They're being honest. Cooking is play. It's what you do when you don't care about quality or consistency of the process. The professional version of cooking is called chemical process engineering.
Similarly, a chef who does proper, principled discovery in this space, would be also called a scientist. Conversely, not being principled is basically playing around, or at best, doing art (with no negative implications intended here; art is important and needed).
Similarly, a chef who does proper, principled discovery in this space, would be also called a scientist. Conversely, not being principled is basically playing around, or at best, doing art (with no negative implications intended here; art is important and needed).