Comment by thaumasiotes
3 years ago
> I don't think Wikipedia is as closely vetted as we assume.
I keep finding gross errors in random pages that I visit for other reasons. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_toast
All of this article's references to French toast being described in the Roman Empire are straight-up lies. Interestingly, this is already noted on the talk page, but that has had no effect on the text of the article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Shimei_and_Qin_Xianglian
In the "History" section of this article, we see that the characters appeared in a book in 1595, and that they are based on a real-life official (and his wife) of the Qing dynasty, which began in 1644.
There's one reference to it on the French toast page and it wasn't made up by the Wikipedia writer. There's a very similar Roman dish, and the original Latin cam be found here (recipe 3): https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/De_re_coquinaria/Liber_VII_-_...
This was translated by Joesph Dommers Vehling, whose translation can be found here (recipe 296): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm
Vehling added "[and beaten eggs]", and equates the recipe with French toast, but makes it clear his addition is precisely that: it's bracketed and in lower case.
You seem to want to disagree with my comment, but I can't see where you're disagreeing.
I should note that there are indeed multiple references to the Roman Empire on the page; take a look at the sidebar.
This is the text in question from the History section:
> The earliest known reference to French toast is in the Apicius, a collection of Latin recipes dating to the 1st century CE, where it is described as simply aliter dulcia 'another sweet dish'.[8] The recipe says to "Break [slice] fine white bread, crust removed, into rather large pieces which soak in milk [and beaten eggs] fry in oil, cover with honey and serve".[9]
There are two sentences, and both of them are lies. There is no reference to French toast in the Apicius, and the quote given in the second sentence -- as you've already noted -- doesn't come from the Apicius. Wikipedia is supporting the claim that a 1st-century work refers to French toast by citing material originally written in the 20th century.
The idea that French toast appears in the Apicius is something the wikipedia author just made up, yes.
The Latin is: Aliter dulcia: siligineos rasos frangis, et buccellas maiores facies. in lacte infundis, frigis [et] in oleo, mel superfundis et inferes.
So there is no mention of the eggs, but the thing does have some resemblance to French toast.
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If the bracketed note is simply a suggestion by the translator, at the very least it shouldn't be included in the quote in the Wikipedia article because it's misleading.
That would be a pretty strange change to make by itself. It would solve the problem that the article attributes a quote to the Apicius that doesn't actually appear anywhere in the Apicius. But it would create the much more immediately obvious problem that bread soaked in milk, fried, and served with honey cannot plausibly be described as French toast.
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