Talk:List of recipes

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I'm all in favour of adding recepies to Wikipedia. Maybe we could have a special section reserved for it, such as Wikipedia Cookbook, with each recepie as a subpage off of it. What do you all think?

Well, if we're going to have a listing for traditional irish music events, why not? Actually, I think it's a great idea, and it will generate hits. Whenever I am at a loss (forget how long to cook something, or whether it needs tarragon or rosemary) I search google for a recipe title. Always works, and more variety than my cookbook collection. --MichaelTinkler

I personally would have no objections to having recipes in Wikipedia as part of the encyclopedia (how to prepare food is an essential part of human knowledge!), particularly if some history/background of the dishes were given.

Actually, I am encouraging the Irish music crowd to start their own wiki ASAP, which I fully trust they'll do in the next few days. This is mainly but only only because current info about sessions is, frankly, not encyclopedic. By contrast, recipes are perfectly encyclopedic: they express "know how" about how to prepare food. Particularly if historical and cultural and other background is given, I think it's an excellent idea to include recipes here, because they (arguably) do fit the overall mission of creating a repository of human knowledge.

In this spirit, while I don't oppose the Wikipedia Cookbook idea, I think it would be better to link (also?) the recipes from the regional cuisine pages. See cooking. --Larry Sanger

Semi-rhetorical question: definitions of words dictate how to use those words. Definitions certainly have a place in the repository of human knowledge. Your opposition to definition entries without additional information is well established. Are we splitting hairs by allowing recipes without explanations of their cultural background but not definitions, under those same conditions? --KQ

That's a very interesting question! I'd explain this as follows: encyclopedias are repositories of empirical, or a posteriori, or synthetic (take your pick) knowledge. While many philosophers think there's no distinction to be drawn (I think they're just confused), I maintain that there is a fairly clear practical distinction to be drawn between knowledge of the latter sorts and merely semantic knowledge--about the meanings of words. With some exceptions (important jargon, e.g.), a repository of synthetic knowledge doesn't include definitions--that's what dictionaries are for.

Now, one might argue that since there are cookbooks, and these aren't encyclopedias, why include recipes in Wikipedia? It's because encyclopedias hitherto have underemphasized procedural knowledge, or knowledge "how to" (do things), which is certainly synthetic knowledge if any is. If we conscientiously strive to include such knowledge in our new encyclopedia, there is no good reason not to include recipes, codifying as they do how to prepare food. But I think it's actually very important, for our purposes, to include also information about the cultural, historical, etc., context of the dish.

Similarly, I hope we will eventually have many other "how to" articles: how to change a spark plug, how to clean a bathtub, how to plan a camping trip, and so forth. I'd like to reproduce, in a free encyclopedia format, all the information that can be found in various home improvement guides--cookbooks for the handyman. Maybe in the distant future, too, engineers' techniques will be added to the repository. Bearing all this in mind, it would be silly not to include recipes.

KQ, I see now that your point is that semantic knowledge could be construed as procedural. I would not classify it that way, though Wittgenstein and Kripke might disagree. :-) --LMS

I don't see how you can argue that semantic knowledge is not at least partly procedural, it is essential that we know how to use words, and the process of learning a language is largely composed of instruction about how to use words correctly. Some words in English have the same meaning, but different use, for an example from the Wikipedia religionist may mean the same thing as true believer but they have far different uses. Even those who subscribe to a hyper-realist position on the universals can agree with this, without giving up their claim that there is something more to words than mere procedural knowledge. --MRC

I imagine there is a way to argue that all knowledge is procedural--say, to know that Mt. Everest is the tallest peak on Earth is to know how to identify the tallest peak on Earth--but only at the price of rendering "procedural knowledge" a useless term. --LMS

I imagine you are correct, but since this is so far from anything I said I don't know what to do with it. The idea that part of learning a word is to learn the procedures for its use is not equivalent to a claim that all knowledge is procedural. (In reference to W's famous maxim, I think meaning is more than use, but certianly not less.) BTW Everest is the highest peak on earth, not the tallest. Other mountains are taller from base to summit, but they start out at lower altitudes. MRC

I didn't know the inclusion of more how-to articles was part of your goal for wikipedia. I think that the encouragement of how-tos will also encourage biased language based on a correct understanding of how most how-tos are written, as well as encouraging topics on how to do things which people may argue we should not be explaining how to do. For instance, it's common among how-tos to say that one "should" or "should not" do certain things--or even to bold and all-cap DO NOT whatever, when a more encyclopedic approach would be to say that taking a certain action will usually or always result in a certain consequence. I'm interested to see how this will fit in with the NeutralPointOfView.

Also, imagine someone posts an article explaining the encryption scheme on DVDs, as well as what it was intended for, why people cracked it, and the legal results of its cracking; suppose someone also explains how to crack the scheme? It's been ruled that linking to or hosting the code is illegal in the U.S., but discussing it academically seems a first amendment right--what will wikipedia's stance on that be? Allow it? Disallow it without equally detailed reasons why one should never ever crack DVD encryption, even to exercise fair use of the product on a system running GNU/Linux? Do not discuss it at all for fear of the MPAA stepping in to crush us? Suppose someone wishes to post a detailed discussion of how to make nitroglycerine at home (a product that I suspect most people would never have a need for at home)? What would likely result from that posting: would it be left, removed completely, altered drastically....? I'm not arguing that wikipedia should or should not allow them; I'm just wondering what wikipedia's policy will be. --KQ

I'd be in favor of including it because it's important human knowledge, but I don't know, maybe not. See talk:How to and Larry Sanger/What is an encyclopedia. --LMS

Proposed organizational change, because this page will quickly become unwieldy. First, link recipes under the appropriate cuisine page. Then link here also, but make this listing cross-cuisine (salads, beverages, desserts, etc.). That makes it easy to find the recipe from either angle. Comments? --Dmerrill

Is there really no Asian cuisine at all here, or am I missing something ? --Taw

It would be more accurate to say there is no Asian cuisine here *yet*. :-) Please add any recipes you have; I would love to see them! --Dmerrill

It is quite certainly appropriate to include recipes in Wikipedia. Recipes go beyond a mere definition. I am guessing that one may have eaten ramen, or spare ribs, or whatever many times, and certainly knows how to recognize them on site (or even by smell), but knowing what it is does not mean you know how to make it!

Besides, the recipe is essential for something: Let us say that you have never in your life even seen a bowl of chaashuumen, let alone eaten one. The only way you can know what chaashuumen is really like is to make it yourself. For that, you must have a recipe.

And let's say you know the ingredients, but the proportions? the cooking time? do you add the seasoning first, or wait until the end to add it, etc. -User:Juuitchan

I think maybe the metric system ought to be mandatory here, as it is used in more parts of the world, and also the English system of measurement is very confusing. With metric, the units are spaced far enough apart where you almost cannot make units errors, as long as you remember whether you are using weight or volume! --Anon

No - can't make something like that mandatory here in the wiki. Same reason why we accept the first uniquely American or British spelling of an article and use redirects for alternate spellings. If you like, you can add metric measures in parenthesis, but don't delete the English units. --maveric149

I think you are wrong. There is an important difference here. An American will not be confused when he reads "colour" or "neighbourhood". However, he WILL be confused by "1 pint": is this an English pint or an American pint? Besides, what I have noticed is that, even though Americans SAY no to the metric system, they secretly want it! Butchers' scales are in decimal fractions of a pound! Engineers use thousandths of an inch! The Home Depot will convert your purchases from inches to decimal feet before ringing them up on a cash register! ... People all over the world do this dumb thing, too: They divide their base unit of currency into 100 parts, but their hours they divide into 60 minutes! Either divide the hour into 100 minutes or your currency unit into 60 parts! (Actually, in some workplaces the time clocks use centesimal "minutes".) --User:Juuitchan

Try telling an American to cook in grams and they won't have a clue what to do -- American measuring devices don't come in those units. -- Zoe

Zoe is right. Although Juuitchan does have a point about the ambiguity of certain terms that should be clarified. But again, here in wikiland we have decided long ago and continue to maintain neutrality in these matters and go with what the original submitter decided to use and just add to that. You are more than welcome to convert these measures to any widely-used unit system you want and place it in parenthesis after the initially placed measure -- this would only make these articles more useful. --maveric149

Zoe, please look at your scale and see if it is marked in both ounces and grams, as many scales are. --anonymous

The problem is you can't just convert grams to ounces. In Europe, it's easy to find a measuring cup with markings for n grams of different ingredients (flour, sugar, milk). Recipes often use weight measurements, so people are used to dealing with them. In the USA, recipes almost always use volume measurements--teaspoons, tablespoons, ounces (as in 1/8 cup), cups for both wet and dry ingredients. Also, I agree with Dmerrill on the need to reorganize this page into a heirarchy of pages. --User:quintessent

Besides, re this ounce/gram thing: about a month ago, I saw a television commercial which stated that one needs to eat 25 to 30 grams of fiber per day. The same commercial seemed designed to give the impression that one needed to eat supplements (not just regular food) to get this much fiber. If the commercial had states that this amount is about one ounce, people would have seen how absurd it was. If Americans are so easily confused by metric units, they need to learn them better. User:Juuitchan --- Ok. I think it's time to establish conventions and to organize this list of recipes. I think we should somehow distinguish recipe pages from others. At first, I was thinking it would make sense to use subpages, like recipe/sushi to designate sushi recipes. However, I now understand that subpages have fallen out of favor. How about, then, a convention to end all recipe pages with the word recipe. So we'd have sushi recipe. Please comment. --User:Quintessent

Why is List of Recipes called List of recipes and not Recipes? Recipe (no plural--as requested in titling standards) would be the main entry to discuss what is a recipe. Recipes is obviously then a list. Am I missing something? Would we entitle something, List of philosophies?

Also--and I mean no offense--but units of measurement are well discussed elsewhere in Wikpedia. Shouldn't this discussion be moved? I can see discussing the merits of including recipes in Wikipedia here (I'm not yet decided on this), and I can see discussing how we title recipes, and I can see many other issues being on this TALK page. But units of measurement? Already resolved for now in other pages here. If you don't like British or U.S. measurements (they're all I'm really comfortable with--and there are millions of us), please help educate us by giving equivalents and contributing (on other pages) to the Wikipedia standards about all this.

Arthur Jan-13-2003 01:38 UTC

Arthur, There is one thing that makes recipes a unique issue. In Europe, you'll typically see: 325 grams of flour. In the U.S., it's usually: 2 cups.

So, how many grams of flour are in a cup?

I think the conclusion is the same--use the original units, and let people add translations, but the issue isn't trivial. You need to know the approximate density of each ingredient if you're going to support the standard American kitchen that often does not include a scale.

Having said all that, I'm not sure flat wiki is a good format for recipes. A more custom database would be helpful, one where you can convert and multiply measurements on demand, like allrecipes.com. It would be nice to have a non-commercial equivalent, though. Q

It's exactly these custom features that motivate the shift to the textbook style. We can wrap a lot more function around something that is a textbook with exercises, caveats, regionalization, etc., than we can in a flat wiki. See cookbook (textbook) overview. Now is the time to blue-sky these features, and list potential sources of material.

This all should be moved to Wikibooks, shouldn't it? LDan

Yes. Another issue that hasn't been mentioned yet is NPOVity. Taste can be quite personal. Guaka 18:20, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

When moving something to wikibooks, please remove the text on the wikipedia (or at least put it in comments), and add a link to the wikibooks article. Guaka 18:24, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)