Talk:British cuisine/Catalogs

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Order

I wonder if this list would be more usefull if we devided it into kinds. E.g. Starters, Main courses, Deserts. Or maybe by food group e.g. fish, meat, vegetable, etc. Derek Harkness 04:31, 30 July 2007 (CDT)

That's probably a good idea if the list grows much longer, as it easily could if a Brit. food fancier, for instance, started adding lots of different cheeses, creams, berries, fishes, etc. Food groups would probably be easier, since one man's starter is another man's main course. Hayford Peirce 13:17, 30 July 2007 (CDT)

I looked at cheeses, while it would be possible to list all British made cheese styles or brands, that would take the list beyond famous/well known and into comprehensive. I've already listed the ones that I think are well known (based on me knowing them v. not knowing them). Are we going to list every food item made in the UK or are we drawing a line somewhere, if so where should the line be drawn? Derek Harkness 09:29, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

More data

To make this a "true" catalog(ue), and not just a list, we need to make a table of this, and think of some facts we can identify for each dish. For example: type (main course, side dish, dessert, beverage--but these could be subheadings as Derek suggests); calories for average serving; definition (you can use the {{r}} template for this, see CZ:Definitions)...what else? --Larry Sanger 10:46, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

I'm confused on this whole Catalog/Table business. We've (successfully) turned the Famous tennis players from a Catalog to a Table, but in a number of places Authors and Editors are urged to look at Catalog of religions to see precisely what a Catalog is. BUT -- at that site it is nothing but a list, absolutely NOT a Table. If converting existing Catalogs (and so-called mere lists) into Tables is so important, why has the religion one not been made into a table? Another point: creating tables is so *extremely* difficult that, apparently only Chris Day and Richard King venture into these murky waters. If it were *easy* to do, more authors might at least make the attempt. I myself certainly never will.... Hayford Peirce 11:49, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

Well, it should be, but nobody has gotten around to it.  ;-) I'll tell you precisely what the reason is: making tables is hard. We desperately need a coder to create a table editor, which spits out the HTML (or better yet, Mediawiki table code). Even better, a Mediawiki table editor that creates a template page for the table and creates blank templates for rows... --Larry Sanger 11:56, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

Adding tables isn't difficult. See the tutorial I wrote at Help:Table. However, the tables in these catalogs often become rather big. When that happens they become difficult to read and that puts people off editing. This is detrimental to the concept of a wiki. There are WYSIWYG editors that will make html tables for you. One such free editor is at nvu.com. You can copy paste the code it makes into the wiki and copy paste form the wiki into the editor.

Not all catalogs nead to be tables. The Catalog of religions is a number of nested lists. That is lists within lists. This format is good where the width of the table would be too big. There may be other formats too.

Returning to this catalog. What extra columns should there be. I'd suggest: Main ingredient(s), style (main, sidedish, desert), decrition/definition, what else? I think that 'calories for average serving' could be difficult. There are often big variations in the recipes for these items. Can we source that data reliably? Derek Harkness 04:11, 2 August 2007 (CDT)

There seem to be some non-British foods here!

Notably, Chicken Tikka Masala, as far as I know, is Indian and available in India. Battenberg cake: is this not German? --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 21:06, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

Chicken Tikka Masala is of UK origin. It was invented by Indian immigrant restaurateurs who wanted to make a curry dish that was more in the style of English tastes. It is not eaten in India itself. I'll also be adding 'Pakoras' to the list as they are a Glasgow/Indian invention.

Battenberg cake is named after the German location but is decidedly English. The origin myth is that the name came form the wedding celebrations of Queen Victoria's granddaughter to Prince Louis of Battenberg. The family later change it's name to the more English sounding 'Mountbatten'.

This raises another question. It this catalog to be food of British origin or food that is popular in Britain. I think proving British origin for some recipes could be difficult but proving popularity within Britain is easier. Derek Harkness 23:48, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

I think it should clearly be food that is popular *in* Britain. Hayford Peirce 23:58, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

I am challenged here. In Britain, the staff at the excellent cafeteria at the Unisys facility in Milton Keynes said "we don't really eat them" when I came up for my third plate of Brussels sprouts and parsnips -- so are they British? (Yes, they can be cooked disastrously).

Mind you, I was unable to identify many of the offerings at British Telecom's Stone cafeteria, and suspect this was actually a relocation of the chemical warfare center from Porton Down. So -- do humble vegetables qualify? Howard C. Berkowitz 15:56, 27 July 2009 (UTC)