I find this whole recipe argument kind of odd. What's wrong with sample recipes? Someone can, for instance, read the article about tapioca and not get a very complete understanding of it. But a recipe that the reader can make can provide a far more complete understanding of tapioca.
Here's a possibility: have a Wikibooks cookbook that all the food articles can link to (that is, pointing to specific recipes).
-- John Knouse jaknouse@frognet.net www.jaknouse.athens.oh.us +1.740.589.4575 PO Box 1196, Athens, OH 45701-1196
John Knouse wrote:
I find this whole recipe argument kind of odd. What's wrong with sample recipes? Someone can, for instance, read the article about tapioca and not get a very complete understanding of it. But a recipe that the reader can make can provide a far more complete understanding of tapioca.
I think it's because despite their textual appearance, recipes are a lot more like images than articles. For instance, most people also don't like articles consisting only of an image, and the level of editing allowed for each is severely constrained; people would object to me rearranging image contents with a photo editor as much as if I tripled the salt in a recipe because I like everything salty. In fact, Auntie Bea's recipe very nearly needs to be handled as a source document, in that doing much more than spelling fixes amounts to changing it into something that is no longer her recipe.
Here's a possibility: have a Wikibooks cookbook that all the food articles can link to (that is, pointing to specific recipes).
The Wikibook seems like a good idea in general. Joy of Cooking notwithstanding, not everybody wants to wade through the history of chocolate cake before finding out how many eggs are needed. :-)
Stan
On May 21, 2004, at 1:20 PM, John Knouse wrote:
I find this whole recipe argument kind of odd. What's wrong with sample recipes? Someone can, for instance, read the article about tapioca and not get a very complete understanding of it. But a recipe that the reader can make can provide a far more complete understanding of tapioca.
I'll agree with that. But an article shouldn't assert that this is *the* way to make tapioca pudding. The recipe should be exemplary of most recipes. (I don't think I used that correctly, but I hope the meaning gets across...)
Peter
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Peter Jaros wrote:
On May 21, 2004, at 1:20 PM, John Knouse wrote:
I find this whole recipe argument kind of odd. What's wrong with sample recipes? Someone can, for instance, read the article about tapioca and not get a very complete understanding of it. But a recipe that the reader can make can provide a far more complete understanding of tapioca.
I'll agree with that. But an article shouldn't assert that this is *the* way to make tapioca pudding. The recipe should be exemplary of most recipes. (I don't think I used that correctly, but I hope the meaning gets across...)
No problem about the word, I knew what you meant. I would use "be an example of", or "be typical of" which would suggest that it is just one example out of many possible ones. "Exemplary" has the further connotation that it exhibits the best characteristics, and I guess that it is something to strive for in the circumstances.
I think that this all became an argument because some people objected to having any recipes at all. I too would object if someone insisted on having 50 minor variant recipes for the same thing. Deleting something should be the last option, and not the first.
Ec