Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Black pepper/archive1

Black pepper

A comprehensive article, detailing history of the condiment most of us consume everyday. Since it has been made a good article major improvements have been done by User:Bunchofgrapes. --BorgQueen 20:24, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Quick note to any copyeditors out there: British English spellings, please. I'm American, so I'm sure most of my new text has a lot of errors in that area, but I found the article with British spelling and I intend to keep it that way. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 22:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Canadian spellings also, as they are the same as British. Anyway, on to the main topic. I feel as though you have included too many images in this article, and would request that you remove at least one. Otherwise the article is very informative, well-written, NPOV, and spicy! Support! --Hollow Wilerding 22:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I removed one image. --BorgQueen 22:25, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Let's cook up a meal on the Wiki! --HappyCamper 22:13, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Well-flavoured article. Wim van Dorst 23:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC).[reply]
Object. (This is Bunchofgrapes, the main editor for the article recently: sorry if this objection is poor form of any sort, but it's well-intentioned and I hope to address my objections soon.) The article isn't comprehensive yet. Specifically: Not having China in there made me uncomfortable; now that that's done, I guess I'll strike my objection and consider my other two points as being more along the lines of comments. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 16:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- ~~More on pepper's history outside of Europe. Especially China, whose history of pepper usage may go back to the first few centuries CE. Right now there's a European bias.~~ Done. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 05:30, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- The question of pepper's popularity, both historical and current. Historically, why were people willing to go to such lengths and pay such prices to bring these little hot dried seeds thousands and thousand of miles, even during the most shut-in days of Europe's dark ages? How and why did pepper wind up as our "default" spice today? There are no good answers to these questions, but I still believe the article needs to deal with them a little.
- Maybe: The transformation of pepper's role in cuisine over the years. In both Roman and Medieval times, it wasn't really ever just sprinkled on food, but was usually cooked into some variety of pepper sauce or another, with a base of possibly garum or liquamen, verjus ~~(what!? we don't have a verjus article?)~~ or vinegar. In some ways, it was treated more like we treat mustard seeds today.

Hopefully I will get these in there while this FAC is still active. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 00:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Please keep in mind that an article can never be perfect. Your objection more sounds like your own ambition as an editor than a factor truly disqualifies the current article from the featured article status. I admire your perfectionism and I hope you (and some others) will be able to fix those things soon but even if they can't be done it does not mean this article isn't comprehensive enough to become a featured article. --BorgQueen 00:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

...Oh and I made a redirect for verjus to verjuice. Thanks to my trusty Larousse Gastronomique. --BorgQueen 00:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Support per above. Brisvegas 05:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support - it's featured-quality already, even without the additions Bunchofgrapes proposes above. — Haeleth Talk 11:59, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
~~Minor object~~. Appears pretty comprehensive, but has very little information about pepper in Northern European spice trade. I think if you mention Southern Europe and Asia, Northern Europe (for example Germany) needs to be mentioned too. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:11, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- I have just expanded the end of the European history section, which now discusses more clearly Portugal losing almost all their Indian Ocean possessions to the Dutch and English (and the Malabar coast to specificaly the Dutch). I think I already covered pepper being in England, and I thought it was clear that the pepper trade, though it filtered through chokepoints including Italy, spread all across Europe. Perhaps that should be made more explicit? As for specifically dealing with the pepper trade in Germany, I'm not sure there's much to be said about it that couldn't be said about France or Denmark or Switzerland etc. I haven't come across anything that led me to think they were anything but consumers of a secondary market. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to support. Nice expansion. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nice job all round. Lisiate 02:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hot, Spicy, Support, after all the work I do in miltary history, it is always fun to find a such an informative article about something we use everyday and hardly give a second thought. Besides, Wiki needs more good condiment articles:> Did you know in the French Napoleonic armies, the phrase To Grind Peppercorns (Piler du Poivre) was slang for sentry or any dull, unpleasant duty...--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 03:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support That was really good! (I just read the other votes, and did notice that, for quite a while, until I hit the China section, I was concerned about the "other half" of the world, what was going on there with...black pepper. The China section resolved that for me (because I was already otherwise supporting!); still, as I see that China was a late addition, perhaps in future, a more global balance could be woven throughout. But that is NOT any sort of objection.) --Tsavage 19:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support Fantastic article which is informative, well-researched, and a pleasure to read. It would be great to take care of the red links if possible! InvictaHOG 01:53, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support as per above. Congratulations. Saravask 09:18, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Head... swelling... must... relieve... pressure... I mean, thanks, everyone, for saying such nice things about the page! —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 04:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Was going to object on a few minor things, but then I thought I'd just fix them and vote Support. Proto t c 12:56, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. A fascinating article! Good work! ''*Exeunt*'' Ganymead [[User_talk:Ganymead|<sup><font color="green">Dialogue?</font></sup>]] 17:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Ambi 23:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]