Category talk:Desserts
Latest comment: 9 years ago by Dan Polansky in topic RFDO discussion: August–December 2014
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others (permalink).
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A dessert is anything eaten to end a meal. But that doesn't say anything about the food served; anything can be served at the end of a meal. Steak can be a dessert, so can soup, chili con carne or a biscuit. So this is not a good way to classify food and the items in this category should probably be distributed among other categories. —CodeCat 22:07, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- I think you may be mistaken; our entry and many other dictionaries' entries agree that desserts are sweet foods served as final courses, not just any final courses. Cambridge defines dessert as "sweet food eaten at the end of a meal", oxforddictionaries.com as "sweet course eaten at the end of a meal". Merriam-Webster defines it as "a usually sweet course or dish (as of pastry or ice cream) usually served at the end of a meal", and Dictionary.com goes as far as to define it as "cake, pie, fruit, pudding, ice cream, etc., served as the final course of a meal". BTW, those last two give a second sense we lack, along the lines of "
{{label|en|UK}}fresh fruit served after another course" (Dictionary.com says "after a main course", MW says "after a sweet course"). - -sche (discuss) 22:29, 19 August 2014 (UTC)- But even so, being served as a dessert does not make any food inherently a dessert. Labelling any particular kind of food "dessert" is based on a particular instance of it being served as a dessert, not because that kind of food is a dessert by nature. It's a very ambiguous term that does little to help users in practice. Just consider the wide range of things we might list in a hypothetical Category:Breakfasts, Category:Lunches, Category:Dinners, Category:Starters, Category:Main courses and yes, even the existing Category:Snacks suffers from the same vagueness. Furthermore, how foods are served differs widely across the world. In the Netherlands for example, pancakes are primarily a main course dinner, and I was rather surprised to learn that Americans consider them breakfast. It would be rather strange to put pancake into Category:en:Breakfasts but to put its Dutch translation pannenkoek in Category:nl:Dinners instead. —CodeCat 22:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- If something is commonly eaten as a both a breakfast and a dinner dish (sausage is a good example), it should be categorized in both the breakfast and dinner categories. The two categories needn't be mutually exclusive. Purplebackpack89 23:37, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- That doesn't solve the real problem though. Wiktionary categories should be culturally agnostic, so these categories would end up with foods that make no sense to many users. Putting worst in Category:nl:Breakfasts would not reflect the practices of Dutch people for example. More crucially though, it's possible to eat any kind of food at any time, for any meal. So what criterium is there for filling these categories? Is it about being commonly eaten as a certain meal? If so, in what part of the world? What if it's common only in one part of the world? —CodeCat 23:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- Neatly enough, I saw a video on "what the world eats for breakfast" just yesterday, though I'm sceptical of its accuracy. I don't think there's anything wrong with categorising on a case-by-case, culture-by-culture (term-in-one-language vs term-in-another-language) basis, such that pancake is in Category:en:Breakfast foods while pannenkoek is not in Category:nl:Breakfast foods.
You make a good point that we don't have Category:Breakfasts, Category:Lunches or Category:Dinners (yet). On the other hand, I suspect we should have Category:Breakfast foods to go along with Category:Desserts, as the foods that belong to those categories do seem to retain their identities as "breakfast foods" and "desserts" regardless of when they're eaten. For example, [eat/ate/serve/served/have/had] "breakfast for dinner" gets a lot of hits at Google Books, and I found a lot of restaurants in the US (including IHOP) that served "breakfast all day" to people who had eaten one or more meals already. And "eat dessert before dinner" gets a lot of hits.
In contrast, "lunch" and "dinner" foods seem not to retain their identities if they are not eaten at lunchtime or dinnertime: "eat dinner before lunch" gets no hits, and the hits "lunch for dinner" gets are spurious (e.g. "serves buffet breakfast and lunch; for dinner there is..."). Also, "various breakfast foods" and "various desserts" get many Google Books hits, while "various lunch foods" and "various dinner foods" get only one hit each.
- -sche (discuss) 02:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)- Probably because many places serve or eat the same foods for lunch and dinner. Purplebackpack89 03:45, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, probably. (If the video is to be believed, India, Mexico, Vietnam and a few other countries seem to eat the same foods for all three meals.) - -sche (discuss) 19:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Probably because many places serve or eat the same foods for lunch and dinner. Purplebackpack89 03:45, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Neatly enough, I saw a video on "what the world eats for breakfast" just yesterday, though I'm sceptical of its accuracy. I don't think there's anything wrong with categorising on a case-by-case, culture-by-culture (term-in-one-language vs term-in-another-language) basis, such that pancake is in Category:en:Breakfast foods while pannenkoek is not in Category:nl:Breakfast foods.
- That doesn't solve the real problem though. Wiktionary categories should be culturally agnostic, so these categories would end up with foods that make no sense to many users. Putting worst in Category:nl:Breakfasts would not reflect the practices of Dutch people for example. More crucially though, it's possible to eat any kind of food at any time, for any meal. So what criterium is there for filling these categories? Is it about being commonly eaten as a certain meal? If so, in what part of the world? What if it's common only in one part of the world? —CodeCat 23:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- If something is commonly eaten as a both a breakfast and a dinner dish (sausage is a good example), it should be categorized in both the breakfast and dinner categories. The two categories needn't be mutually exclusive. Purplebackpack89 23:37, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- But even so, being served as a dessert does not make any food inherently a dessert. Labelling any particular kind of food "dessert" is based on a particular instance of it being served as a dessert, not because that kind of food is a dessert by nature. It's a very ambiguous term that does little to help users in practice. Just consider the wide range of things we might list in a hypothetical Category:Breakfasts, Category:Lunches, Category:Dinners, Category:Starters, Category:Main courses and yes, even the existing Category:Snacks suffers from the same vagueness. Furthermore, how foods are served differs widely across the world. In the Netherlands for example, pancakes are primarily a main course dinner, and I was rather surprised to learn that Americans consider them breakfast. It would be rather strange to put pancake into Category:en:Breakfasts but to put its Dutch translation pannenkoek in Category:nl:Dinners instead. —CodeCat 22:44, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- Keep, and keep Ice cream, cake, and pie as subcategories of Dessert: per sche, and because cake, ice cream and pie are generally referred to that way. Purplebackpack89 22:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
- @CodeCat That line of reasoning could challenge many of our topical categories, eventually making Wiktionary less interesting and useful to folks who are, after all, often only interested in one culture, or at best the few cultures that coexist near where they live. DCDuring TALK 00:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- And maybe we should indeed challenge them. The topical category tree is quite a mess and I think some others have expressed similar views, although I don't remember who. It came up not too long ago when I brought up the names categories for discussion, I think. —CodeCat 00:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- @CodeCat That line of reasoning could challenge many of our topical categories, eventually making Wiktionary less interesting and useful to folks who are, after all, often only interested in one culture, or at best the few cultures that coexist near where they live. DCDuring TALK 00:04, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Huh. I don't believe that steak is ever a "dessert", even if it's eaten last. I don't care much about the topical categories either way, though. Equinox ◑ 18:46, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- @Equinox This is slightly off-topic, but Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com have a second definition of "dessert", labelled "British", namely "fresh fruit served after a main course" (per Dictionary.com) / "fresh fruit served after a sweet course" (per MW). Can you say if either of those is actually a sense that "dessert" has in Britain, that our entry should cover? - -sche (discuss) 19:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- "Fresh fruits served after the main course" is inherently included in the main sense of the word and is most certainly not unique to Britain. --WikiTiki89 20:39, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- @Equinox This is slightly off-topic, but Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com have a second definition of "dessert", labelled "British", namely "fresh fruit served after a main course" (per Dictionary.com) / "fresh fruit served after a sweet course" (per MW). Can you say if either of those is actually a sense that "dessert" has in Britain, that our entry should cover? - -sche (discuss) 19:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Well, our "sweet confection" sense is really inadequate, since you could have e.g. grapes for dessert (in a way that you couldn't have a beef steak for dessert). I suppose they are trying to distinguish between dessert-as-recipe (e.g. chocolate cake) and dessert-as-course (just something you bring out to the table, like fruit, or a box of chocolates). Chambers' double entry is similar: "a final course of a meal, pudding or other sweet item; fruit, sweetmeats, etc served at the end of a meal". Equinox ◑ 20:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- It is common to joke about having steak as a dessert: What was the main course? Steak. What did you have for dessert? More steak. --WikiTiki89 20:39, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Well, our "sweet confection" sense is really inadequate, since you could have e.g. grapes for dessert (in a way that you couldn't have a beef steak for dessert). I suppose they are trying to distinguish between dessert-as-recipe (e.g. chocolate cake) and dessert-as-course (just something you bring out to the table, like fruit, or a box of chocolates). Chambers' double entry is similar: "a final course of a meal, pudding or other sweet item; fruit, sweetmeats, etc served at the end of a meal". Equinox ◑ 20:06, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Keep. I find the rationale for deletion unconvincing. Not every food item can be considered a dessert. Furthermore, Category:en:Desserts has 72 items, so its granularity seems ok. Moreover, for reasons not entirely clear to me, I find google:"dessert recipes" and Google image search for dessert interesting; the former suggests that those who classify food recipes find the category of "dessert" worthwhile; if they do, so can the English Wiktionary. Finally, I do not think the requirement that categories be culturally agnostic (or independent) is unquestionably desirable and practicable. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:12, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- Per my comments above, keep Category:Desserts and create Category:Breakfast foods (not Category:Breakfasts, IMO, since the point would be to include typical breakfast foods, not just any food that has ever been eaten as the first meal of a day). - -sche (discuss) 19:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
- RFDO kept: no consensus for deletion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:05, 14 December 2014 (UTC)