[WikiEN-l] Re: Historian: origin of apparent "policy" re recipes and how-tos?

Tue May 11 20:51:57 UTC 2004

Imran Ghory wrote:

>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.
>
>On the other hand a descriptive version could just be "the rice is heated
>in boiling water".
>
These descriptions of different procedures for prparing rice are clearly 
all encyclopedic, though that last sentence may be too superficial for 
inclusion.

Ec