David Gerard wrote:
Michael Snow (wikipedia@earthlink.net) [050121 14:33]:
Also, the way we traditionally handle certain types of POV - one of the main complaints about recipes - is by attributing that POV to a credible source (not by removing it entirely). A recipe from a standard cookbook for a given style of cuisine, or from a noteworthy cook (not your Aunt Tillie, in other words), can satisfy this angle too.
I think I am about to go wild with my (precioussssss) Bee Nilson.
Who in the world is Bee Nilson, and why isn't there a Wikipedia article about her when I want to look her up?
Sorry, playing the ignorant American for a bit there. But this just illustrates how woefully undercovered cooking topics are, along with almost all other traditionally "domestic" subjects, which is partly why we're having this whole debate over recipes for the nth time now. If we had decent encyclopedia articles about these things, which is almost never the case, then it would be less of an issue. I think a lot of the visceral objection to recipes is based on the fact that they frequently overwhelm the remaining content of the article, especially if the instructions are given in significant detail.
--Michael Snow