User talk:Utopienne

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1 Wikiproject Food and Drink=
2 American Cookery
3 The crux of social history
4 American Cookery/Comments
5 September 2007 WikiProject Food and Drink Newsletter
6 WikiProject Food and Drink Newsletter November 2007
7 WikiProject Food and Drink Newsletter December 2007
8 WikiProject Food and Drink Newsletter January 2008
9 WikiProject Food and Drink Newsletter June 2008

[edit] Wikiproject Food and Drink=

Welcome to the project, I look forward to your contributions. Just a note, when adding tags to articles for the project, they are placed on the discussion pages. As well take a moment and look on the projects page for the assessment criteria for an article related to food and drink. The American Cookery article is certainly not at a B level yet, and there was a tag already on the discussion page which I did bring up to a start level instead of the stub it was at. If you look on the project's main page as well, there are a number of unassesed articles you may want to look at if you are interested in doing assessments. Welcome again, and I look forward to working with you.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 19:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] American Cookery

I just wanted to say thanks for elevating this article to a B-class today, even if it only lasted not quite three hours... That was very nice of you and it helped gave me the added energy to—hopefully—make it better. Thanks, and hope to bump into you again in the "food section". — Becksguy 00:05, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The crux of social history

So, I've been thinking about food, and more specifically historical layman's food, and how to support information about it with evidence. For example, lime pickles. Alright, not a huge subject, not crucially important within the food world, mainly because not a lot of people make them or have even heard of them. I know from recipes that they are made by soaking cucumbers in lime for 24 hr, rinsing well, and then flavoring with all the normal "pickle syrups". But say (and I don't think I particularly do) that I wanted to.... make my claim verifiable. What counts? Is a recipe good enough? I mean, it is true. But I don't have a lot of "proof" beyond my personal experience. In very wide-spanning history books, say, Medieval Europe: A Short History by C. Warren Hollister, there are no references whatsoever, only suggested readings, because the author is known or reputed to be an expert on the subject. Other books have some citations, but only, every section or so, because it is assumed that the citation backs up a fair amount of what is being discussed. It seems like here (and perhaps it is because there are a huge number of articles, so many are not in the desired shape) there is a over-prolifereation of references. Every sentence shouldn't need a citation, right? One factor is surely that "the author" does not and cannot be "reputed to be an expert on the subject". But where does that leave more ?oral traditions? or experiential things? I doubt that I would be able to lay my hands on a book specifically about lime pickling, because it doesn't really need a whole book. And the people who make (made) lime pickles aren't really the type to write it down. (Or a whole host of other activities, I am just using the pickles as an example.) Only now do we relentlessly seek to codify things into books... weaving, spinning, cooking, making salt, building with lime, How to buy a boat.

Actually, I guess part of it is a problem with me not knowing the policy on references for wikipedia. I could also look to how social historians have dealt with the issue, although I think it might be back to the reputation issue. In Duberman's biography of Robeson he cited every letter he read, every scrap of napkin, conversations with people.. and it worked within the context of his book, but this seems to need a more.. academic air. Although looking at the American Idol entry, it seems like if it is current, it is more.. trustworthy?

/picklestuff

[edit] American Cookery/Comments

A {{prod}} template has been added to the article American Cookery/Comments, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you endorse deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please tag it with {{db-author}}. 172.163.220.191 19:03, 12 August 2007 (UTC)