Cooking oil is plant, animal, or synthetic fat used in frying, baking, and other types of cooking. It is also used in food preparation and flavouring that doesn't involve heat, such as salad dressings and bread dips, and in this sense might be more accurately termed edible oil.
Jeffrey L. "Jeff" Smith (January 22, 1939 – July 7, 2004) was the author of several best-selling cookbooks and the host of The Frugal Gourmet, a popular American cooking show which began in Tacoma, Washington in 1973 as Cooking Fish Creatively and later moved to WTTW in Chicago, and Natan Katzman's A La Carte Communications, where it aired nationally on PBS from 1983 to 1997.