Wikivoyage talk:Food and Drink Expedition Voyage Tips and guide

Swept in from the pub

We have a whole slew of articles on different types of ethnic cuisine: French cuisine, Italian cuisine, Mexican food, Japanese cuisine, etc. None of them are better than Usable status (and most of them are Outlines), so perhaps I should wait a bit before raising this concern, but most of them seem to be developing in an awfully encyclopedic direction. I'm not sure if these articles are the work of one individual gourmand editor or several, but I'd like to see them reworked a little bit to function more as bona fide travel topics rather than information that's essentially redundant to their respective analogues on Wikipedia. In other words, on Wikivoyage it's not sufficient to simply describe these foods - the approach should be, if I'm a traveler who's (let's say) going to Italy, and one of my goals is to experience the best Italian cuisine, what cities or regions should I visit, what kind of places should I seek out, what kind of pitfalls should I avoid, etc.? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 06:36, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I share your concerns and think it's always good to raise some awareness about them. It's a common issue with our travel topics. Often enough, the "travel guide" aspect is injected as a somewhat uncomfortable and basic list of obvious destinations. Some of the articles about religions, however interesting, have a focus on the encyclopedic side, as do some of the sports-articles (e.g. Horse riding), in my opinion. One of the challenges is to make sure the travel information is not confined to general or obvious remarks. In the example of horse riding, Each nation has its own culture of horsemanship, with local customs and taboos that need to be respected (without any more specific information) is hardly helpful. JuliasTravels (talk) 09:35, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I agree with both of you. In case anyone asks, I don't think this is a reason - at least in most cases - to delete the articles, but it would help a lot if there were more edits with a clear travel focus and practical information a traveler can use. And one issue with an article like Italian cuisine is that when you are in Italy, there very arguably is no such thing as "Italian cuisine", only Tuscan cuisine, Campanian cuisine, Roman cuisine, Milanese cuisine, etc. In a real sense, it's only when you are outside of Italy that "Italian cuisine" exists. Ditto and maybe even more so for "Chinese cuisine" and "Indian cuisine", although South Indian cuisine is a much more coherent concept. Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:31, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Well, focus is the key word here. To be very honest, when I look at the Wikipedia article on French cuisine, full of regional differences and information on the different kinds of venues, I'm not even sure how to shape an article here that will have any real added value and not seem like a pale shadow of its WP counterpart. JuliasTravels (talk) 13:17, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

There are a lot of sections that wouldn't be relevant here. But I think we could possibly improve on the regional sections. The region I know best is probably Provence, as I spent parts of 2 summers as a graduate student in Nice, and I find the "Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur" section fairly cursory, although I see it has a link to a region-specific article.

I don't know, my skepticism really has to do with two things: (1) Do we have enough editors with specific knowledge about regional specialties to really add value to these "cuisine of" articles? (2) Is it really useful to talk about "Italian cuisine" or "French cuisine" as if it's one thing? I tend to think broader topic articles like the one on Alcoholic beverages may have more potential, even if they're hardly perfect. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:36, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I created many of these articles, though other users have provided most of the information. One reason is that many country articles are bloated, not least the Eat sections, which are in many cases dominated by lists of dishes without context or grammatical flow. Sections such as France#Eat can be shortened down to more essential information for eating in France, while the bulk of the text can be exported to French cuisine. For countries of similar culinary tradition such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman etc, a link to Middle Eastern cuisine would be more appropriate than repetition of similar lists. /Yvwv (talk) 14:07, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Not intended as an argument for either side, but the advertising hellhole has in their infinite wisdom to bloat their main page decided to "feature" a cuisine every month. All they actually do is link to often neither well written nor up to date "eat" sections... Edited to add: They seem to have gotten rid of it, but they still have a "language of the month" and similar features that are mostly explained by their extremely low standards. Hobbitschuster (talk) 14:27, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

We should study the mistakes of The Other Site, to avoid making them ourselves. We learn that links to short or deficient articles should not be promoted on the main page. And certainly not short or deficient sub-sections. Most cuisine articles, most of them are very young, compared to artifacts such as Bavarian cuisine, and need time to grow. /Yvwv (talk) 14:41, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

By "artifacts", do you simply mean "older articles"? Because that's not normally how I'd interpret the word. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:30, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

The Bavarian cuisine article was created on The Other Site in 2004, and has since then remained a simple bullet list. Since 2015, the corresponding Wikivoyage article has improved greatly, especially thanks to User:Hobbitschuster and User:Andrewssi2. We should be patient with Wikivoyage articles which are short today. The Wikivoyage community will be able to improve such articles to a level unattainable by The Other Site. /Yvwv (talk) 16:05, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

It's not the length of the articles that is the issue; like all WV articles, it is fine that they take time to develop. The challenge is to make them more travel oriented, and provide an angle that is different from the encyclopedic articles over at Wikipedia. While I agree the Bavarian cuisine article has been nicely fleshed out, by exception perhaps even more so than the WP one, I don't see how it is any different in focus. JuliasTravels (talk) 21:05, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

Many Eat sections are not travel-oriented, either. In general, both the Eat sections and the cuisine articles should focus on information such as typical meal times, availability of restaurants, table manners, and information about how to find vegetarian food, or other food to fulfill specific needs. Cuisine articles could also benefit from more historical context of the cuisine. /Yvwv (talk) 21:49, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

We could flesh out Wikivoyage:Article templates/Sections#Eat for guidelines how to write an Eat section for country articles. /Yvwv (talk) 21:51, 2 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I think "Eat" sections might also focus on regional dishes that are not widely known or available outside their home region. See Buffalo#Local specialties for an example of what I mean by this. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I've just looked these over for the first time, and I'm not very happy with them. It's handy to know what the foods are (descriptions and translations will be very handy when looking at a menu in a restaurant), but I think what I'd want is something more like "You've got to try this" or "Here's what to get for street food, here's how to get a snack, here's what to get in a fancy restaurant", or "This is for adventurous people, this is for timid diners". For example, it's been years since I've been in France, and I can't claim to be very familiar with it, but it seems like the article ought to mention things like this:

• Lunchtime is important and long (by US standards) – but don't be late, because it's hard to find a place that will seat you after 1:30 p.m. Dinner is typically late, maybe starting at 8:00 p.m. in cities. A three-course meal is an everyday affair.
• If you're hungry and you need something quick to eat, then buy a crepe. There are crepe stands all over the place.
• Restaurants can be pricey. If your budget is tight, then get bread, cheese, fruit, and vegetables from the outdoor market, and make a picnic. Also, wine is cheap (at the store, not at the restaurant). Water (plain and fizzy) is free at restaurants.
• If someone invites you to their home for a meal, it will probably last for hours.
• Frog legs, snails in garlic butter, and lobster are all very traditional, but not very popular. Picky eaters might be happier with the excellent bread and butter that's available all over the place. Vegetarians might be successful with cheese soufflé, a savory tart, or vegetables gratin. Vegans and people who dislike cheese should visit some other country.

It might also be interesting to provide some information about "home country" cuisine in appropriate articles: There are American-style steakhouses in France, and McDonald's is everywhere. But Italian visitors to Chicago will be unpleasantly surprised by Chicago-style pizza, and Chinese visitors to America should be warned away from most "Chinese" restaurants, and to attempt only those that name a specific region's cuisine, and even then with an expectation of disappointment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:33, 4 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

So I had a look at Germany#Eat, and it has perhaps changed my views a bit. The #Eat and #Drink sections are about 20% of a very long (~200K) article. I think it's a little weak on some regions, but it mentions a broad range of travel-related needs (e.g., vegetarian, kosher, and celiac). It's generally good content, even if there is room for improvement.

But I'm now thinking that it's probably just too much in one place. My Mac says that it would take 63 pages to print this article out. But I'm not sure whether it makes more sense to talk about splitting some information to a subpage on "German cuisine" (presumably with a focus more on "what to eat while you're there") or "Eating in Germany" (mostly the same content on "where and how to get food"). What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 6 August 2016 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure. But I'll repost here what I just posted at Talk:Japanese cuisine:

"I'd like everyone reading this post to have a look at w:Japanese cuisine and some of the linked articles. I would submit that we do not need a reference article for Japanese cuisine on this site, as Wikipedia provides ample information we could simply link to. Only if there's a specific travel-related angle are articles like this one useful. Right now, I don't see the point at all. Should we do a vfd for the "cuisine of" articles, or is there someone who would like to provide a good rationale for them and make them relevant and truly useful?"

I'll add that I think there's a really good argument for linking Wikipedia articles on cuisine at the beginning of "Eat" sections, and maybe we could discuss this at Wikivoyage talk:External links. I'll bring it up there. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:03, 4 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

I think that any information about the local food can go into regional articles, because it is only relevant to this particular region and not elsewhere. This will save country articles from unnecessarily long Eat sections and will simultaneously help to expand regional articles.

I also think that the "Cuisine of" articles will only make sense for countries like Italy and France that offer some "culinary tourism" (including, of course, its broad wine-tasting aspects). Such articles should ideally focus on practical aspects of "food&drink" travel. This information is clearly beyond the scope of Wikipedia and should be stored here on Wikivoyage (if at all). --Alexander (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

As someone brought up moving German cuisine to its regions; I do not think that's workable, as most aspects of German cuisine that do vary by region are spread across state lines and our current regional subdivision of Germany is based on states. Hobbitschuster (talk) 18:09, 4 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

I don't see any problem if certain food aspects are repeated in two regional articles. --Alexander (talk) 20:02, 4 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

The impetus for restarting this discussion is a post by Turaids in an exchange on the Talk:Cambodian cuisine page, which stated in part that: "all Wikivoyage cuisine articles I've seen so far are less useful than their Wikipedia counterparts, so unless Wikivoyage stops simply recycling Wikipedia and starts taking different angles on things that's sadly how it's going to be." So, first of all, is it actually true that no Wikivoyage cuisine article is more useful to travelers than the corresponding Wikipedia article? Secondly, are there cuisines for which it's impossible to imagine how a Wikivoyage article could possibly be as useful as its counterpart at en.wp, and if so, what's the justification for having a Wikivoyage article about that cuisine at all, instead of referring readers to the Wikipedia article? Thirdly, what do we need to do differently to make sure all Wikivoyage cuisine articles have a focus on information of practical interest to travellers? I think we have answers in the thread above; should we itemize them all clearly in one place and create a "how-to" document for editors motivated to create new cuisine articles or edit existing ones on this site?

I also think it's important to take stock of each Wikivoyage cuisine article, both per se and by comparison with its Wikipedia counterpart. I will start doing so below. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:56, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

I've always imagined Wikivoyage as sort of a crowdsourced Lonely Planet, which has a different purpose than an encyclopedia, so everything I could imagine in a Lonely Planet guide I can more or less imagine here. And as there are Lonely Planet guides on a wide array of different cuisines I don't see the specific cuisines being the problem, but rather the content curation. Turaids (talk) 20:35, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

And that's what this thread is about - the content and the extent to which it's of practical use to travelers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:38, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

I think Wikivoyage's usage of cuisine articles is somewhat different. As an example, in Bush tucker, you can see "If you are in the Adelaide area during summer, farmers' markets often have a stall run by Bush Tucker Ice Cream that is worth checking out". That sort of text won't be present in Wikipedia since it's not encyclopedic. It depends on which text you copy from Wikipedia to here. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 12:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

That's the kind of information that needs to be in Wikivoyage cuisine articles, but how often is it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:53, 7 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

I think it's true that many of our cuisine articles focus too much on lists of dishes and encyclopedic descriptions and too little on practical travel advice. (Our historical travel topics often have a similar problem.) That said, many of them also have some good practical information. I guess it's a question of improving and adding to the practical information while cutting down the information that duplicates Wikipedia's role. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:35, 7 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

The following post is a bit of a nonsequitur, but I would definitely welcome evaluations of particular cuisine articles by others and discussions below each evaluation. My opinion is (a) not definitive for the site and (b) of no value if no-one pays attention to what I have to say. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:38, 12 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Hi, everyone. I think this is a good time for us to take stock of the state of Wikivoyage cuisine articles. See Talk:Food and drink#Renewed discussion for 2022 and Talk:Food and drink#Evaluations of individual cuisine articles: How good are Wikivoyage cuisine articles for the practical traveler? And are all of them still less useful than their English Wikipedia counterparts? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:18, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

• American cuisine: w:American cuisine contains loads of encyclopedic history beyond the scope of a travel article and is also more comprehensive in its coverage of regional dishes and ingredients in a way that I think would overwhelm most travelers. However, in looking at American cuisine again, I'm surprised by the length of the various lists, especially the list of ingredients, and I wonder whether they may be a bit long to be user-friendly to most travelers. That said, the Understand and Meals sections provide solid, practical information for the traveler, as do sections such as Diners, Tipping and Snacks. It's not an accident that this guide has been featured.
• Argentine cuisine: Also a guide-rated article, it contains good bite-sized sections that seem to me as someone who has yet to visit Argentina to be of practical use to the traveller. It's particularly good that the lede section mentions the concerns of vegetarians; "Understand" is very practical, giving a nice overview of the cuisine from a bird's-eye level and telling people the when and what of meals. As I see it, the main advantage of w:Argentine cuisine is its more detailed coverage of regional cuisines. As their regional sections are not overly long, the greater specificity might be good to emulate, particularly if we can mention specific localities that are particularly good places for someone to visit to try great examples of x, y or z.
• Australian cuisine is a usable article. At a cursory look, it and w:Australian cuisine have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Wikivoyage article covers more desserts and has pictures of more of them. However, the "Take-away and convenience foods" section of the Wikipedia article is of obvious practical use to travelers and has no counterpart as of yet in the Wikivoyage article. There is also a bit of coverage of regional foods in the Wikipedia article that the Wikivoyage article appears to lack. Forgetting about comparisons for a moment, the "Meals" section of the Wikivoyage article is inadequate, as it simply mentions two foodstuffs. Instead, what's needed there is information about when meals are eaten, whether restaurants are closed in between standard mealtimes, and any other practical information that's best covered in such a section. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:32, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
• Balkan cuisines is barely an outline. w:Balkan cuisine is probably only a bit better, but the best thing about it is that it's an umbrella for a slew of articles listed in "See also", whereas the Wikivoyage article is meant to stand on its own. I'd particularly point to w:Balkan cuisine#Characteristics as having some useful information that's absent from its Wikivoyage counterpart. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:53, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Merged and redirected as of 22 February, 2022. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:16, 1 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

• Bavarian cuisine is a good usable article. w:Bavarian cuisine lists more dishes, but the Wikivoyage article is more useful because the dishes are described in the article and don't require another click; furthermore, quite a few of the listed dishes on the Wikipedia article are red-linked. I think the best ways to make it more useful for travelers would be to describe the dining and drinking experiences in different kinds of establishments more, referring readers to the German cuisine article wherever facts not specific to Bavaria are relevant, and to give examples of particular establishments that provide especially good examples of x, y and z traditional food or drink, as I suggested in Talk:Bavarian cuisine#Making this article less encyclopedic and more travel-related in 2014. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:35, 12 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
• Benelux cuisines is even less of an outline. Netherlands#Eat, Belgium#Eat and even little Luxembourg#Eat are far superior. I'm considering nominating it for deletion. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:58, 6 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Merged and redirected to Benelux#Eat. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

• Brazilian cuisine is quite extensive for a usable-rated article. What it lacks so far is information about meal times and dining etiquette. w:Brazilian cuisine has somewhat more detail, but not to the degree you might expect, and the Wikivoyage article has more information about restaurants and drinks. I think that once meal times and any other important information about meals that might not be obvious is added, we will be able to call this article a guide and nominate it for a feature. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:57, 7 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
• Cuisine of Britain and Ireland is usable-rated but feels like a good guide-level article to me. It includes practical information about types and times of meals and includes a fair number of regional specialities, though a good argument could be made to subdivide the sections into the various nations and possibly add a few more dishes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:57, 12 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
• Cambodian cuisine was started recently and is coming along nicely. It will never have the depth of coverage of the cuisine that's at w:Cambodian cuisine, though, and the Wikipedia article also has a "Meals and eating etiquette" section, which would be of practical importance to visitors. The only things I can think of that should be added to the Wikivoyage article on that topic that are not covered on Wikipedia are whether restaurants and/or stalls close between meal times and what to bring if you are invited to a meal at someone's home. (Should you buy a half a kilo of fresh fruits or more at a market and bring that, as you might in rural Malaysia?) Overall, though, because of the comprehensiveness of the Wikipedia article, I think some thought should be given to what the purpose of even a good Wikivoyage article should be and how to achieve it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:08, 12 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
• Central European cuisines: Certainly better than w:Central European cuisine, except for the Wikivoyage article's total lack of images past the pagebanner, but doesn't seem at all too long and detailed to be merged and redirected to Central Europe#Eat. That said, Hungary and Austria have great cuisines that deserve their own articles if they can somehow be more useful to travellers than w:Austrian cuisine and w:Hungarian cuisine. There is a German cuisine article, plus Wikivoyage articles on Bavarian and Franconian cuisines. I'm not familiar enough with other Central European cuisines to express an opinion about whether good articles about individual national or regional cuisines I haven't mentioned would be likely to be particularly useful to travelers. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:21, 12 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Just started a thread at Talk:Central European cuisines proposing to merge and redirect the article to Central Europe#Eat. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:15, 1 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Merged and redirected to Central Europe#Eat (and in smaller part, the "Drink" section of that article) on 7/7/2022. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:38, 7 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

• Chinese cuisine is a great article and was very justly a Featured Travel Topic. The article is certainly more useful to travelers and probably better than w:Chinese cuisine, though the Wikipedia article also has links to subtopics, whereas the Wikivoyage article covers all regions of China without sub-articles on each region's cuisine. Anyone starting a new cuisine article or working hard on editing an existing one should look at this article for inspiration and a good model. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:09, 13 February 2022 (UTC)Reply
• Nigerian cuisine I'm not Ikan here to make a final evaluation, but I have to say, this is a reasonable article, and especially given it was only recently created. However, I'm not liking the layout and syntax of the article, along with capitalisation and some of it is written in a first person perspective. However, much of it looks similar to w:Nigerian cuisine just without citations (when I mean that, I mean that it looks awfully encyclopedic, not copied off). What it lacks is which places are known for food, local special(i)ties, but I hope the user who started it will improve it. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:13, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your remarks. All of this is up for discussion and nothing is a final evaluation. And I don't consider myself more authoritative than anyone else. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:12, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

No probs. I might do some others evaluations too. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 19:37, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

That would be great. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:47, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

There is some information in Nigerian cuisine which is beneficial and tailored to travellers. The paragraphs about sachet water and soft drinks are interesting, useful to know from a travel perspective and not found in the WP article. As is the information on the relative importance given to each meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner) in Nigerian culture. There are definitely positive signs though like nearly every article has scope for improvement. Gizza ^(roam) 04:34, 19 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

• Cuisine of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei – this is an overall good usable article, approaching guide status. It covers the important dishes for most regions, and IMO much better than w:Malaysian cuisine and w:Singaporean cuisine. That being said, coverage on Brunei seems to be low, but w:Bruneian cuisine doesn't have much either. I've also noticed that the Wikipedia article has much more on desserts, but the article is nearing guide thanks to the work of The dog2 and Ikan Kekek. As a side note, it'd be nice to see a bit of w:Singaporean cuisine#Singaporean dishes uncommon in Singapore for those that would like to have a bit of Singaporean cuisine without travelling to Singapore. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:39, 21 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

• I don't think those should be included. Those aren't actually Singaporean food, given that you can't find them in Singapore. The dog2 (talk) 15:48, 21 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

  Oh, I guess the Wikipedia's subheading is quite misleading... SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:45, 22 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

• Filipino cuisine is an overall good usable article. That being said, it seems a bit user-unfriendly and it could have a bit more on regional specialties. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 11:51, 22 February 2022 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Do we really need to separate out a single country's food/drink into separate articles, like Vietnam#Eat vs Vietnamese cuisine? Most readers will not click through on the little Main links, so in practice this seems to lead to an awful lot of duplication, since anything dropped from the main article just gets added back in because it's "missing". The size savings are marginal, eg. Vietnamese cuisine is 20k bytes vs over 150k for Vietnam even with the sad, truncated food section. Jpatokal (talk) 04:17, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Jpatokal: I'm not so sure on this one. Some cuisine articles such as American cuisine have an awful lot of encyclopedic content, while others like Thai cuisine or Central European cuisines don't duplicate their parent articles, they simply aren't long enough to warrant a separate article. We do have a lot of other good cuisine articles like Georgian cuisine or Chinese cuisine that ideally all cuisine articles should follow suit. But what about Overseas Chinese cuisine? It obviously doesn't go in China#Eat, and is way too long to go in the 76,733-byte Chinese cuisine article. We did have a discussion about these cuisine articles earlier this year (see Talk:Food and drink#Renewed discussion for 2022), so maybe it's time to revive that discussion again. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 08:21, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

I had only gotten started looking through cuisine articles here and comparing them to their Wikipedia counterparts and any Wikipedia subtopic article, with some help from you and several other people, but it would be good to complete the survey, even if only to start again, because of course some articles have been significantly improved since I started. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:28, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Instead of getting bogged down in individual articles, I would suggest we go up a level and get agreement on a) when separate cuisine articles are needed/beneficial, and b) how do we draw the line between what goes into the main article and what should go into the cuisine article. Jpatokal (talk) 09:12, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

First, if you haven't looked at the discussion thread linked above, do, because we've already gotten into that discussion in regard to several articles, but at the simplest level, the reason to start a "cuisine" article is if and when there's too much information for it to really fit in a country (or sometimes region) article, just as is the case with "Driving in" articles and so forth. And whenever that happens, a summary should be left in the relevant section of the country article, with a link to the spinoff article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:45, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps we can reorganise these articles by region instead of by ingredients and types of dishes. Then we can describe what to expect of the cuisines of each region, and what dishes to try. The dog2 (talk) 19:16, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

I don't know what you mean, in particular by "region," which can mean a group of several countries or an area within a country. If you mean a group of countries, I don't know how logical it would be to conflate Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian and Burmese cuisines, just because they're all in Southeast Asia, or for that matter, Spanish, French and German cuisines because they're all in Europe. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:42, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

We could discuss your suggestion more at the linked thread, though. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:42, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In the case of Vietnamese cuisine, we could discuss the differences between Northern, Central and Southern Vietnamese cuisines, and if someone knows enough, perhaps some of the ethnic minority cuisines as well. And likewise, Thai cuisine can be broadly divided into Lanna, Isaan, Central Thai and Southern Thai cuisines. And in the case of Malaysia, there are also many local specialities, so laksa in Penang is not the same as laksa in Sarawak for instance. Unfortunately, I have never been to Kajang, but I have been told that their satay is a little different from our satay in Singapore. 19:49, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Of course. As this is a travel guide, we need all articles to focus on travel, and letting people know what dishes you can expect in x, y and z region and whether there's a particular place or set of places to get the best a and b should be part of the heart of Wikivoyage cuisine articles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:08, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Precisely, so I am suggesting this as a way to make the cuisine articles more directly relevant to travel. So people can then know what to expect as they travel around the country. The dog2 (talk) 20:27, 29 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Ikan Kekek: "if and when there's too much information for it to really fit in a country" So where do we draw the line at what's "too much information"? AFAIK there's no real technical limit (Mediawiki caps out at 2 MB per page), so is the concern that people won't scroll if it gets too long, that the articles will devolve into encyclopedic lists of dishes, or what?

Also, "Driving in X" articles are only relevant to people who want to drive in X. Everybody has to eat, and we don't spin out "Sleeping in X" articles (even when that section gets really long, eg Japan#Sleep), so I don't think we should do that for any other top-level heading either. I have no objection to regional cuisine articles spanning several countries though, as long as they form a cohesive whole (Singaporean and Malaysian, sure; "Asian", nope). Jpatokal (talk) 06:50, 1 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

You make good points. Of course, "too much information" is always a judgment call. I'd again invite you to have a look at Talk:Food and drink#Renewed discussion for 2022. I do have some preliminary thoughts, though: Yes, everyone has to eat, but not everyone cares greatly what they eat, as long as it's in their price range, doesn't make them sick and gives them energy. I know people like that. And then there's a continuum, the other end of which would be a trip specifically or mainly to dine. Similarly, we have a Grand old hotels article for people who prioritize a particular type of accommodations and have or save up money to indulge. Leaving a useful summary is not the same as merging an article like Georgian cuisine into the Georgia (country) article. If you'd favor doing that, we really have something to talk about, and I suppose since this discussion is continuing here, it'll eventually be swept to Talk:Food and drink. I would note that some cuisine articles have been judged to be too short and light on information to stand on their own and have been merged and redirected to the "Eat" sections of country or even multi-country region articles. See Talk:Balkan cuisines, Talk:Benelux cuisines. I feel like we can and should judge each "Eat" section and each cuisine article on its own, but if you'd like to propose to merge and redirect every one to "Name of Country#Eat", I would suggest to you that that is not optimal, but that if you want to make that suggestion, you have to argue that in regard to the very best cuisine articles on the site, the ones that are guide-rated. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:07, 1 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

Jpatokal, I just looked at Vietnamese cuisine. It's not very good, and for an "Eat" section, Vietnam#Eat is quite a detailed summary that I think is more tightly organized than the cuisine article. I agree with The dog2 that reorganizing the article by region, with remarks about the character of regional cuisines and then subsections by type of dish, may be more helpful that the current organization. Right now, I definitely see why you could prefer to just merge the additional information and redirect, and I don't oppose that outcome, as the watchword, as always, is The traveller comes first. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:24, 1 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't be opposed to spinning off Sleep sections into "Accommodation in X" if the section gets too long. There are detailed blogs and online articles on the hotels/motels, campsites, Airbnb sitautionm etc. of a particular destination so it is certainly feasible. I suspect they haven't been created because the topic in general is more boring than cuisine, shopping or other sections. Gizza ^(roam) 03:39, 4 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

"Everyone has to eat", but not everyone wants to explore the cuisine of a country. There are people who travel to other countries to see the sights, but prefer to seek out familiar cuisine or eat only in their hotels.

When a subject is branched off from a country article, usually it ends up being expanded because writers no longer feel the constraint of overwhelming the main article, so more information is available to readers. There should always be a concise summary in the country article, but details should be branched off. Ground Zero (talk) 14:00, 4 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

One of the things that concerns me currently about cuisine articles is that, while editors have put a lot of work into them in recent years, their pageview statistics are often abysmal. I'm wondering if there's a way we can get them to rank higher in searches? Or feature them as FTTs? --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 17:04, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm more concerned with providing unique travel content on food and drink, whether in those articles and/or dedicated sections of destination articles. If a cuisine article is simply a warmed over Wikipedia article without citations, why should anyone view it? Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

Right. It's almost as though many of the associated Wikipedia articles should be a transwiki. w:Peruvian cuisine, for instance, has entire sections listing dishes without citing a single source. I think there needs to be some thought on how to make these articles truly distinct as I doubt editors on WP would support a transwiki. Maybe a list of the best restaurants with details on what to order, etc.? (And not a Yellow pages, a 7+2 list of top restaurants.) In some cases, there might be museums as well. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 19:16, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would oppose listing "best" restaurants for national cuisines, but providing examples of some typical menus from different regions and price points seems like a very good idea to me, and I hadn't thought of it before. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:55, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

To avoid running afoul of Wikivoyage:Don't tout, there should be a way to provide just text without any restaurant names. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2025 (UTC)Reply