Forum

If I could change one thing about the way we set up EYB it would probably be the inclusion of perishables in store-cupboard ingredients – butter, eggs, milk, lemons, onions and garlic. There were a few reasons we chose to omit them:

• We assumed no-one would be searching for recipes using those ingredients in small quantities. The store-cupboard ingredient rules specify that they should be included if a major ingredient or over set amounts.


• We assumed most cooks would have them in stock.


• We wanted searches for recipes that contain quantities of those ingredients not to be swamped e.g. when searching for onion soups not to see every soup recipe containing small amounts of onions.


• And lastly we could index a lot more recipes if we excluded those ingredients. We pay our indexers by the ingredient added so by excluding store-cupboard ingredients we could index a lot more books for the same cost.

However we get consistent feedback that members wish those ingredients were listed, even if only used in small quantities. What are members’ views on reinstating those ingredients? Would you reinstate all perishables or just some? Obviously we cannot go back and redo all the 1.5 million recipes already indexed - though we are always happy if members want to volunteer to clean-up older indexed books they own (and add page numbers if missing). But at least it would mean going forward all recipes would include perishable ingredients. One drawback would be we would probably be indexing fewer new recipes if we were adding more ingredients. Feedback please!

I think they should be omitted unless used in bigger quantities ie onion soups, garlic soups, milk based recipes, etc. 

Personally, I never have lemons on hand unless for a specific recipe, so I would love to have those included. I also think it would be great to start including milk, butter, and eggs to make it easier for members searching for recipes to accomodate allergies or other dietary concerns. I suppose many might have a "go-to" substitute for milk or butter, so perhaps a case could be made for continuing to omit those in small quantities, but eggs are very difficult to substitute in my own personal experience.

I think it would create more confusion to change the way recipes are indexed now if you can't (and I understand that this wouldn't be feasible) go back and change the recipes that have already been indexed.  

I've noticed more people putting notes on recipes to say that they also include eggs, milk etc... so the way store-cupboard ingredients are addressed on the site isn't clear to members and wasn't all that clear to me until I started indexing recipes. Maybe the note on each recipe to say that the ingredients list doesn't include store-cupboard ingredients could be beefed up somehow (or put in a more prominent position in larger type)?  Or occasionally run a blog post highlighting things like this that cause problems to raise awareness?

I would index all ingredients without exception. This would make the index more useful for tracing the history of a recipe or ingredient. If the database met research requirements, you might find grants and graduate students willing to enter older materials. More convincing reasons:

1. What one has as pantry items depends upon the cuisine you cook e.g. I rarely have white wine vinegar but I always have rice vinegar. I often lack onions and lemons but always have shallots and limes.


2. What one has as pantry items depends on how many one is cooking for e.g. cooking for one I often let eggs and milk run out and pick them up "whenever"


3. Items that are used as thickeners in one cuisine are used as an essential coating ingredient in another e.g. corn starch which is a thickener easily replaced in English cooking is an essential coating ingredient in Japanese katsu dishes.


4. When looking for "like Grandma used to make" I'm looking for baking soda and cream of tartar not double acting baking powder . . . something hidden in the current system.


5. It would simply learning to index books for the members perhaps increasing the number of books indexed via members.


6. Some of the pantry items are common allergens - milk, eggs, wheat, garlic, onion . . . - so having them listed allows one to screen recipes more quickly. Yes, I have family members for each of the above allergens.

I also would index with more specificity. When a recipe calls for a particular type of potato, knowing that type allows me to decide if what I have available is a reasonable substitute. Telling me that the recipe requires "potato" when a particular type is required is about as useful as telling me it calls for "starchy vegetable".

I do recognize that the cost factor does not allow you to go back and redo indexed recipes - something that is already a problem with some categories. However, if you allowed users to update individual recipes which would require approval (much like web recipes), the most used recipes and cookbooks would slowly move up to current standards.

This is probably true when a result returns 5 recipes or less. But when you are confronted with > 15 recipes it becomes problematic. For example, I just read a great beef and radish recipe. Without any blogs and with few magazines "beef radish" returns 65 recipes. Actually, the recipe I read was in a book not yet indexed so this is simply an example.

We already have that problem with classifications. However, if there were a simple flag and mouse over explanation stating what level of standards the recipe is coded to, this should be a solvable problem. You are correct that it needs to be carefully thought through.

I tend to agree with MJES - all ingredients should be indexed .. AND surely it matters not that it is not retrospective..of course that will create all sorts of cultural issues .. what is xx in US is y in Oz and so on...so the data base would end up being huge!  One serious downside of so doing would be that people would need to learn to use the filters and improve their own searching techniques; and it would seriously slow down the rate of indexing, both professional and member indexing!

I'm in support of all ingredients being listed, particularly with so many food allergies abounding! As someone who has done a bit of member indexing, I actually don't think it would add a huge amount to the indexing, as there would be no need to keep double-checking quantities according to the 'Store-cupboard ingredients table'. Perhaps as a 'moving forward' strategy, this would work. I'm sure there's quite a few folk out there who might want to help index their collections over time for books that have already been indexed. And if being considered, I'd definitely be in support of it happening sooner rather than later as EYB keeps getting bigger & better each month with the number of recipes available!

I don't think you need to make a change and add them. I use EYB every day and have never noticed a problem with them not being indexed.

I think it would be a good idea to include the perishable items as they are often the ingredients you might not have , particularly if you haven't been shopping lately. Another advantage with listing all dairy items would make indexing vegetarian/vegan recipes easier.

Adding back all perishables would make quite a big difference to our indexing costs. As I explained in my OP we pay our professionl indexers by the number of ingredients added, not by the hour. So adding 25-30% more ingredients would increase the costs by the same amount. And our professional iindexers are very familiar with the store-cupboard limits so they don't need to spend extra time checking the chart.

I do accept it would be easier for member indexers if they didn't have to familiarize themselves with the store-cupboard ingredient rules. And also for Sydney who proofreads member-indexed books and often has to ask whether store-cupboard ngredients listed were over the limit.

So far there doesn't seem to be a consensus on whether to add them or not. We will be leaving this topic running for a while yet before we make a decision.

I wouldn't bother adding perishable SC ingredients at this point.  In an ideal world sure, but not at the expense of having resources available to index more books. 

Having said that, we are approaching this as an all or nothing question:  either everyone (professional and member indexers) indexes perishable SC ingredients, or no one does.  Does it have to be an all or nothing solution?  Could member indexers that choose to index perishable SC ingredients just do so?  I realize in that case we would then have two methods for indexing SC ingredients, but even if we do, how much does that matter?  I guess what I'm thinking is that the indexing is such an iterative process anyway, by necessity and will always be so, thus it wouldn't bother me if everything isn't the same.   But I'm sure there are things I'm not thinking about in proposing this..... 

I would appreciate indexing all ingredients (except salt & black pepper). Complete indexing would be helpful for food allergies. Also, common ingredients vary by cuisine. 

I also like mjes's idea to have a mouseover (or flagged note or symbol) indicating what level a recipe is indexed. 

mjes, could you explain further what you mean by "what level of standards the recipe is coded to"?