Why is 料理 used?


On page 158 of Genki 1, it has the sentence

> ロバートさんは料理を作るのが上手です
>
> Robert is good at cooking meals.

If I take the definitions of a couple of the words: 料理 = cooking 作る =
making/preparing (food)

Then the phrase "料理を作る" should mean "preparing cooking". To me this doesn't
make sense (the phrase "preparing cooking", as well as it not matching up with
Genki's translation) because Genki's translation is " _Robert is good at
cooking meals_ ".

If you want the sentence to mean "Robert is good at cooking meals", then
shouldn't the sentence be:

"ロバートさんは食事を料理するが上手です" (I'm not sure if this is 100% correct, please correct me
if I am wrong)




"料理" isn't used only for 'cooking' but also 'meal'. In case of 'meal' meaning,
it focuses on a cooker. That means 'meal' cooked by someone.

Let's see the search results of google images.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%E6%96%99%E7%90%86&sxsrf=ALeKk034AheUFmBQhcIqS4ibFIc5D_I82g:1589975590745&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_nabSsMLpAhXYUt4KHZUrDpoQ_AUoAnoECA8QBA&biw=1326&bih=824](https://www.google.com/search?q=%E6%96%99%E7%90%86&sxsrf=ALeKk034AheUFmBQhcIqS4ibFIc5D_I82g:1589975590745&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi_nabSsMLpAhXYUt4KHZUrDpoQ_AUoAnoECA8QBA&biw=1326&bih=824)

Merely '料理' shows photos of meals and recipes.

But when we search with '料理する', we get many 'cooking' photo.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=%E6%96%99%E7%90%86%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B&sxsrf=ALeKk03Rk7CFnECu5tSeyOI0NgzBUZtkrw:1589975712887&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjLpsWMscLpAhURM94KHcJEDGgQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1326&bih=824](https://www.google.com/search?q=%E6%96%99%E7%90%86%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B&sxsrf=ALeKk03Rk7CFnECu5tSeyOI0NgzBUZtkrw:1589975712887&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjLpsWMscLpAhURM94KHcJEDGgQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1326&bih=824)

This is our mental model of '料理'.  
Mere '料理' focuses much on meal cooked, so we better to add '作る' or 'する' to
express 'cooking'.

> "ロバートさんは食事を料理するが上手です"

In your last example, 'の' or 'こと' after '料理する' is missing.

> "ロバートさんは食事を料理するのが上手です"

This is good. But it still sounds redundant a little because under '料理する'
situation '食事を' is obvious. So it's not needed. "ロバートさんは料理するのが上手です" sounds
better.

Last of all, I said mere '料理' focuses much on 'meal' but there still is
meaning of 'cooking'. We can also say "ロバートさんは料理が上手です"

