Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 February 13

= February 13 =

fixed and variable cost of Copeland's of New Orleans
what are some fixed and variable cost of Copeland's of New Orleans — Preceding unsigned comment added by Biggrza (talk • contribs) 05:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * -- Jayron  32  05:32, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * In case anyone is wondering, Copeland's of New Orleans appears to be a restaurant: . People from all over the world read these Q's, and, unless that's an extremely famous restaurant, I doubt if people in the UK will have a clue what you were asking about.  That said, all restaurants will have fairly similar sets of fixed and variable costs. StuRat (talk) 05:38, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Do US schools ask homewrok questions about local restaurants? --Lgriot (talk) 09:33, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Fixed and variable costs are economics 101 material. I dare say there's nothing specific about that particular restaurant, it's just an example. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 12:23, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed. It's a common teaching technique to change a generic question into one with some relevance to the students, such as by including local sites. StuRat (talk) 03:37, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Food associated with festivals
I've got this big idea of trying out new foods (and new ways of cooking) by spending a year cooking and eating as many foods from as many cultures as I can. I thought the cleverest way to do this would be to celebrate each festival that cultures celebrate, and I thought I'd use you very clever people to help me think of festivals that I might have missed. So far I have I'm currently taking notes of any other festivals I hear of as they come up, but if anyone knows something I'm obviously missing, do please let me know! Worm TT( talk ) 10:47, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Burns night - Haggis, neeps and tatties
 * Chinese new year - lots of ideas
 * Shrove Tuesday - pancakes
 * Good Friday - Fish
 * Easter Sunday - Lamb or Chicken
 * Diwali - not sure what food would be best
 * Eid - again not sure what food would be best
 * Thanksgiving - Turkey and other american trimmings (yams, pumpkin pie spring to mind as things we don't have over here often)
 * Tom Bawcock's Eve - Stargazy pie... if I can stomach it!
 * Christmas - Turkey or Goose

Some wag once observed that every Jewish festival can be summarised as "they tried to kill us, they failed... let's eat!" While that's not exactly true, there's an awful lot of foods that are associated with specific Jewish festivals, and if one widens one's perspective to take in the various cultures of Jewry beyond the most widely known (a few simple examples: Sephardi Jews, Italian Jews and Yemenite Jews) the options are mind-boggling. WP:WHAAOE: see Jewish cuisine, which has some of the customs recorded, but is unfortunately far from comprehensive even of Ashkenazi traditions. NB My father knew a man who, every Saturday, would eat a different food symbolic in some way of that week's Torah reading. My dad, who loved his food, always regretted not getting the man to write it all down before he died. --Dweller (talk) 11:04, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * You could try Ramadan, fasting during daylight hours and breaking the fast with a date. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I wish I could break the fast with a date, but they always find an excuse to go home after dinner. Gzuckier (talk) 18:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Not sure why you have lamb and chicken for Easter, see Category:Easter food for ideas. For Cinco de Mayo you could have turkey mole poblano - i.e. basted with a chocolate and chilli sauce. Dmcq (talk) 11:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't know about chicken, but lamb is definitely a traditional Easter food. That it is absent from our category is the fault of the category, not Worm. Roast lamb fits with the whole Lamb of God/Paschal Sacrifice thing. In the UK, usually served roasted with mint sauce and peas (among other things). 86.163.209.18 (talk) 11:43, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Roast the Lamb of God and eat him with mint? I guess that beats transubstantiation without the roasting. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 14:46, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, that is what you do with the Paschal sacrifice... :) 86.163.209.18 (talk) 14:48, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * In fact see category:Holiday foods for a number of different holidays. Dmcq (talk) 11:23, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Aha! That was what I was after Worm TT( talk ) 11:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * A Swedish Midsummer Smörgåsbord is absolutely delicious, and would go some way to filling the summer-long gap you seem to have so far. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 11:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * If you want to try the herrings soused herring and mustard pickled herring are usually the best bet for beginners. Sjö (talk) 07:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I'm more of a person who like to eat rather than fast though so I might give Ramadan a miss ;) Worm TT( talk ) 11:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Ham is also associated with Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. Not so much with Hanukah or Ramadan, though. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:57, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * In the US, ham is associated with Easter, and not chicken or lamb. Ham can also be had at Christmas, but Thanksgiving requires a turkey. StuRat (talk) 14:40, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Good Friday is supposed to be a day of fasting; while no meat is consumed, it's not an excuse for a fish feast. However, in some places (e.g. Vienna) they do have a fish feast for Ash Wednesday, which sems to go against the whole idea of Lent. For Eid al-Fitr, there is no specific dish, except that sweets are usually eaten the first morning. On Eid al-Adha, whatever animal has been sacrificed is then eaten (often lamb, but sometimes goat or beef, depending on which part of the world you're in). there are also all sorts of traditional Ramadan dishes (varies by country) that you could try, even without fasting. With regard to more secular holidays, cherry pie is associated with Presidents Day. You could also celebrate various National Days with dishes from the celebrating country (e.g. hamburgers cooked on the barbecue fot the 4th of July, blanquette de veau or cassoulet on Bastille Day, etc.) --Xuxl (talk) 12:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Pasta every Friday. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:10, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * For Christmas, the Canadian French eat tortiere. -- Jayron  32  13:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The English were always trying to find an excuse to eat cake during Lent, and came to the conclusion that it was fine as long as they had a religious theme. Thus we have Simnel cake on Mothering Sunday also known as Refreshment Sunday. Also we have Hot cross buns on Good Friday, surely the most solemn and austere day in the Christian calender, so you obviously need a nice cup of tea and a sticky bun to help you through it. British supermarkets now sell hot cross buns between Christmas and Easter, but Good Friday is the proper day. Alansplodge (talk) 14:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * We always got round that by making them on Good Friday, but not eating them until breakfast on Holy Saturday :) Certainly made the fasting harder, and they tasted even more delicious when you ate them! And, of course, despite its traditional link with Mothering Sunday, most now associate Simnal cake with Easter itself. 86.163.209.18 (talk) 14:47, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * If the wound isn't still too fresh, the US Independence Day on the 4th of July features hot dogs, hamburgers, and other BBQ/picnic foods, like potato salad, cole slaw, corn on the cob, chili or baked beans, etc. If you don't currently do barbeque, this certainly would be a new way of cooking (while a full sized gas grill is quite expensive, a small charcoal grill can be had quite cheaply). StuRat (talk) 14:44, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * That would be grilling you are talking about, Stu. Barbecuing is the one with the low indirect heat and smoke (and hard to do on a small grill). Rmhermen (talk) 15:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The Mexican Day of the Dead features sweets made to look like skulls and skeletons. You could also include some general Mexican foods then, and perhaps a piñata. StuRat (talk) 14:50, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Pinatas are associated with the Christmas season though. Rmhermen (talk) 15:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Not just Xmas, though, in the US at least, according to our article: "Piñatas are used for birthday parties, Christmas and Cinco de Mayo celebrations." The celebration could be held on Cinco de Mayo, instead, but then the skull-themed sweets would be out of place. StuRat (talk) 15:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanksgiving should also include mashed potatoes with gravy and baked sweet potatoes with butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar (or perhaps sweet potato pie). Green bean casserole is another favorite, as is cranberry sauce and stuffing (I don't recommend cooking it inside the turkey, as that can cause food poisoning). StuRat (talk) 14:50, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Pancakes for Shrove Tuesday? How about Fasnacht (German-American) or Pączki (Polish). Make sure you get sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving, not real yams. Rmhermen (talk) 15:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * See The Olney Pancake Race. Alansplodge (talk) 15:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Many holidays have traditional sweets as well as main dishes: King cake for carnival, letterbanket for Saint Nicholas' eve, dates for Ramadan, Buche de Noel for Christmas. Rmhermen (talk) 15:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * St. Patrick's day has corned beef and cabbage (in the U.S. at least). Hoppin' John is a (American Southern) New Year's dish. Rmhermen (talk) 15:25, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note that after an immensely long previous discussion, the Ref Desk established that Irish-American "corned beef" translates as Jewish "salt beef" in the UK and Ireland, where corned beef only comes in tin cans from South America. Alansplodge (talk) 18:31, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * ...and green beer on St. Pat's. StuRat (talk) 15:29, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Although in Ireland, St Patrick's Day beer is generally black and white. Alansplodge (talk) 02:29, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * For Divali, homemade sweets are typical, made with flour or ground nut, so they taste rather like a sweet pastry or marzipan. See Laddu and Barfi.    D b f i r s   17:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * And Halloween, of course.... and candy corn and pumpkin pie for Halloween and Thanksgiving. and Peeps for Easter and candy canes and chocolate santas and reindeer etc for Christmas, and chocolate bunnies and chickens for Easter. Also, many traditional Italian families in this area have a fish course Christmas, with the obvious symbolism I assume. Although there seems to be a preponderance of eels, which I don't quite see the symbolism of. And on Christmas, as a humourous cliche Jews go out for Chinese food. Gzuckier (talk) 18:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * In the U.S., the cook-out is a traditional meal on Independence Day, typically grilled cheeseburgers and sausages (hot dogs, bratwurst, kielbasa) and standard side dishes like potato salad or baked beans. -- Jayron  32  18:41, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * These are all going to vary a lot from country to country and even within countries regionally and by subculture. Just for example, in my family, roast beef was traditional for Christmas, lamb for Easter (though we are American), and of course turkey for Thanksgiving.  Other families have ham at one of these (though I never heard of ham for Thanksgiving). I know that in (parts of) Italy, seafood is traditional for Christmas Eve.  For Eid al-Fitr, goat is traditional in some places, but I'm sure not everywhere in the Muslim world.  Marco polo (talk) 20:34, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Speaking of Kings Cakes and Italian families, Panettone and Pandoro for Christmas. Gzuckier (talk) 20:49, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Here's a link to Chinese New Year food superstitions http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/10-chinese-new-year-food-superstitions1.htm and of course heart shaped sweets ,chocolates or cakes for Valentine's Day Hotclaws (talk) 03:57, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Ham for Easter and pyrohy for Christmas Eve are traditional among Rusyns. My mother also makes meatloaf for Christmas (with fried pyrohy from the leftovers of the day before) and corned beef on mischief night. μηδείς (talk) 19:40, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * In the US South, Black-eyed peas are eaten on New Year's Day. The more you eat, the luckier the year will be.  RNealK (talk) 05:00, 15 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you everyone for all the suggestions. I'll try and compile them all into a list... and then have a go at this in 2014. Might even blog it! Worm TT( talk ) 10:01, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles
This may be the wrong place to ask, but it's worth a try. If I want to go back and determine which articles I "created" (i.e. started), is there a tool to do that? Thank you, all. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:55, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Click "Contributions" at the top of the screen. Scroll down to see a menu at the bottom.  Select "articles created" from that menu.  -- Jayron  32  21:21, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * And for other questions in that vein, we have the Wikipedia Help Desk, which concentrates on questions about how to use Wikipedia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:44, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:02, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The Dark Side awaits: List of Wikipedians by article count. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:42, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

However, the "articles created" list misses the ones that used to be redirects and that you changed into articles. Duoduoduo (talk) 23:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Close enough for my purposes. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:45, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This tool includes all options regarding redirects or not. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Be warned that it truncates the results to the first 100. If you've done more than that and you want the full list, there's a link for you to click, but it took literally 10 minutes for it to return my full list.  It includes not just the articles and redirects etc you've created from scratch, but every page move you've ever done because that creates a redirect in the process.  My full list was 1679 items, which is not huge by computing standards, but it still took that long.   --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  19:41, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that shows redirects you've created; but as Duoduoduo points out, it doesn't show articles you've written over already-existing redirects. For instance, I wrote the article Cosmographia (Bernard Silvestris) over what had been a redirect, but the tool has no way to know that I "created" that article. Deor (talk) 21:43, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Those utilities are not very fast. But once you've got the entire list, you can copy-and-paste into a document, and then organize it however you want to. In short, you only have to do it once, or at least not very often. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:48, 14 February 2013 (UTC)