[WikiEN-l] Re: recipes

Wed Feb 25 04:51:29 UTC 2004

Peter Jaros wrote:

> On Feb 24, 2004, at 10:31 AM, Dan Miller wrote:
>
>> I'd have fewer problems if they were accompanied by an
>> article on the food item in question.  A recipe, on
>> its own, doesn't belong in an encyclopedia.
>
>
> Again, however, as someone said earlier, an encyclopedia ought to be 
> *de*criptive, not *pro*scriptive.  

The only ones that are proscribing the work of others are those wanting 
to delete these recipes.

> Thus, cocktail recipes might be more appropriate than, say, cake 
> recipes (in their respective articles).  A Cosmopolitan, for instance, 
> is made according to more or less one recipe, whereas there are myriad 
> recipes for, for example, chocolate cake which are more than slight 
> variations of one another. 

If there is more than one recipe, than why not just show how they vary?

> Giving a recipe for a particular chocolate cake would not serve to 
> describe chocolate cake.  If one recipe was particularly famous, 
> however, it might merit its own section (or possibly article; I'd like 
> to try *that* cake) where the recipe *would* be descriptive.  It's a 
> subtle distinction, but an important one.  It comes through to 
> readers, if only in terms of a sense of the style.

That's very patronizing of you.

Ec