Taste of Nepal

Cooking is the process of preparing food, often with the use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting... unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Cooks themselves also vary widely in skill and training. Cooking can also occur through chemical reactions without the presence of heat, most notably as in Ceviche, a traditional Spanish dish where fish is cooked with the acids in lemon or lime juice. Sushi also utilizes a similar chemical reaction between fish and the acidic content of rice glazed with vinegar. Preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans, and some scientists believe the advent of cooking played an important role in human evolution. Most anthropologists believe that cooking fires first developed around 250,000 years ago. The development of agriculture, commerce and transportation between civilizations in different regions offered cooks many new ingredients. New inventions and technologies, such as pottery for holding and boiling water, expanded cooking techniques. Some modern cooks apply advanced scientific techniques to food preparation.
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A cookbook is a kitchen reference publication that typically contains a collection of recipes. Modern versions may also include colorful... illustrations and advice on purchasing quality ingredients or making substitutions. Cookbooks can also cover a wide variety topics, including cooking techniques for the home, recipes and commentary from famous chefs, institutional kitchen manuals, and cultural commentary. The earliest cookbooks on record seem to be mainly lists of recipes for what would now be called haute cuisine, and were often written primarily to either provide a record of the author's favorite dishes or to train professional cooks for banquets and upper-class, private homes. Many of these cookbooks, therefore, provide only limited sociological or culinary value, as they leave out significant sections of ancient cuisine such as peasant food, breads, and preparations such as vegetable dishes too simple to warrant a recipe. The earliest collection of recipes that has survived in Europe is De re coquinaria, written in Latin.
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