recipes@decwrl.UUCP (01/28/87)
I edits each recipe for correctness and consistency. Besides the obvious issues of spelling and grammar and style, there are some specific editorial policies that recipes are rewritten to meet. In no particular order, those policies are: * No rambling. No long-winded explanations when short-winded explanations will do. In particular, I will remove any description of a cooking technique that is adequately described in ordinary cookbooks. Unless the recipe is extremely short or the explanation extremely interesting, I also remove essays about how you came to create the recipe. * No preaching. Many people like to submit recipes that preach some kind of dogmatic position with respect to cooking or eating. An essay about nutrition or cholesterol, however relevant to life, does not belong in a recipe. You can put short nutritional comments in the "Notes" section of the recipe, but only to inform and not to preach. * No fake ingredients. If you like to use bouillon cubes or garlic powder instead of real broth and real garlic, that's your business, but the recipes get sent out asking for real ingredients. A cook who will use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic will likely do that no matter what the recipe calls for. If you can convince me that the success of your recipe depends on using margarine instead of butter or instant coffee instead of espresso, that's fine, but in general I will challenge the use of convenience ingredients. * No brand names or per-package measurements. Perhaps your grandmother's recipe for chicken soup called for "1 box of Putzleheimer", but the average reader in Japan or New Zealand isn't going to know what Putzleheimer is, let alone how much of it is in one box. Just because canned soup always comes in the same size cans in your supermarket doesn't mean that it comes in those same-size tins in a market in Harrogate. If you genuinely don't know how big "1 small can of Ortega chilies" is, I can usually find out for you, but I will send out the recipe saying "4 oz / 120 g" and not "1 can". * No mystical quantities. In a recipe making 12 liters of soup, don't expect me to believe that it needs to have exactly 6.375 tablespoons of flour. No recipe needs a measurement accuracy better than 5%, and most recipes are quite happy with measurement accuracies on the order of 20%. * No mystical procedures. Perhaps you have found that you can get fluffier pancakes by flashing each pancake with a camera's electronic flash just before you turn it, but I'm quite confident that you would get the same results if you waved an old shoe over it (provided the old shoe is clean). * No jargon or dialect. I edit "fridge" into "refrigerator" and "put it in the nuke" into "warm in the microwave oven". Similarly, I will change "Then just go stir 'em right on in" into "add the green beans". Remember that many of your readers are not native speakers of english.
recipes@decwrl.UUCP (02/28/87)
I edit each recipe for correctness and consistency. Besides the obvious issues of spelling and grammar and style, there are some specific editorial policies that I enforce on recipes. Some of the early recipes that were sent out do not meet all of these criteria, but I'm trying to improve the editorial quality of mod.recipes by being more strict with the newer recipes. I am always happy to discuss (by electronic mail) requests to be exempted from any of these policies. * No rambling. No long-winded explanations when short-winded explanations will do. In particular, I will remove any description of a cooking technique that is adequately described in ordinary cookbooks. Unless the recipe is extremely short or the explanation extremely interesting, I also remove essays about how you came to create the recipe. * No preaching. Many people like to submit recipes that preach some kind of dogmatic position with respect to cooking or eating. An essay about nutrition or cholesterol or ovo-lacto-vegetarianism, however relevant to life, does not belong in a recipe. You can put short nutritional comments in the "Notes" section of the recipe, but only to inform and not to preach. * No fake ingredients. If you like to use bouillon cubes or garlic powder instead of real broth and real garlic, that's your business, but the recipes get sent out asking for real ingredients. A cook who will use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic will likely do that no matter what the recipe calls for. If you can convince me that the success of your recipe depends on using margarine instead of butter or instant coffee instead of espresso, that's fine, but in general I will challenge the use of convenience ingredients. * No brand names or per-package measurements. Perhaps your grandmother's recipe for chicken soup called for "1 box of Putzleheimer", but the average reader in Japan or New Zealand isn't going to know what Putzleheimer is, let alone how much of it is in one box. Just because canned soup always comes in the same size cans in your supermarket doesn't mean that it comes in those same-size tins in a market in Harrogate. If you genuinely don't know how big "1 small can of Ortega chilies" is, I can usually find out for you, but I will send out the recipe saying "4 oz / 120 g" and not "1 can". * No mystical quantities. In a recipe making 12 liters of soup, don't expect me to believe that it needs to have exactly 6.375 tablespoons of flour. No recipe needs a measurement accuracy better than 5%, and most recipes are quite happy with measurement accuracies on the order of 20%. * No mystical procedures. Perhaps you have found that you can get fluffier pancakes by flashing each pancake with a camera's electronic flash just before you turn it, but I'm quite confident that you would get the same results if you waved an old shoe over it (provided the old shoe is clean). * No jargon or dialect. I edit "fridge" into "refrigerator" and "put it in the nuke" into "warm in the microwave oven". Similarly, I will change "Then just go stir 'em right on in" into "add the green beans". Remember that many of your readers are not native speakers of english. * No recipes that you or your family haven't tried. If you send me a recipe that begins "I cut this out of the Sunday newspaper because it looked interesting, but I haven't tried it yet. It's probably very yummy" I will file it away in a "use only in desperation" directory. I want recipes that you use and like, not recipes that you clipped from some ink-and-paper version of mod.recipes. * No vulgar language. From time to time somebody submits a recipe that begins "This is the best fucking chili you will ever taste" or that is entitled "Broccoli orgasm casserole". It's fun to talk that way, but when you write with such low-class words the humor goes away and the earthiness becomes tastelessness. If you want to learn how to write about food so that you are titillating without being vulgar, go read "Alice, Let's Eat!" by Calvin Trillin. If you learn how to be erotic without being vulgar, you should be writing novels and not recipes.
recipes@decwrl.UUCP (03/28/87)
I edit each recipe for correctness and consistency. Besides the obvious issues of spelling and grammar and style, there are some specific editorial policies that I enforce on recipes. Some of the early recipes that were sent out do not meet all of these criteria, but I'm trying to improve the editorial quality of mod.recipes by being more strict with the newer recipes. I am always happy to discuss (by electronic mail) requests to be exempted from any of these policies. * No rambling. No long-winded explanations when short-winded explanations will do. In particular, I will remove any description of a cooking technique that is adequately described in ordinary cookbooks. Unless the recipe is extremely short or the explanation extremely interesting, I also remove essays about how you came to create the recipe. * No preaching. Many people like to submit recipes that preach some kind of dogmatic position with respect to cooking or eating. An essay about nutrition or cholesterol or ovo-lacto-vegetarianism, however relevant to life, does not belong in a recipe. You can put short nutritional comments in the "Notes" section of the recipe, but only to inform and not to preach. * No fake ingredients. If you like to use bouillon cubes or garlic powder instead of real broth and real garlic, that's your business, but the recipes get sent out asking for real ingredients. A cook who will use garlic powder instead of fresh garlic will likely do that no matter what the recipe calls for. If you can convince me that the success of your recipe depends on using margarine instead of butter or instant coffee instead of espresso, that's fine, but in general I will challenge the use of convenience ingredients in the written recipes. * No brand names or per-package measurements. Perhaps your grandmother's recipe for chicken soup called for "1 box of Ajax", but the average reader in Japan or New Zealand isn't going to know what Ajax is, let alone how much of it is in one box. Just because canned soup always comes in the same size cans in your supermarket doesn't mean that it comes in those same-size tins in a market in Harrogate. If you genuinely don't know how big "1 small can of Ortega chilies" is, I can usually find out for you, but I will send out the recipe saying "4 oz / 120 g" and not "1 can". * No mystical quantities. In a recipe making 12 liters of soup, don't expect me to believe that it needs to have exactly 6.375 tablespoons of flour. No recipe needs a measurement accuracy better than 5%, and most recipes are quite happy with measurement accuracies on the order of 20%. * No mystical procedures. Perhaps you have found that you can get fluffier pancakes by flashing each pancake with a camera's electronic flash just before you turn it, but I'm quite confident that you would get the same results if you waved an old shoe over it (provided the old shoe is clean). * No jargon or dialect. I edit "fridge" into "refrigerator" and "put it in the nuke" into "warm in the microwave oven". Similarly, I will change "Then just go stir 'em right on in" into "add the green beans". Remember that many of your readers are not native speakers of english. * No recipes that you or your family haven't tried. If you send me a recipe that begins "I cut this out of the Sunday newspaper because it looked interesting, but I haven't tried it yet. It's probably very yummy" I will file it away in a "use only in desperation" directory. I want recipes that you use and like, not recipes that you clipped from some ink-and-paper version of mod.recipes. * No vulgar language. From time to time somebody submits a recipe that begins "This is the best fucking chili you will ever taste" or that is entitled "Broccoli orgasm casserole". It's fun to talk that way, but when you write with such low-class words the humor goes away and the earthiness becomes tastelessness. If you want to learn how to write about food so that you are titillating without being vulgar, go read "Alice, Let's Eat!" by Calvin Trillin. If you learn how to be erotic without being vulgar, you should be writing novels and not recipes.