Talk:Falafel/Workshop

Talk page now open for discussion of Workshop edits. M1rth (talk) 17:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

How does the proposed version look?

Well, I've added my own additions to Mostlyharmless' proposed version. How does it look? Any objections? Or can we go ahead and unprotect the page and add this to the article? Tiamut^talk 20:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I do have one question/concern. The text currently reads: "Falafel was consumed by Arabs of all religious denominations. It was also eaten by Jews in Egypt and Syria.[1]" Jews in Egypt and Syria were/are Arabs. (See the article Arab Jews) Today, they prefer to be called Mizrahi Jews, but I'm concerned that our current reading makes a false distinction. Any suggestions on how to account for their historical Arab-ness, while acknwoledging that they generally don't identify as such today? Tiamut^talk 20:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

To play devil's advocate, why should we be worried about "Arab-ness" at all? That seems to be the core of what started the dispute last time, the goal of your side or the other side trying to "claim" the food for themselves. Wouldn't it be better to have an article not become a battleground again?

Also, I'm not sure how good a source the e-cookbooks article is. The author has no claims to notability or ability in the field present. It may be a fine website to learn how to make Falafel, but I don't think it's authoritative enough to properly be a resource on the history of the dish. If the quotations from the article are accurate, surely they have a better source somewhere?

"Falafel is now popular in a large number of countries. Many of these are countries with large Turkish populations; such as Germany, or with Lebanese; such as Australia." -- this appears to be unsourced?

Anyhow, these are the questions I think need addressing. M1rth (talk) 22:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

To respond, WP:NPOV does not mean erasing all elements from an article that might be contentious or "neutralizing" the text so that it imparts no information at all. Foods have histories of usage and development by people who have identities. There are political issues inherent to this discussion because of the contestation of culture and identity in the region at hand. We don't censor this information out of the article. We aim to represent it using multiple sources that present multiple viewpoints. So please address the question I raised about how to deal with th complexity of this identity issue, rather than evading it.

I am open to finding other sources besides the e-cookbook, but I don't see why it's not a reliable source, particularly when we attribute the information directly to it. Here is another scholarly source that repeats much of the same information in the e-cookbook. It explains that falafel is an Arab dish that was adopted as an Israeli national dish, that its Palestinian Arab origins were not recognized before the 1970s, and that Palestinians resented this appropriation. This book also explains that the Israeli educational curriculum teaches Arab children that Arab dishes like falafel and hummus are Israeli national dishes.

The final sentence does need a source or should be removed.

I look forward to achieving consensus on these matters so that we can get back to actual article editing. Tiamut^talk 17:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right about those claims being unsourced - the claim about Germany is based on things I've read about Turkish food such as falafel becoming a national food of Germany. but haven't got cites for (and backed up by my German housemate and German-Turkish friend). As for the claim about Australia; it would be hard for anyone to dispute the proliferation of falafel selling restaurants in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. There are chains of kebab and falafel stores. Mostlyharmless (talk) 00:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

There ought to be a news article somewhere then, or government business registration statistics at least? M1rth (talk) 01:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I just came here to try and fix the POV problems - the rest of the article will have to be done by others; I just don't have the time at the moment. Cheers, Mostlyharmless (talk) 05:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I must know: why is it important for you to make the Arab/Israeli distinction? Why not have it as Middle Eastern or Mediterranean cuisine and be done with it, no controversy needed? M1rth (talk) 00:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Because the reliable scholarly sources on the subject cover that distinction and controversy. There are mutliple significant viewpoints on that very issue and per WP:NPOV, we should represent them in the article. Why are you trying to gloss over the history of the dish and the contestation surrounding it's being claimed by Israel? If it's simply because some people find it hard to accept those facts and will edit-war to keep them out, that's rather insufficient as Wikipedia is not censored. Tiamut^talk 01:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)