Two old questions, and two new questions have been recently re-tagged with the new tag "quickbread". This is a North American term?
What is wrong with "Chemical Leavening" or similar
Is there a competition going on for re-tagging or something?
1 Answer
It's a valid culinary term that refers to a class of baked goods with very similar properties - muffins, cupcakes, biscuits, scones, pancakes, etc.
I've only tagged questions quickbread when they are applicable to any quick bread - as opposed to, for example, a question about muffin tops leaning, which is clearly about muffins specifically.
We don't exclude terms from being tags simply because they originated or are used primarily in North America. Otherwise we'd have to exclude basically every regional term, and that would be a whole lot of them.
Besides which, it makes perfect sense to use the American term to classify them because the vast majority of quick bread products (with the notable exception of UK biscuits) are of American origin. Should we remove the american-cuisine tag too? Or foreign-language tags like charcuterie?
If there's an equivalent term that enjoys global adoption then I'll be happy to retag. "Chemical leavening" does not mean the same thing. Quick breads do not have to be chemically leavened. The term quick is not just there to sound cool; the critical aspect of quick breads is that they are supposed to leaven much faster than a yeast-based product.
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I have no idea what a quickbread is, but according to wikipedia it is "chemical leavening", and it refers to it specifically– TFDFeb 25, 2012 at 22:53
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Your assumption that I would have any issue with culture based tags is entirely unwarranted, and just trying to deflect the issue, why? Only one of the re-tagged questions seems to actually be related to North American cuisine?– TFDFeb 25, 2012 at 22:56
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2Quick breads always use chemical leavening, but not all use of chemical leavening implies a quickbread. For instance somes cakes use a bit of chemical leavening, but are structurally quite different from the prototypical quickbreads like muffins, american bisquits, scones, biscotti, etc. The term may not be 100% universal, but it is quite common, and would be likely to be a search term, making it a good tag candidate.– Sam LeyFeb 25, 2012 at 23:01
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1Right @Sam. And chemical leavening does not necessarily imply quick leavening, which is the fundamental characteristic of a quick bread.– AaronutFeb 25, 2012 at 23:05
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1@TFD: I see two about muffins, one about American pancakes, one specifically about quick breads, and one about waffles. Of those, only the waffle question is not American cuisine, and the question is specifically about the batter and more specifically about characteristics that apply to most other quick-bread batters.– AaronutFeb 25, 2012 at 23:14
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@Aaronut I agree with Sam on this, been cooking for 30+ years and not seen the term "quickbreads" before (don't use american cookbooks is the problem). The term does not seem to be used outside of USA. Is there a more useful global term? Of the four tag uses as of when my questions posted, pancakes was from UK, cake from India, Belgium waffles...– TFDFeb 26, 2012 at 0:06
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1@TFD: The question is about American pancakes, not UK pancakes. That's 4 out of 5 that are American cuisine. If you can think of a better term than "quick bread" for "bread that leavens more quickly than yeast bread" then by all means. I suggest you reread Sam's comment because it doesn't sound like you agree with him at all. Consider the possibility that other countries/cultures simply don't have a proper term for this class of baked goods. Why do I never see you complaining about regional tags, terms, or data from regions other than North America?– AaronutFeb 26, 2012 at 0:41
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@Aaronut How did you determine pancakes where not UK? Slap a "North American" cuisine tag on Pavlova on a Flat White coffee question and see what happens :-) Seriously the web is overloaded with North American'isms... Aluminium anybody?– TFDFeb 26, 2012 at 10:39
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1@TFD: For the third time now, that specific question was clearly about American pancakes. It's irrelevant where the dish originated; that's like saying Hawaiian pizza is Italian, or that Chop Suey is Chinese.– AaronutFeb 26, 2012 at 13:04
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1Actually, I may be wrong here - I just looked at the OP's profile and apparently he's from Manchester. So maybe it is UK pancakes, and as such might not contain any raising agent. That's something which should be clarified because it would have an impact on the correctness of answers as well as the tags. If no raising agent is being used then obviously it wouldn't be a quick bread.– AaronutFeb 26, 2012 at 15:01
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@Aaronut thanks, I though I was going crazy, I looked at question and it was about gluten free pancake, not sure why that would be American?– TFDFeb 26, 2012 at 22:31
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P.S. Before the excellent North American invention of backing powder, there where other leavening methods apart from direct use of yeast. Many using a form of Lye (ash water) and mined resources like Natron etc, and of course eggs!– TFDFeb 26, 2012 at 22:53
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1@TFD: I understand, but please remember that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, as it goes to great lengths to point out about itself. You're getting fixated on the "not yeast" aspect where in reality the correct definition is "faster than yeast". It's a very, very old term, not the same as generic chemical leavening, and as far as I know, does not have any less "localized" term. So what if we have another American tag, [flambe] is of French origin but we don't replace it with "burn" just because it's less localized.– AaronutFeb 27, 2012 at 1:06