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Martha Bradley (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Nominator(s): SchroCat (talk) 16:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Another cookery book writer from history for your consideration. I created this about four years ago and took it to GA, but I've recently added more and brushed it up, and I think it's mature enough to try for FA now. All constructive comments are most welcome. – SchroCat (talk) 16:48, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Generalissima

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Image review
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All images are public domain and good to use. Alt-text would be nice but not a requirement. Will do a prose review later. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 17:10, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alt text: a perpetual weakness of mine: I shall add this shortly. Thanks for reviewing the images and I look forward to any other comments you have. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 17:14, 7 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Alts now added - SchroCat (talk) 10:15, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, alts look good! getting back to the prose review now. - G

Prose review
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  • Lede solid and looks to be a good length for this shorter article.
  • Life is well-written. I ran into a somewhat similar problem of having to write a biography for someone without clear facts about their life, so I sympathize with this being tricky.
    • Do we need to know that she read the third edition in particular of Royal Cookery?
  • May be good to wikilink slave system somewhere.

I've linked it to Slavery#Africa for now, but that isn't the best link. I'll look for an alternative, but this will do for the moment. - SchroCat (talk) 08:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Teutonic" is archaic enough I think it would be confusing to many readers. I think we should just say "German".
  • Do we need to wikilink Glasse again so soon after her previous mention?
  • Modern cookery books This may simply be because I'm a yank, but I've never heard "cookery book" used in a modern context. Is there a difference in use between cookery book and cookbook? Less a correction and more just interest on my part.

@SchroCat: That's all on my end. Thank you for another interesting cooking history article. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 07:12, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Generalissima; all your points addressed in this edit. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 08:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support Looks good to me, thank you for your swift reply. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 15:27, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Crisco

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750h

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like every other review feel free to refuse my suggestions with proper justification. 750h+ 06:21, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

lead
  • released in two-volumes in 1758 does this mean there were two volumes released? if so why is there a hyphen?
life
the british housewife (1758)
  • showed an economical aspect to their ==> "showed an economic aspect to their"
I see. 750h+ 09:45, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • criticise their approach for certain dishes ==> "criticise their approach to certain dishes"
  • and no way extravagant in the expense. ==> "and in no way extravagant in the expense."
oh oops didn't realise 750h+ 09:45, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the article @SchroCat:! I have an open candidacy if you'd like to take a look. 750h+ 06:21, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks 750. Done, except where commented on. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 09:38, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. 750h+ 09:45, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Tim riley

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  • "The book follows the French style of nouvelle cuisine" – this pulled me up short. I always thought nouvelle cuisine came in when I was a young man, and what's more so does the Dictionnaire de l'académie Française: La nouvelle cuisine, courant gastronomique né à la fin des années 1960, privilégiant une cuisine plus légère que la cuisine française traditionnelle. But then, blow me down, I find that The Oxford Companion to Food says that in 1733 Vincent La Chapelle in his Cuisinier moderne announced the birth of a "nouvelle cuisine", a new way of cooking that was to be adopted by several generations of French chefs—until Carême challenged it in the early 19th century. Two mutually exclusive uses of the same term. I think it would be v. helpful to your readers to add a footnote explaining that the term was first used in the 18th century and resurfaced in the 1960s, in both cases advocating a return to simplicity.
  • "able to improve on pre-existing dishes" – wouldn't just "existing" serve the same function here (rather more elegantly)?
  • "Based on the recipes shown in her work, Bradley had read several contemporary cookery books" – I don't think this sentence quite works. I think you need "it appears that" or "it is evident that" or some such after the comma and before Bradley.
  • "... the cook, the housekeeper, the gardener and the farrier" – perhaps a blue link for "farrier"?
  • "woodcock or snipe, pidgeon, partridge and chicken" – misspelled pigeon (only in the alt text, but even so...)
  • "confectionary—and preserved foods..." – the usual form is that the sweets are termed "confectionery" and a "confectionary" is the place where they are made.
  • "The food historian Sandra Sherman sees the pedagogical form in the layout of the recipes" – possibly "a pedagogical form"?
  • "Bradley was one of the very female cookery book writers in eighteenth-century England" – as opposed to one of the butch ones? (Julian: "We get them from our charcutier". Horne: "Your butcher?" Julian: "You think so? Must be the way I'm wearing my hair".)
  • "Although Bradley gave support for some aspects of French dining, she was also happy to criticise their approach to certain dishes" – "their" being the French, but this doesn't actually say so.
  • "examples of how to truss cuts of game,[60] examples of menus..." – perhaps a synonym for one of the two "examples"?

That's my lot. I'll be supporting, but I hope these few quibbles are of use meanwhile. Tim riley talk 11:33, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Tim, much appreciated: I've covered all these in these edits. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 14:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All fine. Happy to support – a lovely article, scrupulously researched and referenced. Meets all the FA criteria in my view. Tim riley talk 15:34, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review with a note about article structure/topic

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The harvn script complains that Pinkard2009 and Davison2014 don't point to any citation, I guess that the former's supposed to link to the source Pickard2009 and the latter is a typo. These are some pretty large page ranges on many of the short sources. Is the topic Bradley or the book she authored? The article's structured like a biography, but both the section length and the sources I perlustrated are more about the book than Bradley. There is a pattern in source formatting and the sources seem to be reliable - the old book's used as a source for its own content, which is fine -, but I must caution that this isn't a field where I have much expertise. The Internet Archive insists that the quotes from Bradley's book that I searched for don't exist? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:13, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Jo-Jo. I've fixed the citation problem. The topic is as much about Bradley as possible (but as the article says itself "Little is known about the life of Martha Bradley, and what there is has come from her single publication, The British Housewife": this means we have to cover the book to some level. There are very few page ranges, and most that are there are fairly short; where they are longer, it is because the subject matter covers the whole range of pages (this is all mostly connected to Bradley's own work). To see the quotes, it's best to go to the page you want to see the quote on. With archaic print ('S' rendered as 'f', etc), the IA search facility doesn't quite work as well as it should on picking up the right words. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 09:30, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like the article would be better if it was constructed around the book (i.e The British Housewife) rather than the author. Re quotes, is it custom to mark deviations (e.g "fhe"->"Our cook" in #53)? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:07, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, I think it's best here - there is a DNB entry on her, so per WP:ANYBIO we are more than OK having an article on her. There's not much difference between Bradley and someone like Ann Cook (cookery book writer) (with the exception that there is a little more on Cook). I'll have a look at the quotes shortly. - SchroCat (talk) 13:40, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]