is what water turns into at a temperature of 100 °C (212 °F), as explained under boil, and to steam foods is to cook them in this steam at that temperature in (necessarily) a lidded recipient.
This method of cooking has certain advantages. The food will not be bumped about by the agitation of boiling, or even simmering, water; and loss of water-soluble vitamins is less than when the food is immersed in boiling water. For this last reason, steaming vegetables is recommended. However, there are many other uses for the technique, for example steaming couscous in the upper part of a couscous steamer, while other ingredients (meat, vegetables) which will go into the finished dish are boiled in the lower part. Also, several dishes can be steamed at once, stacked in tiers above a pan of boiling water, a technique which has been exploited by the Chinese, of whose cookery steaming is a fundamental feature.
Steaming usually involves direct contact between the steam and the food; but the steam can be used indirectly, to heat the outside of a sealed vessel, which then conducts heat through its walls to cook food inside, as when English steamed puddings are cooked.
Cooking food en papillote (e.g. tightly enclosed in a wrapping of foil in the oven) is also a form of steaming; the moisture in the food is turned into steam as the food heats, and cannot escape through the wrapping. A similar technique comes into play, on a larger scale, in the earth ovens of the Pacific islands and the slightly different ones used by the Maori in New Zealand, and in the N. American clambake.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
