system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does the act of boiling actually help cook foods (e.g. potatoes), or do you get the same results with really hot (99C) water?
gpt
Boiling is simply the hottest water temperature you can achieve under given atmospheric conditions.  Typically, when cooking food by submerging it in a non-oil liquid, there is no danger of burning the food, so the highest available temperature is preferred because it will yield the shortest cooking time.

This is why most boiled food products, such as pastas, have *high altitude* instructions, which are usually as simple as "boil an extra few minutes."  The lower atmospheric pressure experienced at higher altitudes means water boils at lower temperatures, so you need to cook it longer.

Another way to look at your question involves pressure cookers.  The whole point of a pressure cooker is to increase the pressure of a system in order to increase the boiling point of water.  That is, to make liquid water hotter without necessarily boiling.  The benefit of this is mostly a decrease in cooking time.

TLDR: it is the temperature that matters, not the actual phase change from liquid to gas.