Enumerated values for Recipe cookingMethod ?

[MichaelAndrews-RM]

Recipes are one of the biggest sources of structured data. Currently cookingMethod is a text value. While a text property provides data publishers with flexibility, it reduces precision. Different data publishers will describe cooking methods using different terms.

I want to propose allowing enumerated values for cookingMethod. This would provide several benefits:

• More precision, giving users the ability to filter recipes according to cooking method
• A language-independent way to describe cooking methods, which are sometimes described in different ways, especially in different languages.
• Provides a capability to connect cooking methods with related concepts such as restricted diet, or a needed tool such as an oven, pot, or pan.
• Forward compatibility with "smart appliances"

The proposal overlaps with a previous discussion about cooking implements.

Fortunately, a comprehensive enumeration of cooking methods exists and is quite mature.

1, The LanguaL (for Langua aLimentaria) http://www.langual.org/ , is a food description vocabulary, represented by codes, that has been under development since the 1970s, starting in the US (FDA etc.) and currently maintained in Europe (Denmark). LanguaL has codes for several dozen cooking methods, with definitions and a multi-lingual thesaurus of cooking method terms for several European languages (CZ, DA, DE, ES, FR, IT, PT).

2. FoodOn http://foodon.org , a "farm-to-fork" food ontology managed in Canada, has converted the Langual cooking method codes into dereferenceable URIs.

Almost 50 cooking method enumerated values are available in Langual/FoodOn. It is comprehensive, though not exhaustive (it lacks some Indian cooking methods, for example, but covers Western and East Asian methods extensively.)

Here is the list of cooking methods from Langual/FoodOn:

food cooking process:

• cooking by dry heat
  • broiling or grilling
    • charcoal broiling
    • rotisserie roasting
    • searing
  • cooked by popping
  • food baking process
    • blind baking
    • roasting meat process
    • roasting seed process
  • food toasting process
  • griddle cooking
• cooking by microwave
• cooking by moist heat
  • cooking in steam
    • steaming with pressure
    • steaming without pressure
  • cooking in water or water-based liquid
    • boiling
      • boiling and then draining
        • boiling in large amount of liquid
        • boiling in small amount of liquid
      • boiling without draining
      • double steaming
    • cooking by braising
    • cooking by simmering
    • steeping
  • food parboiling process (grain)
• cooking using heating container
  • cooking in container immersed in water or steam
  • cooking in double boiler
  • cooking in water bath
• cooking with fat or oil
  • cooking with added fat or oil
    • cooking in small amount of fat or oil
      • pan frying
      • sautéing
      • stir-frying
    • deep-frying
    • pressure frying
    • shallow frying
  • cooking with inherent fat or oil
• food reheating
  • food reheating by boil-in-bag
  • food reheating by dry heat
  • food reheating by microwave
  • food reheating in pan or cooking utensil
• food scalding or blanching

A sample of a full cooking method profile from Langual/FoodOn:

COOKED IN WATER BATH [G0034] Cooking in a container that is placed in another container filled with water kept near the boiling point. See also Cooking in double boiler.

UF: bain-marie cooked cs: TEPELNE UPRAVENÝ VE VODNÍ LÁZNI da: TILBEREDT (OPVARMET) I VANDBAD de: IM WASSERBAD GEKOCHT es: COCINADO EN BAÑO DE AGUA fr: CUIT AU BAIN-MARIE SUR EAU FRÉMISSANTE it: COTTO A BAGNO MARIA pt: COZINHADO EM BANHO-DE-MARIA COM A ÁGUA ABIXO DE PONTO DE EBULIÇÃO

langual:G0034 FOODON:03450034 URI: http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/FOODON_03450034

I can envision alternate ways to implement these enumerations. But first, I want to poll community interest in this proposal.

[RichardWallis]

A simple approach to this could be to expand the rangeIncludes of cookingMethod to include URL (or just take account of the default capabilities of Schema that any property value can also be a URL).

Then the following would be valid

"cookingMethod": "http://www.langual.org/langual_thesaurus.asp?termid=G0023", or "cookingMethod": "http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/FOODON_03450034",

[jaygray0919]

We implement the above as an @Property tree. It would be good if it were formalized as an @Recipe hierarchy.

[RichardWallis]

See issue #7 for the context of the move from the main Schema.org issue tracker to this repository.