I first encountered the word in the early 1970s in an article by a German psychcologist who said he waas coining the term from a German word for "ghost." It entered the American lexicon with the first meaning then if he is to be believed.

Even so, that's a far cry from what you said:

Then there's Gestalt as in ghost, as in scary thing that frightens little children and teenagers who go to horror films.

You injected your own connotation for the meaning of "ghost". That connotation does not necessarily follow from the concept of a ghost. Consider this: A ghost may be a concept of an essence that is separate from its physical constructs. That is to say, when you subtract out the physical constructs of being, what remains is the essence of being.

Apply my alternative and you have "gestalt of cooking" means the "essence of [the process of] cooking.


OleDoc