Talk:Banana fritter

Should the Indonesian banana fritter version be merged with Brunei-Malaysia-Singapore's?

Hi, it seems unnecessary to separate Indonesia from Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore on pisang goreng because both are essentially talking about the same type of banana fritters. Even info on the cultural setting of pisang goreng in Indonesia as depicted in the article (e.g. sold in food vendor, variety of banana, modification/innovation of recipe, etc.) is not exclusive to Indonesia but also exist in the other neighbouring countries. It'd be appreciated if you could merge back both Indonesia and Brunei-Malaysia-Singapore under the same subsection. Thanks. Zulfadli51 (talk) 14:59, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think no... The separation is necessary. It should be separated since the content and references are overwhelmingly talked about Indonesian version of pisang goreng, not about Malaysian, Singapore or Brunei. It actually to honor the fact of how prevalent, pervasive, and rich diversity of Indonesian version compared to neighboring countries. Some of the variant (e.g. pisang molen, pisang goreng pasir, pisang manado etc.) are unique to Indonesia. You're welcome to expand the Brunei/Malaysia/Singapore section though. Gunkarta  talk  16:52, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The Indonesian varieties of pisang goreng are not sufficient to warrant a separate subsection from Brunei-Malaysia-Singapore. Even the so-called varieties you mention are not exclusive to Indonesia but also available in the neighbouring countries. The cooking style is also mainly not unique to Indonesia. It is redundant to separate Indoneia from Brunei-Malaysia-Singapore when the cultural traits are overwhelmingly similar. Zulfadli51 (talk) 04:46, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Zulfadli51: Although this is better discussed in Talk:Banana fritter, I will give my input here: I think the merger and the subsequent separation into regional/national subsections is a good idea. The merger into a larger topic has relieved us from endless debates about the origin of what is actually just a term, and individual subsections can give room to the diverse variant dishes of fried bananas. Just because the name is the same in both standard languages doesn't mean we have to cover everything called pisang goreng under one header. Indonesia is a big and diverse country, and this is matched by an enormous diversity in the realization even of basic things like fried bananas, grilled fish etc. Btw, I'd be happy if we could do the same thing with generic terms like Ikan bakar, Ikan goreng, Ayam bakar, Ayam goreng (but of course not with iconic and internationally reknowned things like Nasi goreng) for the above-mentioned reasons, although at the moment I can't see good merge targets. –Austronesier (talk) 09:36, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Hi, I appreciate your input. I do acknowledge the diversity of pisang goreng in Indonesia but I think it's still only restricted to the recipe innovation, and not other cultural characteristics. Examples: pisang goreng as a breakfast or afternoon snack, pisang goreng sold in street stalls or local coffee shops, cooked in palm oil, etc etc, these are cultural characteristics not exclusive to Indonesia but also ubiquitous in the neighbouring countries. Even a few of the varieties that is purportedly claimed to be Indonesian seems to be dubious, such as pisang goreng madu, pisang goreng pasir, because these are also very common in the neighbouring countries. Exception for varieties that would be inherently Indonesian are like pisang goreng Manado, pisang goreng Pontianak, pisang goreng kremes, pisang goreng molen, etc.

It's important to highlight the variation of pisang goreng in Indonesia but I don't think it's substantial enough to separate it from Brunei-Malaysia-Singapore; the difference is not substantial enough to be akin of, say, against Thailand or India. However, because there seem to be substantial info on Indonesian variation what I would suggest is to create a sub-subsection under the "Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore". Zulfadli51 (talk) 10:05, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Zulfadli51: In that case, you cannot even have pisang goreng madu under "Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore", since fried bananas plus honey is also served in other Asian countries. We certainly do in the Philippines. Putting "Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore" under one header is just language-based, that's fallacious and quite arbitrary. Eastern Indonesian cuisine is very distinct and only peripherally "Malay-world"-ish. Sorting things by country is intuitive and self-explanatory, anything else needs consensus. @Gunkarta: Curtesy question: since you're tuan rumah of this user-space: can we copy this discussion to Talk:Banana fritter for wider input? –Austronesier (talk) 10:39, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Zulfadli51: The problem is actually stemmed from kinship of Malay and Bahasa Indonesia. Just because the name is similar in Malay-Indonesian language "pisang goreng" does not meant the subsection can not respect the regional/local country-based variants. Actually the name also slightly different between Malaysian (goreng pisang) and Brunei (cucur pisang). If the main article is still named "pisang goreng" like in the past, probably the merge is somewhat could be considered, but now it has globally merged as "banana fritter", thus national-based separation is actually warranted. The section is originally written about Indonesian pisang goreng and its diversity (prior of Malaysia/Brunei inclusion). That explain the great elaboration of fried banana culture and variation in the country. The references is also overwhelmingly refer to Indonesian version. There is no need of merger only based upon the similar name. If your argument was based on similarity of its ingredients and process etc., thus does it means all of Southeast Asia (Thai, Philippines, Viet) should be merged into one as well? I say we should honour national-based separation. You are welcome to expand the Malaysia-Singapore-Brunei section by the way, so you can demonstrate how popular and diverse this fried banana dish is in your country. Oh yeah, I'm gonna move this discussion to Banana fritter talkpage, to invite others' opinion as well. Gunkarta  talk  10:59, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Gunkarta:@Austronesier: In this case of pisang goreng, it is exactly the kinship of Malay and Bahasa Indonesia on why Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore should be grouped just under one section. No, there is no exclusivity of "pisang goreng" as only Indonesian term, it is also ubiquitously used in Malaysia. It's just that in Malaysia, "pisang goreng", "goreng pisang" and "cucur pisang" are all widely used and interchangeable. "Cucur pisang" is the common term for banana fritter in Brunei, but then it is not exclusive to Brunei as it is also used in Malaysia. Then again, "cucur" simply means "fritter" and I'm sure "cucur" also exists in Indonesian dictionary with the same definition. Another case is the cultivars used, just like in Indonesia, the likes of pisang tanduk and pisang raja are also used in Brunei and Malaysia and in these countries they are exactly known by those names. The same goes to recipe variety, in Malaysia it's also called "pisang goreng madu", although in Brunei it's called "cucur pisang madu". Of course honey may also be used in other countries but they don't call it by the same name as used in Indonesia and Malaysia-Brunei. When I say similarity of pisang goreng in all these four countries, I'm talking about the fundamental cultural characteristics. Sorting by countries are only warranted if there are fundamental differences, most notably languages, but I don't see that among Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore. The difference between Indonesian pisang goreng and Malaysian-Bruneian-Singaporean pisang goreng are not on the same level as, say, the difference between Indonesian pisang goreng and Indian pazham pori. Zulfadli51 (talk) 12:36, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Zulfadli51: No, cucur usually means something else. It's rarely a solid fritter but usually based on a thin dough. E.g. in South Sulawesi, cucur bayao is a kind of pudding.

Again, and for the last time in this discussion (other editors should have their say now), this is a language-based fallacy. Local Malay is natively spoken by less than 10% of the Indonesian population. Standard Malay was successfully adopted and further developed as national language which is now understood and spoken by most Indonesians, but you cannot derive from this single commonality shared fundamental cultural characteristics which allow for this arbitrary lumping together of countries. Our natural sorting categories for regional overviews are individual countries or geographical regions; for the latter, we have e.g. Southeast Asia or more narrowly (but very unpractical for our case) Insular Southeast Asia. Brunei/Indonesia/Malaysia/Singapore is a meaningful grouping when talking about language and a few other related things. When it comes to variations of a generic food preparation method, it is not. –Austronesier (talk) 13:48, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Why would you think lumping these countries together is arbitrary? Why wouldn't Brunei/Indonesia/Malaysia/Singapore concept be extended to food, especially if there is substantial info to warrant as such? Is there any incontestable policy that stated as such? Anyway, if that's your logic, sure, let's separate Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore too but the issue would be you would see the same info being repeated four times (if includes Indonesia). Example, you would then see the info on the cultivars "pisang tanduk" and "pisang raja" being stated four times in four different country section. The thing with pisang goreng in Brunei/Indonesia/Malaysia/Singapore is that they are substantially intertwined and overlap, from language to preparation. Even the varieties that are available in Indonesia also overlap to a significant degree with that in Brunei/Malaysia/Singapore. Anyway, I find that the passages on pisang goreng are already problematic from the start, the cultural characteristics are depicted as if they are exclusively Indonesian when in fact they are also inherently shared with Brunei-Malaysia-Singapore. If you actually google pisang goreng in-depth, using both Indonesian and Malaysian sources you would see they are essentially indistinguishable. Zulfadli51 (talk) 14:40, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

As a European with little knowledge of the nuances of Brunei, Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean cuisines I feel like I have little to add to this discussion, but I've just proposed another merger that I would like everyone's input on. –Turaids (talk) 14:13, 19 November 2021 (UTC)