On Tue, 11 May 2004, Ray Saintonge wrote:
So a description of how a food is made is encyclopedic, but instructions
on how to make that food are not encyclopedic.
The descriptive/prescriptive distinction is very narrow in this case. I prefer to avoid a pompous definition of what is encyclopedic.
Not really, the instructive case tells you how to make a specific version
of a food product but the descriptive case tells you how it is made in
general.
To look at a very simple case consider boiling rice, a specific recipe
could tell you to use a kettle to pre-boil water, another could state the
entire procedure should be done on a hob, yet another could suggest using a microwave. And that's before you start considering things such as whether you should add salt and how much you should add.
Actually, to comply with our NPOV policy, an encyclopedic article on
cooking rice needs to incorporate all of these different possibilities.
A recipe is a point of view on how to prepare something. After all,
there are almost always other recipes to prepare the same dish. Also, a
recipe is POV as to how many servings are desired.