How Gravypedia is written

Structure¶

Every article opens with a lead summary — one or two sentences that answer the question in the title. Someone who reads only that should leave with the right answer.

Type pages follow a fixed structure so they can be compared: what it is · history · typical ingredients · flavour profile · what to serve it with · traditional recipe · quick version · vegetarian and vegan versions · common mistakes · see also.

Section headings use ##, subsections ###. Pages with more than one section get an automatic contents box.

Measurements¶

Metric first: grams, millilitres, °C. Tablespoons and teaspoons where they are genuinely more useful than weights, which for gravy is often.

American terms are noted where they differ — cornflour/cornstarch, plain flour/all-purpose, biscuits/scones — because half the subject matter is American.

Tone¶

Plain, specific, and confident where confidence is warranted. No mystification, no reverence, and no pretending that gravy granules are a moral failing.

Where a technique is contested — mint sauce in the gravy, gravy on roast potatoes — the article says so and gives both cases rather than pretending there is a settled answer.

Editors may add the odd tongue-in-cheek comment here and there for a bit of a laugh. We ought not take this too seriously.

Uncertainty¶

Food history is full of well-told stories with thin evidence. Gravypedia flags them:

• The Bisto acronym — widely repeated, not firmly documented. See bisto.
• The red-eye gravy / Andrew Jackson story — almost certainly folklore. See red-eye gravy.
• The scribal-error etymology of "gravy" — well supported but not unanimous. See origins of the word gravy.
• The raw potato trick for salty gravy — flatly wrong, and explained as such in fixing gravy that is too salty.

Where the site says something is disputed, that is a statement about the evidence, not a hedge.

Linking¶

Articles link to each other with double brackets: <a class="wikilink" href="/wiki/onion-gravy">onion gravy</a>, or <a class="wikilink" href="/wiki/onion-gravy">a proper onion gravy</a> to change the visible text. Links to pages that do not yet exist appear in red, which is how the editors track what still needs writing.

Recipes¶

Every recipe gives a yield, a time, a full ingredient list with quantities, and numbered steps that say why as well as what. Where a step is the one that matters — browning the onions, reducing the wine — the article says so plainly.

See also¶

• about gravypedia · glossary · photo and licensing policy · contact the editors