Talk:Plum cake

Copy editing
This article gave a quite misleading view of the topic and there was a lot of repetition in the text, which added to the readers' difficulties. For example, it didn't really communicate how long and strong the tradition of the plum cake is, implying that this tradition was all "history" in the sense of "ceased to be" when in fact it is ongoing and adaptive to the point of confusion. The original text compounded this sense of "ending" by focusing instead on one small example of an American adaptation (evidently one of many colonial adaptations) that unlike the rest, seems to have withered. If the topic is mainly about the origins and enduring popularity of this type of food, then such a focus is just wrong. It also didn't clearly distinguish between the English and the European traditions, which are quite different. It didn't indicate how slippery the slope is between plum cake and plum pudding, which depends to some extent simply on how rich you make it, with different people in different times using the same name for different things. For example, in the Indian reference cited, I could only find "plum pudding" and not "plum cake". So the writer needs to clear about what the source is saying and also help the reader understand. What you call it often comes down to cost or occasion. Furthermore, current custom in India really needs checking and citing with regard to plum cake. While Australia and New Zealand have kept much of their English food traditions, food habits in India probably changed a lot more over the century subsequent to the source cited, especially after independence.

The text needed tightening as there was considerable repetition of phrases like "in the book" which are unnecessary because that is clear from the reference as are the cited books'authors, unless an author is so famous as to be linkable in the body of the article. I have hurriedly edited it to try to improve its accuracy and clarity but more needs to be done. While it's a great topic with a fascinating global history, I do not think it was (or is) up to good article standard as there is still work to be done even on coherence. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 12:09, 3 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Regarding the source for content about India, here it is (see entry #26). It discusses plum cake specifically, and has no mention of plum pudding. This was used in the article prior to additional copy edits that were performed (link). North America1000 15:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - Yes, it's a good reference and I added the extra footnote to comments in it on plum puddings. For what I think are technical reasons, I now cannot access either page to re-read them. The issue about whether plum cake is still served at Christmas in India remains. Citation neeeded. India has a very strong culinary tradition of its own and in 1909, when this book was published and the Empire was at its height, English food was likely to have been at its zenith too, but that has probably changed. Unless there is a contemporary reference, the article should say "was served" rather than "is served". Not a difficult change. But the current claim may be quite wrong. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I have changed the word "is" to "has been" in that section (diff). North America1000 02:02, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I have copy-edited some of the recent copy edits, because they introduced unsourced content into the article. The article was written entirely upon what reliable sources report. When I created the article, I essentially "used up" most of the reliable sources that are available in online searches (e.g. Google Books, Google News, Highbeam, etc.) North America1000 15:29, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - It wasn't the online sources that was creating the problem for this article; it was how they were used to create what was an unbalanced and misleading account. See comments on the colonial culinary heritage. The American colonial adaptation was obviously just one of many and interesting for the fact that it seems not to have lasted whereas in the other colonies it did. It is also quite understandable and expected that colonists or settlers bring with them the food they know and love. So the article needed to set that in its context, not highlight the exception. As an article about a thing that is widely known and has been for a very long time, careful contextualisation is required if undue weight is not to be given to a random, interesting factoid. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Prior to the additional copy edits that occurred beginning on 08:13, 3 March 2016‎ by the above user (diff), the phrase "in the book" was only present twice in the article (link). I hardly consider this to be "considerable repetition" in the slightest. North America1000 15:32, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - Just an example. There were a bunch of sentences that really needed tightening. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I removed content about Australia and New Zealand from the lead and a section header, because absolutely no sources were added to verify the statements, and the content is not present in the given source. North America1000 15:41, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - Yes, it was late and it needed some references but the difficulty is well illustrated by the Australian situation where all the terms are still in use, including "fruitcake", which is baked cake with varying quantities of dried fruit. It is marketed as either "dark fruit cake" or "light fruit cake". At Christmas the same item morphs into "Christmas cake". Plum puddings are traditional. It depends on what the occasion is and how much money you want to spend which one is made or served. Shop-bought ones, for instance, being made to a cost, tend to have less fruit. Plum cakes made frm fresh fruit are another thing entirely but also exist and are popular. The article needed to make clear the relationship between these versions - most are traditional. It seems to me that dried fruit is what distinguishes the long English and colonial tradition. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I removed what appears to be original research: "and the confusion in nomenclature is so great" (diff). This is not present in the cited source, and it appears to be a personal opinion and/or original research based upon synthesis, rather than a verified fact. (See this link to read the source, which has no mention of such confusion in nomenclature). Needs a source to qualify its inclusion in the article. North America1000 15:49, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - Yes, true. You can see from what Mrs Beeton included in her book that even an extremely popular and very influential book in the English tradition uses a bewildering array of terms. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Please only add content that is backed by reliable sources, and include inline citations to those sources when doing so, preferably with urls if available. Also, please refrain from adding original research. You can use the Find sources template atop this page to find reliable sources.


 * As I stated above in the GA review, "Note that when working on this article, I used almost all of the reliable sources available online. The topic has received significant coverage, but many sources only provide mentions, etc. I mention this because while the article may seem short at parts, it's based upon most of the available reliable sources about the topic." North America1000 15:58, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - As you can see from the problems I have raised with this, the article is nowhere near ready for GA. It needs a lot more thinking through as to its purpose and scope; it needs to clarify the terms better; it needs to include/explain briefly the importance of inherited traditions; it is incomplete (for example, I quickly added a couple of lines about Italy and Poland) and it was sometimes poorly or carelessly expressed. For example, "which the English referred to as plums" sounds like the English people were aberrant in this, when in fact it was the English LANGUAGE that used the term "plums" to refer to fruit generally, just as the term "meat" (as in "sweetmeats") used to mean food generally.
 * However, it is getting better. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 00:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC) Whiteghost.ink (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but the majority of the edits you "quickly" perfomed introduced a great deal of original research, synthesis and unsourced statements into the article, which is problematic. The supposed "problems" you mention are often based upon your personal opinion, rather than the actual Good article criteria. Please only add content that is backed by coverage in reliable sources, as explained above. Again, the Find sources template atop the page can be used. North America1000 01:02, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - The only unsourced addition was the Australian and New Zealand usage which has now gone until we find a ref. The Indian claim about current practice, which is scarily still there in the LEAD, remains unsourced. Other claims, while sourced, nonetheless gave a misleading impression and that's important. So, more work needs to be done. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 01:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Content in lead sections does not need to be cited as long as it is cited later in the article, as is the case in this article, where a citation to a reliable source is present in the India section. There's nothing "scary" about this. Please read WP:LEAD and WP:CITELEAD. North America1000 01:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
 * - I meant the India bit in the lead was scary because it was likely to be wrong, but that was fixed with the change in verb so that what the source means is better conveyed. I know, as WP:LEAD says, that the "the lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies". That's what I am trying to do because the article is about "plum cake" (all types). The election cake example is a very small point in this global context but it is interesting and shows how things are adapted differently, provided it is not emphasised in the lead so as to unbalance the article's whole coverage.


 * It is quite a big topic and thinking on it all, it seems to me that the potential for confusion is over the fact that there are two major variants of plum cake and the article needs to elucidate them. There is the dried fruit versions that have sometimes become subsequently known as "fruitcake", and there is the fresh fruit versions which are probably what people would expect to read about if they came to this article. So somehow, the article needs to explain that difference, as well as account for the contribution that the changes in terminology have made to the whole thing. The dried fruit sort seem to be as a result of English settlers carrying this version with them to their colonies (not surprising). So this transference is the main point. Carrying over traditions and changing language both have to be made comprehensible. Quoting "at the turn of the eighteenth century" doesn't help much, especially in the lead, because some readers will think this means at the end of the 18th century and others will think it means at the beginning. Better to anchor it in colonial times, since that is the point of why the cake arrived in that form. Also, it is clear when colonial times were and that each colony has done different things with their inheritance. Some colonies (such as America and Australia) have added the European versions now have both sorts of cake, sometimes under different names. I have tried to summarise this in the lead - I know that people who want to understand it better will go to the specific subsection. Also I have added the German sort of cake and fixed the spelling (there is actually an article on the German sort!) as well as found some more references. In one I found a recipe for "a plain plum cake c1760" as well as how "to make a common plumb cake, c1810", which make it sound more like the common "pound cake". If I get time, I will add something about these early versions.


 * I think/hope it is clearer now (two types and language differences) and would better satisfy readers who wanted to know about plum cakes and why there are so many different versions and names. Good teamwork! Whiteghost.ink (talk) 06:47, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Does plum cake refer also to a fresh plum cake in Britain?
As today I have written the german version of plum cake, I would like to know whether I can write "Today in Britain plum cake also refers to a plum cake of fresh plums"? --Wagner67 (talk) 16:40, 9 April 2019 (UTC)