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Are questions about raw food on-topic?

As based on the domain prefix (cooking), the site looks like it's only about the cooking.

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Any questions on food preparation are on-topic. Indeed, this is our core topic, with a few related ones also being in scope.

English doesn't have a word which is unique to food preparation, so it uses "cooking" instead, even though this is frequently associated with preparing food by using heat. If you keep in mind that it is this broader sense of cooking which is meant here, it becomes more clear.

The usual off topic reasons still apply, of course. "Are raw carrots healthier than pureed carrots" is obviously off topic, as it is about nutrition. "What dressing to use for a raw tomato salad" is off topic, because it's about food pairing. And so on.

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    making-food-and-drinks.stackexchange.com
    – Cascabel Mod
    Commented Feb 9, 2015 at 20:37
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    More constructively, "I'm going to cook for y'all" is the sense of "cooking" you want here. If you say that, people won't freak out if you serve them gazpacho, salad, coffee, tea, cocktails, or anything else that's not literally "cooked".
    – Cascabel Mod
    Commented Feb 9, 2015 at 20:39
  • Could you clarify what you mean when you say something "is off topic, because it's about food pairing"? I tried searching Meta for food pairing discussions, and it led me to a huge amount of discussion 4-5 years ago in the debates when this site was started, but I couldn't really find consensus. I thought the question you mention "What dressing to use with X" may be off-topic if it were opinion-based or a poll. But if it was phrased as a factual question about flavor combinations (e.g., science or standard culinary practice), would it still be off topic just for being about "food pairing"?
    – Athanasius
    Commented Feb 10, 2015 at 16:33
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    @Athanasius practice has shown that all flavor combination questions become polls. "Standard" is a very bad criterion, as what one assumes to be a universally accepted standard turns out to be constrained to specific cultural traditions, but good luck explaining that to the users. As for the "science" of pairings, the only approach I am aware of is to pair ingredients which share an aromatic compound, but first, I haven't seen confirmation that this approach leads to better results than others, and second, it has never come up anyway. So, for practical reasons, pairing q's are simply closed.
    – rumtscho Mod
    Commented Feb 10, 2015 at 16:57
  • I understand what you mean, but on the other hand a cursory search I just did now popped up many pairing questions of all different types. (I have to admit I've never paid attention to this until now.) I do completely agree on one had that "standard" is subjective, but using that argument we could probably invalidate most advice on culinary techniques on this site, since most traditional cuisine is a cultural product. Anyhow, since I don't seem to be able to find a meta question directly on topic, I'm going to ask it rather than continuing discussion here.
    – Athanasius
    Commented Feb 10, 2015 at 17:11
  • Actually, after more searching, I've now found such questions, such as here, where there seems to be some disagreement about automatically closing them. I wish there were some more discussion here, which would clarify things. Anyhow, thanks for your advice on this.
    – Athanasius
    Commented Feb 10, 2015 at 17:22

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