Here are some general guidelines and mistakes to watch out for when proofreading recipes before submission. The most common data entry errors have been accounted for below, but you should refer to the appropriate section of the EYB Cookbook Indexing Manual (CIM) for detailed information about each field. Also, see the Proofreading Tips at the end of this checklist.
Recipes (in general)
- Missing recipe – see Inserting a missed/new recipe
- Blank/duplicate recipe – see Deleting a recipe
- Incorrect sort order – see Inserting a missed/new recipe for how to make recipes sort in book order
Recipe name/title
- Typos, including missing/incorrect accents in foreign words
- Capitalization errors – only first word of title should be capitalized, plus any proper nouns: country/city/region, personal names, brand names, or capitalized words from Ingredients list, especially cheeses and wines - Parmesan, pecorino Romano, Fontina, Gorgonzola, Champagne, Marsala, Chianti, Bordeaux, etc.
- Wrong English/foreign language title format -- English should be first, then foreign title in parentheses, with the first word in each title capitalized as well as any proper nouns; when both English and foreign title are present, internal parentheses in either English or foreign title should be replaced with square brackets
- Missed clues in Recipe name to Recipe Type, Ethnicity, Course, Nutrition, or Occasion (see also fields below)
- An “Integral part” recipe named in title incorrectly listed as Accompaniment – should be in Ingredients
- Failure to list Ingredients named in Recipe title in Ingredients, including normally omitted store-cupboard ingredients that must be listed if in title
Recipe Type
- Missing Recipe Type where relevant, or wrong Recipe Type entered or left in from previous recipe
- Common mistakes: missing Grills & BBQ for grill recipes, Stir-fries for stir-fried recipes, Chili for chili recipes, Curry for curries, Quick / easy for quick/easy recipes, and Cheesecakes for cheesecakes; misinterpreting Stews & one-pot meals, Baked & steamed desserts, Mousses, trifles, custards & creams, Pies, tarts & pastries; failure to index an RT for significant sub-recipes/components such as dips, sauces, dressings, etc., when those sub-recipes are not separately indexed – see Recipe Type List guidelines and examples
Ethnicities
- Missed clue in Recipe name, e.g., country/city/region name, or foreign language translation of Eng. title
- Wrong Ethnicity entered, or left in from previous recipe
- Common mistakes: selecting North/South African from drop-down instead of North/South American; assigning a too-broad or too-specific Ethnicity, e.g., Asian indexed whereas recipe states Chinese origin, or vice versa
Courses
- Missing Course where relevant or wrong Course entered or left in from the previous recipe
- Common mistakes: failing to index Main course for all pasta, meat, fish, poultry dishes (unless specified as an appetizer); mistakenly indexing a Course for a sauce, dressing, pastry/pizza dough, pastry filling, or stuffing recipe intended to be served alone – see CIM/Appendix A for Recipe Types with Course notes
Occasion
- Missing Occasion where relevant, or wrong Occasion entered or left in from the previous recipe
- Common mistakes: failing to index season or holiday/event when in Recipe name, e.g., “Summer fruit compote”, “Passover apple kugel”; missing season or holiday clues in foreign language titles, e.g., “primavera” or “printanier/ière” for Spring (in French and Italian, respectively), “Nöel” for Christmas, etc.
Nutrition
- Missing Nutrition where relevant, or wrong Nutrition entered or left in from the previous recipe
- Common mistakes: failing to index nutritional feature when in recipe name, e.g., “Gluten-free pastry”, “Low salt stock”; indexing Egg-free when recipe contains egg-containing product such as liquid egg substitute made from egg whites; failing to enter Vegetarian or Vegan if relevant; failing to also assign Vegetarian to all Vegan recipes; assigning Vegetarian when recipe contains meat/fish/poultry, or assigning Vegan when (vegetarian) recipe contains any dairy, eggs, or honey, even if the animal product was omitted as a store-cupboard ingredient, e.g., butter, meat/fish/poultry stocks – see CIM, Part 1, Nutrition for how EYB defines Vegan and Vegetarian
Accompaniments
- Missing Accompaniment where relevant, e.g., author suggestions of sides to go with main course
- Wrong Accompaniment listed
- Accompaniments not cross-referenced to each other, e.g., dessert recipe lists sauce as an Accompaniment, so sauce recipe should also list dessert as an Accompaniment; however, cross-reference main course ↔ side dishes but not side dish ↔ side dish
- Common mistakes arising from confusion over what is an Accompaniment:
- Recipe listed is not served in same course as this recipe, e.g., appetizers or desserts are not Accompaniments to main course as they are served before/after, not alongside
- Recipe listed is an “integral part” needed to make this recipe, not an Accompaniment, e.g., spice/herb mix ingredients should be listed that is part of meat dish recipe; chicken stock recipe that is part of soup recipe should be entered in Ingredients as chicken stock
- Recipe listed is mentioned in this recipe’s name and thus is an integral part of this recipe, not an Accompaniment, e.g., “Chocolate cake with mocha icing” should list icing ingredients in Ingredients instead
EYB Comments
- Missing Comments where relevant, e.g., when recipe suggests variations or substitutions for main ingredients or when recipe requires significant preparation time
- Incorrect format – should have initial cap. and period at end
Ingredients
- Missing ingredients that appear in Recipe name, esp. store-cupboard ingredients “promoted” to major status
- Wrong ingredient selected from Ingredients drop-down, e.g.,
- - dried cherries for dried chiles
- - white beets for white beans
- - garlic pasta for garlic paste
- Individual store-cupboard ingredients listed, e.g., salt, all-purpose flour, olive oil, instead of skipping if minor or listing store-cupboard ingredients if majority by volume/number – see CIM, Part 1, Ingredients for usage guidelines and CIM, Part 1, Reference Pages for Store-Cupboard Ingredients table and rules-of-thumb
- New ingredient suggested in New Ingredients field, but new ingredient doesn’t appear in Ingredients list
- Recipe indexed as Egg dishes doesn’t list egg ingredient, and Rice dishes doesn’t list rice ingredient
- Ingredients from another recipe that is an integral part of this recipe not listed, e.g., “Cheese-filled crêpes with mango sauce” should list sauce recipe ingredients as sauce is mentioned in this recipe’s title
New Ingredients
- Missing entry in New Ingredients but new ingredient appears in Ingredients
Indexer Notes
- Failure to delete any + Notes made to help locate recipes needing Accompaniments when book is finished
PROOFREADING TIPS
How much proofreading you will have to do before you submit a finished cookbook depends on whether you review your work carefully as you complete each recipe before moving on to the next, or choose to move quickly from recipe to recipe without pausing to proofread. Whatever your preference, you need to do an exhaustive review once all data entry is finished to make sure your database is as clean as possible before submission.
Many errors – typos, recipes categorized as Vegan or Vegetarian that actually contain forbidden meat/animal ingredients, entries in New Ingredients without a corresponding new ingredient, etc. – will be obvious as you look at the screen. However, others will not be apparent unless you compare each recipe in the database to its counterpart in the book, such as missing ingredients, missing accompaniments, even missing recipes. As you review your data entry against each recipe, pay particular attention to the Recipe name, which holds clues to or triggers data entry in many of the other fields, most significantly that every ingredient mentioned in the title must be listed in Ingredients.
As a final double-check of your proofreading, especially if the cookbook is very large and/or wide-ranging in terms of cuisines, recipe types, courses, etc., you can use the filter and sort capabilities in the Recipes Added list to search all the recipes in the cookbook (See How to edit existing recipes). Try some of these quick searches/sorts to pinpoint errors that might otherwise slip through:
- Search Recipe names for store-cupboard ingredients that must be listed in Ingredients, such as:
- ‘lemon’ in title requires lemons or other lemon ingredient
- ‘garlic’ in title requires garlic or other garlic ingredient
- ‘onion’ in title requires onions or other onion ingredient
- ‘wine’ in title requires a wine ingredient
- ‘egg’ in title requires eggs, egg whites, egg yolks, or other eggs ingredient
- ‘butter’ in title requires butter or other butter ingredient
- ‘vanilla’ in title requires vanilla extract, vanilla bean, or other vanilla ingredient
- Search Recipe names for keywords/clues to indexing correct Recipe Type, such as:
- ‘grill’ or ‘bbq’ or ‘barbe’ (finds barbecue/barbeque) or ‘skewer’ or ‘brochette’ for Grills & BBQ
- ‘chili’ for Chili
- ‘curr’ (finds curry/curried) for Curry
- ‘stir’ for Stir-fries
- ‘quick’, ‘speedy’, ‘fast’, ‘easy’, ‘simple’, etc., for Quick & easy
- Search Recipe names for keywords/clues to indexing correct Ethnicity, such as:
- ‘fren’ (finds French) or ‘proven’ (finds Provençal/e), etc., for French
- ‘ital’ (finds Italian) or ‘tuscan’ (finds Tuscan/Tuscany), etc., for Italian
- Search Indexer Notes for +, then erase any no-longer-needed reminders about Accompaniments
- Sort New Ingredients to find all recipes requiring new ingredients, then make sure new ingredient is also listed in Ingredients field