Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and Drink

We seem to be getting quite a few recipe and cookbook articles on Wikipedia. Perhaps they should be turned into a WikiProject, so we can come up with standard formats for ingredients, cooking instructions, categorization, etc. Anyone game? -- Wapcaplet 14:46 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure these belong here. There are thousands and thousands of recipes (I remember a program called MealMaster in the old Fido/Usenet days, where you could import about fifty new recipes per day). IMHO in the context of Wikipedia articles about food should discuss the history, cultural significance etc. and briefly describe how a certain food is produced, in general terms. Detailed recipes could be put on another Wikipedia website. I would suggest that people interested in recipes join the recently created textbook-l (http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l) mailing list because a free cookbook seems like an effort that could be well integrated with that project. --Eloquence 15:00 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I would tend to agree. A textbook (or even a dedicated wiki) sounds like the best place for recipes. What should be done with all the recipe articles we already have? They've been under some controversy and occasionally listed on VfD for a while now. -- Wapcaplet 15:21 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I rather like the recipe articles, if for no deeper reason than that many are linked from articles about local cultures and in turn link to articles about ingredients. A lot of cookbooks (printed and online) repeat misinformation about a recipe's connections to culture and food items, WP is^H^Haspires to be the source of truth, so is a good place for a "definitive" recipe, but maybe not so good for a Wolfgang Puck[?] creation that is only on a menu for a couple of weeks. BTW, it's one of the few parts of Wikipedia that my wife finds worthwhile, recipes are a good way to get some general visibility. Stan 16:29 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I think someone proposed Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and Drink a while back. Go for it, I reckon. Certainly no encyclopedia would be complete without a recipe for mayonnaise... :) Martin 17:01 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Against recipes.

It's crucial to distinguish between a recipe and a food article. A food article is on a meal which is significant to a culture in the eyes of many, domestic and/or foreigners. Nearly all recipes presently on WP do not fit in to the food-article criteria.

Mayonnaise and takoyaki, of course, deserves to be in encyclopedia, for they are encyclopedic food article. And note also, that many food-articles, such as above two, do not contain recipe at all. Perhaps they need one, perhaps they can't have one because of the wide variations due to their popularity.

Recipes on food without significant history -- for example, hotcooked morning Bulgarian mayonnaise -- should be relocated (not deleted) to culinary art textbook on Textbook.Wikipedia.org

--Menchi 23:01 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

i think that's the right approach. Some food items or dishes require articles: they're popular, culturally significant, or just a "classic". If there is an article, we should describe how it is prepared: thus, give a recipe. -- Tarquin 12:26 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It's quite correct that many dishes require articles, and that those articles should describe how the dishes are prepared. But it does not follow that we should give a recipe. A recipe is just one person's method for preparing a dish, and to give that person's method precedence over others is a violation of the NPOV policy. -- Oliver P. 08:34 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)