CZ Talk:Recipes

Continental

"Continental", I think, is the wrong word to use for this subgrouping, or grouping. The word, at least in the United States, used to have a very definite, although vague, meaning: a semi-French, semi-Italian, semi-SOMETHING sort of upscale cuisine, served in fancy restaurants, that was NOT what was plainly recognized as American-type food. Some of the best restaurants in Los Angeles, say, in the 1950s and 1950s, such as Perino's, La Rue, and Scandia, as well as a whole bunch of others, served what was generally called "Continental Cuisine". I think that the phrase has now disappeared, except, perhaps, in an ironic sense, but to geezers like me it seems wrong to use it as proposed here. I dunno what else to suggest, however.... Hayford Peirce 10:27, 22 February 2008 (CST)

No, you're right. My grandfather had taken chef courses and there was definitely a style of American (read 'US') cooking called Continental, a chi chi fon fon fon style. I don't know if that's where the "continental breakfast" came from - same idea or not, I mean.

Soo...was 'continental' here meant to mean 'sorted by continent'? Why don't we just do that, then? I started--change it back if you no like.

I can foresee a bit of a problem, though--is this going to end up being a listing by country? Then by region within country? Are we starting the CZ International Cookbook?

I don't actually care; I'm jus' sayin'.

Aleta Curry 22:46, 22 February 2008 (CST)

Frankly, I don't know what the hell we're doing, or where we're going. Everyone seems to spend so much time on Proposals, and Proposals *about* Proposals, etc. etc., with gazillions of words and woman-hours of thought devoted to them, without anything, seemingly, ever being *done*, that although I may not actually *despair*, at least my mind reels and my eyes glaze. For instance, right now, we have an article called French cuisine, and as a subpage to that French cuisine/Catalogs; the latter has a long list of French food items, some of which are linked to actual articles, some of which, in turn, actually have recipes within them.... Several months ago, some of us spent a certain amount of time making lists, which became Catalogs, I guess, of different cuisines by nationality, and various proposals were made about them, and then suddenly nothing more was said or done about them. So, right now, where do the two above-mentioned articles/catalogs fit into the Grand Scheme of Things? Hayford Peirce 10:38, 23 February 2008 (CST)

US humorist and food writer Calvin Trillin sometimes makes fun of "Continental-cuisine" restaurants by referring to an imaginary one called "Le Maison de la Casa House". Bruce M.Tindall 09:15, 23 February 2008 (CST)

Calvin Trillin is great -- there should be an article about him! Hayford Peirce 10:29, 23 February 2008 (CST)

In India, continental refers to any food belonging to / originating from Europe or North America. Non-continental may be Chinese, Mughlai, or Kerala / Bengali food and so on. Supten Sarbadhikari 21:37, 25 February 2008 (CST)

Index

Somewhere, and right from the beginning, we're gonna have to have a *really* good index for the recipes, one that is *truly* comprehensive, so that no matter how someone is looking for a particular recipe he/she will be able to *easily* find it. Each entry, of course, will have a redirect to a single recipe. In other words, Beef Burgundy, Boeuf a la bourguignon, Boeuf a la bourguignonne, Beef bourguignon, etc. Or, of course, an alternative: have a see Beef bourguignon etc. for all the variants, directing to whatever we decide is the principle name for each item.

In the iconic old New York Times Cookbook of 1961 edited by Craig Clairborne there was an excellent index that *also* included things like Martinis and a couple of other cocktails, since there was a brief drinks recipe section at the end of the food recipes. We would want to have drinks included in the master recipe....

A further thought: assuming we came up with different recipes (someone suggested iconic ones) for the same dish, the index could also look like:

• Hamburger
  • Ray Krok's Big Burger
  • Paul Bocuse's 'Omburgaire Extraordinaire
  • Paul Prudhomme's Cajun 'Burger
  • James Beard's George Washington's Favorite
  • Etc.

Hayford Peirce 19:36, 22 February 2008 (CST)

That's a good idea. Supten Sarbadhikari 21:40, 25 February 2008 (CST)

Should be scholarly

Placing things like "equipment you will need" and "preparation time" seems more like something out of Good Housekeeping magazine. We really ought to ensure we take a scholarly approach here, and really ought rely chiefly on quoting. Stephen Ewen 01:23, 23 February 2008 (CST)

• That's a good point, of course. On the other hand, it's always useful when looks at a recipe to be told from the start how long it ought to take to make, although, in my rather extended experience in the kitchen, almost every recipe I've ever seen always grossly understates the time required, perhaps not for the actual cooking, but almost *always* for the preparation time. And if one ventures into the haute world of classical French cuisine.... My mother, my French wife, and I, three very experienced cooks, once ventured to make the classic French mother sauce called an Espagnol, which is the basis of all the great French brown sauces. The very detailed recipe said that it could be made leisurely over a weekend, while the cook took time out to dip into Fanny Hill as the stock simmered slowly. Aside from about 6 hours of driving around San Francisco to obscure wholesale meat markets, Latino markets for pig rind, etc. etc., plus a venture to a restaurant supply store to buy a *second* 15-gallon pot, it took the three of us 3 long, hard days to make the damn stuff. And it might have been *very* useful to warn us that a *second* enormous pot would be needed. And that a *strong* person is needed to *lift* the freakin' pots once they're filled.

• So I think that if we have a recipe for, say, Bearnaise sauce, we can assume that the average person has a couple of sharp knives, a small pot, a whisk or an electric blender, in other words the usual stuff that a well-equipped kitchen should have. For some recipes, however, it ought to be made clear what will be needed in addition to just the ingredients.

• Although as far as equipment goes, I think I could put my hands on a couple of classic, or semi-classic, lists of what, say, a *restaurant* kitchen should have, or what a well-equipped home kitchen for someone interested in French cuisine should have. And for Chinese cooking, let's say, it might be useful to point out that most recent tests of different methods of cooking traditional Chinese dishes at home have shown that unless you have a *professional* quality heat source for your wok, you will have more success in using an ordinary frying pan or saute dish -- home kitchens just aren't equipped to heat woks to the extremely high temperatures that restaurants use. It can be done at home, of course, if you want to cut a big round hole in a kitchen counter and then install a separate gas-burning wok heater beneath the counter (my dream, in the olden days), but I doubt if many people actually do this.

• I think, if it comes down to it, in general, *more* information is better than *less* information. But as to what format it should be put into, I don't have a clue.... Hayford Peirce 10:57, 23 February 2008 (CST)

I think prep time and equipment can just be handled within the natural flow of the "Preparation" section. Cook for 2 hours in a big pot. I say this in the interest of keeping the recipe as simple as possible. Also, I think we should do away with the difficulty rating - I don't think we're here to give our opinions on the recipes difficulty, taste, etc.. simply provide the reader with a basic recipe so they can better understand the article about the particular dish. I'm going to clean this up on this page, feel free to revert, but I'm feeling bold. --Todd Coles 22:43, 17 March 2008 (CDT)

Sorry, I missed the above comment before adding some stuff just a moment ago to the main article's example. In any case, my additions were tentative, just to see what they looked like and how people reacted to them.

• Prep. time is, of course, quite subjective, as people work at incredibly different speeds. Most of the newer cookbooks do give prep. times but, in my judgment, they are always wrong, seriously underestimating the time. The New York Times Cook Book does not give them at all. So, I agree, we're probably wasting our time with this.
• Equipment -- as you say, within the flow of the article.
• Difficulty rating is the hardest of all and I threw it in just for the sake of completion. In the example given, I tried to write an honest evaluation from my own standpoint. Making Bologonese (I think) is a snap BUT it's tedious, time-consuming, and you can't just throw it on the stove and let it cook for 8 hours -- you gotta check it every 30 minutes, for instance, and probably add a little water. If we try to put all of that in (outside of the recipe steps), it will entail an entire essay....
• I *do* think that we want the number of servings in a fairly prominent spot, though. This, too, is somewhat subjective, but not as much as some of the other items.

But, of course, I'm open to suggestions all the way along the line

Hayford Peirce 12:09, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

Number of servings is fine with me. My issue with difficulty is, much like prep time, it all depends on how comfortable the cook is in a kitchen. If someone has never baked a cake before, it will obviously be more difficult than for someone who has a little more experience with it. --Todd Coles 12:59, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

Yup, I think of myself as a *moderately* rapid cook, fairly neat, and *very* painstaking. My French wife was a speed demon -- super-neat but, in most things, twice as fast as I was. *Her* mother, however, was as slow as a snail -- it was infuriating to have her in the kitchen trying to "help". She was actually a pretty decent cook but so sloooooooow...." HOWEVER: how about a category called, not Preparation time, but Preparation notes? In MOST cases it would be empty. But in some cases it would say: Can be prepared several days in advance. Can be prepared a week in advance. Can be prepared in several stages over the course of several days. Must be eaten the moment it's finished. Cook must hover over the dish during its entire preparation. Fresh tomatoes must be used, canned cannot be used. Etc. I myself think that this would be MOST useful -- Julia has a brief note in HER recipes that says: Can be done ahead to this point, or some such. Trust me, even a *very* experienced cook such as myself can sometimes make major mistakes in trying to mentally judge the time for preparing a new recipes. So I think that if *I* would find it useful, others would too.Hayford Peirce 13:20, 18 March 2008 (CDT)

What next?

We can include a link to the Template:Nutrition in the CZ:Recipes. Supten Sarbadhikari 21:33, 25 February 2008 (CST)

I added the recipe from Portuguese cod casserole (bacalhau à Gomes de Sá) to the page so we can have an example to tweak and find an ideal format. --Todd Coles 22:51, 17 March 2008 (CDT)