Category talk:Ancient dishes

Scope

What is the intended scope of this page? It would be nice to have some text documenting it.

But I am not sure that it is a well-defined category anyway. What makes Maya cuisine and Egyptian cuisine ancient vs. say Chinese cuisine or Indian cuisine? All have a history that extends into the past and up to the present.

What is the date cutoff? Does a food have to be documented before (say) 300 CE? Is that sort of date meaningful world-wide?

What makes a foodstuff ancient? Why are broad categories like bread, fruit, seafood, and pulse (legume) included but not vegetables, fish, meat, and grains? Maize is ancient in Mesoamerica but modern in the Old World -- does it count as an ancient food? (Also, these should probably be included as subcategories, not as articles....)

There are certainly a few foods that are clearly not ancient — hamburgers (though ground meat probably is), croissants (though breads and pastries are), canned vegetables, Macintosh apples (though apples are), .... But most foods are either clearly ancient, or not documented well enough that we can know whether they are ancient.

Why are some preservation methods included, e.g., drying (food), but not others, e.g., pickling or smoking? Is freezing an ancient preservation method? Well, it is in the far North.

In summary, I don't think this is a meaningful, helpful, or useful category. --Macrakis (talk) 15:38, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

It takes time to populate categories, and all foods dating to the beginning of recorded time have not been added to the category yet. I'd ask you to help out in populating this category with foods documented as ancient, but if you don't see the value in the category, it doesn't seem that you'd be interested in doing so. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:57, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for filling out the lead. But I still think this is not a useful category, since almost all agricultural products will qualify (except recent cultivars).

Food preparation techniques: boiling, roasting, braising, grilling, steaming, etc. are similarly almost all ancient (except for sous-vide and microwave and maybe a few others).

Individual dishes may have been developed at particular points in history, but even there it is hard to know where to stop.

In other words, almost all food articles have some claim to being ancient, which makes the category not very useful. --Macrakis (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Renamed to Category:Ancient dishes and reorganized (see below for more information). NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:46, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Criteria

I have added a short lead to establish criteria for foods in this category. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:50, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but this is not clear at all.

Documented foods that date from ancient history (the beginning of recorded human history) to the Early Middle Ages or the Postclassical Era.

Does this include, say, quiche? whipped cream? the potato?

These periods also seem very Eurocentric. What is the "postclassicial era" in China or Lesotho?

And they seem very broad. If I'm interpreting this correctly, it includes any food that we have evidence of (written or archaeological) from before 1500 CE. Why is that an interesting or useful category? --Macrakis (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

• Renamed to Category:Ancient dishes and reorganized (see below for more information). NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:46, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Renamed to Category:Ancient dishes and reorganized

The category has been moved to its current title, Ancient dishes, and categories under the former "Ancient foods" in articles have been removed. What remains are articles related to Ancient dishes. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)