishes, such as lasagne; and various other foods, such as the pretzel.

Many domestic ovens are provided with two heating elements: one for baking, using convection and conduction to heat the food; and one for broiling or grilling, heating mainly by radiation. Meat may be baked, but is more often roasted, a similar process, using higher temperatures and shorter cooking times.

The baking process doen not add any fat to the product, and producers of snack products such as potato chips are also beginning to replace the process of deep-frying with baking in order to reduce the fat content of their products.

Here's the rest: Baking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[gjbingham]

Re: Strange question from work

Un momentito,
I went further. Apparently baking is a subset of cooking, in the dry cooking category (who knew?):

Cooking techniques

Heat-based techniques
The following use exposure to heat to prepare food for consumption:

-Dry cooking

Baking
Barbecuing
Broiling
Grilling
FlashBake
Roasting
Rotisserie
Searing
Toast

-Water-based cooking (Boiling)

Blanching
Braising
Coddling
Creamed
Double steaming
Infusion
Parboiling
Poaching
Simmering
Steaming
Steeping
Stewing

-Oil-based cooking (Frying)

Deep frying
Hot salt frying
Hot sand frying
Pan frying
Saut?ing
Stir frying

I'm hungry looking at this list. I think I will hot sand fry a racoon for a mid-night snack!

[SpringJim]

Re: Strange question from work

like I said.....another brain exercise

[dvonk]

Re: Strange question from work

In Russian we have the same curious issue - we never say "to fry blini (pancakes )", but only "to bake blini"
I see here a kind of similarity, since both blini and pizza have common shape - flat and round - so it might be a root of the phenomenon!

[mannextdoor]

Re: Strange question from work

I vote for baking. We went camping one weekend. Of course we were hungry for pizza. Pick one up on the way. By the time we got to our camp and set up. It was cold. So we laid it across our hotdog forks and heated it up over the camp fire. Would that pizza be roasted?

[PizzaPolice]

Re: Strange question from work

Another country heard from. How about my Southern friends whose deep fried lexicon offers up......I'm fixin' pizza.

[dvonk]

Re: Strange question from work

Isn't just a kind of attempt to forbear from making straight decision - "cook" or "bake" ?

[jwnorris]

Re: Strange question from work

And isn't pizza referred to as a 'pie' and we bake pies.

J W