The term “cooking” encompasses a wide range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to improve the flavor or digestibility of food. Cooking technique, known as culinary art, generally requires the selection, measurement and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure in an effort to achieve the desired result. Constraints on success include the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools and skills to the bathroom. The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the many considerations of nutrition, cosmetic, agricultural, economic, cultural and religious in it.
Cooking requires applying heat to a food which usually, though not always, chemically transforms it, thus changing its flavor, texture, appearance and nutritional properties. There is archaeological evidence of roasted foodstuffs at Homo erectus campsites dating from 420,000 years ago. Boiling as a means of cooking requires a container, and was practiced at least since the millennium 10 BC with the introduction of pottery.