Encyclopedia of World Cuisine/ Ingredients?

Site Discussions
1

I am throwing around this idea in my head- which is that collectively, we have an amazing amount of knowledge about various cuisines/ regional specialties/ dishes in our head or know where to look- their origin, variations, prep method, outstanding example of the dishes, that we share with our fellow users in the discussions.

Through these discussions, we all learn more about various cuisines and eat better than before. But I must profess that while I enjoy many cuisines, I am rather ignorant about the nuance and the regional variations outside of the ones I grew up with or regularly eat. If I want to learn more about a specific country’s food or specialty, then I have to resort to Google and its uncurated list of search results- some good, some not so useful.

What if we are to create a big wiki that contains a curated collection of resource about different cuisines, e.g. useful web pages, blogs, books, videos that we have come across and think it would be useful for someone who wants to learn more about a cuisine/ regional specialty/ specific ingredients, etc, they can have this wealth of knowledge at their finger tips. And if we want to write (instead of refer) about a cuisine, we can too. And of course, if we have specific question, we can always discuss in the forums.

The end result? Instead of talking about Mexican/ Chinese/ French food, we can utilize each other’s knowledge about the area we are most familiar with and talk about Oaxacan/ Shunde/ Brittany (or even finer if we want) food, and become more knowledgeable as a result.

Thoughts? Is there such a thing out there already? (The wikipedia one has some interesting information, but doesn’t seem to go very deep). Good idea/ bad idea? Anyone interested in this group effort?

  • Yes I am interested
  • I have lukewarm interest
  • No, meh idea

0 voters

2

First blush? The idea’s good, but still undeveloped. It’s a mighty vast universe to explore and we still only have a handful of brains to pick.

That being said, I’m interested - but, then again, I’m kinda interested in every new idea. This one certainly passed the “worth finishing reading the post” test. In that vein, I see no reason, at this point, not to begin compiling information - to be edited later - and see with what we presently have to work.

3

While I’m somehow interested, I wonder a forum would be the best way to present such a project.

4

It’s platform independent, i.e. it doesn’t have to live within this forum if this forum is limiting. There are plenty of open-source wiki software out there. This site or not its something I am interested in tackling at some point.

With that said, there doesn’t seem to be enough interest so far so its not something . Anyone interested please drop a note here, and we can revisit the idea once there are enough interest.