Talk:List of ancient dishes

A suggestion

What a wonderful article! Great idea and fascinating sources.

It would be even more useful and interesting if the region or country were also identified; and if we're going to do that, why not also the first recorded date for each dish? That would suggest a table with sortable columns for the list, I guess. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:35, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Further, it seems clear to me that people will want to know for each entry what, when, and where. The 'where' will be much the better if it's always chosen from a (short) list of regions. These might be something like Western Roman Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, India, China, Southeast Asia. The risk to avoid is having many overlapping regions of different sizes... Chiswick Chap (talk)

@Chiswick Chap: This could work for some entries, but other entries have some overlap. For example, see the Noodle entry, where the food was developed simultaneously and independently in two distinct areas, Ancient China and Ancient Rome, and remained common in both areas "through the centuries". It will take some time to expand the article, and it would be easier for me to keep it simple during this expansion period. However, I welcome any and all edits to improve the article. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:00, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Let's not focus on some brief period (even months, a year if you like) of expansion, but what we want in the article. Of course there can be multiple areas. If we decided on half-a-dozen areas, they could (for example) each eventually have a column, and we'd check each column that was relevant - that's just a data-processing matter. But the facts are undoubtedly worth assembling now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:10, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: Hey, I don't own the article; you should feel free to be bold and incorporate the changes you have suggested; they all sound like they will significantly make the article even more awesome than it is now. In other words, go for it! North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:29, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say you did, but was responding to yr reply above about keeping it simple. Also, you are adding many new entries, so it's a request to add where and when at the same time. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:00, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

All right. Feel free to expand at will. This is still an entry-stage article; takes time... Also, some of the sources don't always provide all of the specifics, particularly paywalled ones. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:03, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, tricky when all you can see is an abstract. I have Davidson, JSTOR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:09, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

WP:CITEFOOT

Edit comment by Northamerica1000: "However, I think the spaces work for standalone entries, because the ref formatting obfuscates the reading of entries"

@Northamerica1000: Far be it from me to wave policies about. However, "As in the above example, citation markers are normally placed after adjacent punctuation such as periods and commas. For exceptions, see the Punctuation and footnotes section of the Manual of Style. Note also that no space is added before the citation marker" (and no exceptions are listed). I might add that if we decide to make this a sortable table, the problem will basically go away as there won't be any standalone entries. As it stands, it's simply non-standard. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:56, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm not against converting to table format, but I'd rather wait, because adding new entries takes around five times as long once everything is in a table. However, if you'd like to table-fy, go for it, and I can add new entries in an "Unsorted" section for the time being during this expansion stage. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:28, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Waiting is fine, we can do it at any point when convenient. I certainly think that having a structured (database-like) record for each item is a lot better than a list of names. As for the spaces before refs... they really must go. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:48, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Update: Spacing before refs removed. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:08, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! It's taking shape rapidly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:11, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Article scope

Just a note that I've noticed some sources available in Google Books refer to various foods as "ancient", but they are not actually ancient foods relative to the time frame of ancient history and as per the lead/scope of this article (e.g. a dish from the 18th century). (I have not added such entries to the list). Just a note for other users to please first confirm the time frame before adding to the list. Thanks. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:42, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Yes, your exact names and dates are a major improvement. I wonder if a map showing Western and Eastern Roman Empire, Ancient Indian civilizations, etc, would not also be very helpful. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:51, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

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Chili pepper not appropriate

Chili peppers don't seem an appropriate entry for a list of dishes, as chili peppers are a single raw ingredient, not a dish, ie there is no human preparation of ingredients, and there should be some deliberate human preparation of an ingredient in order for it to qualify as a dish. Rice is also questionable since it is also a raw ingredient, but I give it the benefit of the doubt, that the entry is referring to a bowl of cooked rice, and even raw rice that has not yet been cooked has undergone some form of processing. 73.32.38.72 (talk) 21:11, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

The lead of the article clearly defines this article's scope: "This is a list of ancient dishes, foods and beverages". It is not limited to dishes only. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:41, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Yet the article's title is "List of ancient dishes," doesn't say anything about ingredients on their own. Other than artificial flavors and colors and processed food additives, the vast majority of ingredients, including practically every type of meat, and every plant used for food would qualify as and "ancient" ingredient, which would open this up to being a list of indiscriminate information, which violates wikipedia policy. Raw ingredients are not appropriate here. 73.32.38.72 (talk) 21:37, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Grains, seeds, and legumes not appropriate

Grains, seeds, and legumes are all raw ingredients, not dishes. Just like in the chili pepper discussion, in order for something to be a "dish", it must have undergone some type of deliberate preparation by humans. Most of the ancient raw ingredients started out as wild plants before domestication, and even after being domesticated, most of them cannot even be consumed raw, they must be cooked in order to be eaten, so simply listing them does not qualify as a list of dishes. 73.32.38.72 (talk) 21:20, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

The lead of the article clearly defines this article's scope: "This is a list of ancient dishes, foods and beverages". It is not limited to dishes only. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:42, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Yet the article's title is "List of ancient dishes," doesn't say anything about ingredients on their own. Other than artificial flavors and colors and processed food additives, the vast majority of ingredients, including practically every type of meat, and every plant used for food would qualify as and "ancient" ingredient, which would open this up to being a list of indiscriminate information, which violates wikipedia policy. Raw ingredients are not appropriate here. 73.32.38.72 (talk) 21:37, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

History of X's cuisine and pushback?

This article is written from the perspective of a global timeframe. While there's nothing wrong with that, I'm wondering if this small article is the result of a trend in "history of X cuisine" articles where they only list the ingredients (and what they could be cooked with) rather than the dishes made from them. In other words, I'm wondering if the editors of those articles are intentionally pushing out attempts to list dishes (especially their names) from the said cultural eras. For example in Ancient Roman cuisine "we have Butcher's meat was an uncommon luxury. The most popular meat was pork, especially sausages" is written without mentioning Lucanica, which is in this article. Another article, Ancient Rome and wine has no mention of liquamen and garum, nor any other wine-based sauces mentioned in both this article and the former. Does this article stem from a need not met in other articles of various cultural histories that should be relevant as a result of preserving editing style? Wacape (talk) 23:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Haris(s)a?

There is confusion here between Harrissa, the chili-spice paste, and Harisa, a porridge with meat. I leave it to someone closer-connected to straighten it out. --Ampwright (talk) 04:08, 9 March 2022 (UTC)