Roasting vs. Calcination — What's the Difference?

Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least 150 °C (300 °F) from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance the flavor through caramelization and Maillard browning on the surface of the food.

Calcination refers to heating (thermal treatment of) a solid chemical compound (e.g. carbonate ores) to high temperatures in absence or limited supply air or oxygen (O2), generally for the purpose of removing impurities or volatile substances and/or to incur thermal decomposition.The root of the word calcination refers to its most prominent use, which is to remove carbon from limestone through combustion to yield calcium oxide (quicklime).

To cook with dry heat, as in an oven or near hot coals.

To heat (a substance) to a high temperature but below the melting or fusing point, causing loss of moisture or volatile impurities, reduction or oxidation, and the decomposition of carbonates and other compounds.

To dry, brown, or parch by exposing to heat.

To convert (liquid material, especially radioactive wastes) to granular solids by drying at very high temperatures.

To expose to great or excessive heat.

To be calcined.

(Metallurgy) To heat (ores) in a furnace in order to dehydrate, purify, or oxidize before smelting.

A substance produced by calcining.

To ridicule or criticize harshly.

The process of calcining: heating a substance to a high temperature, but below its melting point, to bring about thermal decomposition.

To honor at or subject to a roast.

The act or process of disintegrating a substance, or rendering it friable by the action of heat, esp. by the expulsion of some volatile matter, as when carbonic and acid is expelled from carbonate of calcium in the burning of limestone in order to make lime.

To cook food in an oven.

The act or process of reducing a metal to an oxide or metallic calx; oxidation.

To undergo roasting.

The conversion of metals into their oxides as a result of heating to a high temperature

Something roasted.

A cut of meat suitable or prepared for roasting.

The act or process of roasting.

The state of being roasted.

Harsh ridicule or criticism.

A facetious tribute, as at a banquet, in which the honoree is alternately praised and insulted.

Roasted

Present participle of roast

(colloquial) Very hot.

The act by which something is roasted.

(colloquial) A rebuke or reprimand (usually from the recipient's point of view).

Cooking (meat) by dry heat in an oven (usually with fat added);