Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (cuisines)

Guideline?

This has recently been tagged as guideline status but I'm not seeing any discussion or consensus which supports this and so have reverted. I oppose this as the word cuisine seems more French than English and may be too pretentious and confusing for common foods such as fish and chips, cheesesteak, &c. Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should prefer the term food as in British food, Scottish food, &c. Moreover, in some cultures, foods are eaten raw without the benefit of kitchens or cooking, e.g. the blood and milk which which drunk by the Masai. Cuisine is not correct for such primitive diets. Warden (talk) 15:12, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Reply:

1. The consensus was decided over two years ago when all cuisine articles were moved to this naming format. The last of the articles were finished being moved about 6 months ago. It has become the default naming convention due to the general consensus to move these articles to the present names.
2. Cuisine is a word of French origin that is now part of the English language, others include hors d'oeuvres, sous vide and chef. It also should be noted that other cuisine and food related words have also moved into English from other cultures; this includes common terms like umami, sushi, salsa (sauce), cordon bleu, parmigiana, hamburger and frankfurter. Some of these words refer to specific foods, but others refer to food concepts. The reason we use the term cuisine in describing the culture of food is because the French codified the language of cuisine and the terms migrated into English from there. It is the same with the computer industry which had its origins in the United States and US English.
3. Cuisine is a cultural term for which the diets are a part of; these articles cover the cultural aspect of the food from the countries they originate from. In other words they are not just what they eat, but why they eat them, and how they fit into the culture. Excellent examples of cuisine articles that explain not just the what but the why of cuisine include Italian cuisine, French cuisine and cuisine of the Thirteen American Colonies
4. Whether or not food is eaten cooked or raw is not what determines cuisine, why and how it became acceptable to do so is what cuisine articles are about. What you are referring to are known as "dishes", eg list of Chinese dishes, that discuss what these peoples eat. If there were a Maasai cuisine article, you could discover why this is part of their diet and how they treat the consumption of these items within their culture.

If you wish bring your opinion regarding this up for discussion, you would be welcome to do so at WT:Food. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 04:37, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

• I am bringing this up for discussion here because this is the talk page for the putative guideline. No link to any discussion(s) establishing consensus for this has been provided and so I am not persuaded that this is anything more than a personal preference. Our policy is to minimise the proliferation of unnecessary rules and there doesn't seem to be any need for this level of detail in our article naming. And don't get me started on computers: Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, the world's first stored program computer, the world wide web ... Warden (talk) 10:57, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

That is fine by me, a good and proper discussion can help immeasurably. The original discussion was archived. The issue came up to clarify an issue that arose because of a problem with the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics) in relation to cuisine. After a discussion, it was decide to use the Xxx cuisine format in naming national cuisine articles due to the fact that cuisine is an ethnic and not a geographical issue, as quoted in the statement in the original policy. The only dissension was about beer, thus the exception there. BTW, I am talking about the modern computer industry in my comparison, not the events that led to it. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 17:45, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the archive - I hadn't noticed that. Looking in there, I see more comments in opposition in the section Use of the term cuisine. This still does not seem to be a consensus in support of the putative guideline. As for computing terms - there's at least one which has to do with food too and the English played their part in this - see spam. :) Warden (talk) 18:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

The issue of the term "cuisine" was raised by Chef Tanner, but he was not opposed to the terminology being used. His comment was technical in nature. The main opposition to the issue was from SilkTork, a member of WP:Beer, because the Beer project had already moved everything to "Beer in Xxx". I pointed out the problem with this but they were firm in their choice of naming format for beer, hence the caveat for beer. All of the other major food and drink projects have adopted the Xxx cuisine' formatting structure. This is the de facto standard for these types of articles. Also, Spam has its origins with the US. One of our gastronomical donations to the world of cuisine, like cheeseburger in a can. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 18:48, 15 December 2011 (UTC)