Talk:Wok

Stuff

What is the device used for stiring contents of wok called?

Are you looking for the word spatula? Actually professional chefs use a metal ladle instead of a spatula. See the two pictures in the article. The more professional stir frying (with flames) on the top is done with a ladle. The bottom picture is more homey with a spatula. The professional chefs do not rely on the spatula to pry the food off the bottom of the wok, they flip the wok upward and catch the food with a ladle before it falls down again. The ladle is used to scoop up ingredients, seasoning, oil, water etc. before throwing into the stir. Kowloonese 02:27, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

i would like some history about the wok. what is it made of?

This issue is now addressed in the text of this article.

what is the point of 'seasoning' a wok?

Also now addressed in the text of this article.

Hmmmm ... don't you think the detailed instructions on seasoning a wok are rather excessive? While useful information it sort of goes beyond the bounds of an encyclopedia article. Jberkus 05:43, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I can see a missing part in materials: brass . Brass woks were historically important and are still widely used today.

Wok for Huo, not for Guo

The word "wok" comes from Cantonese pronounciation of Chinese Character 镬, which reads Huo4 in Mandarin. "Guo1", which mentioned in the article, is the Mandarin pronouciation of 锅, not of 镬. I mean, they are different. The explanation in the article seems irreal.

Obviously Huo and Guo are two different Chinese writings and pronunciations. The English word "Wok" is based on the Cantonese word 镬. 镬 is not commonly used in Mandarin, the same item is called 锅 in Mandarin. In Cantonese usage, 锅 (Wor) means a pot, not a wok. In my opinion, the Chinese word 锅 does not belong to this English article because this term is not originated from Mandarin, so only the Cantonese term is native and relevant to this article. In the Chinese wikipedia, it would be okay to include both 锅 and 镬 because they are both Chinese dialect.

Some people believe that Cantonese preserves many old usages of the Chinese language. I remember my highschool Chinese teacher once said, Cantonese is very literary because of several factors: 1. In ancient time, a lot of well educated government officials were exciled to various frontiers when the emporer was in a bad mood or after a power struggle in the empirial court. 2. When these officials were exciled North or West, they usually died quickly because of the harsh conditions of the tundra or desert. But those lucky ones who were exciled to the south like Canton or Vietnam etc. would survive very well. These officials educated the local "southern barbarians" and their knowledge and a snap shot of the Chinese knowledge was preserved in the south. It is true that both the southern and northern Chinese language usage had their separate developments and they diverged greatly over the ages. Come to think of it, Mandarin is a very young language. Bai Hua Wen was only standardized to the Chinese people for roughly one century. Some legends said Cantonese was one of the candidates to become the official Chinese language. Who is to say which is the gold standard for the long legacy of the original Chinese language??? Kowloonese 20:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

These legends about the Cantonese language are just that; unsubstantiated myths and legends. To say that Cantonese was one of the candidates to become the official Chinese language is a distortion of what actually happened. The debate was between Mandarin and Wu dialects, and it was about promoting a standard pronunciation. There are more Wu speakers than Cantonese, and Mandarin speakers outnumber Cantonese speakers ten to one. All the current Chinese dialects today developed from Old and Middle Chinese, and are different to languages spoken hundreds of years ago.

Standard Mandarin (Putonghua/Guoyu) is a 20th Century development, but it is based on the Beijing variety of the Mandarin dialects, and can be traced back to at least to the Yuan Dynasty. LDHan 12:07, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The Chinese word 锅 Guo simply means a cooking pot, some examples of such usage include vacuum pot, flat bottom pan used in Guo Te, Nabemono, 火鍋 and 砂鍋 etc. do not resemble the wok. And of course, a Wok fits into the same Guo 鍋 category too. The wok is one kind of guo. The statement about Cantonese Wok being the same as Mandarin Guo is incorrect, in the same way that "human being is the same as animal". Kowloonese 02:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes you're right, the word "wok" does come from the Cantonese pronounciation of 镬, ie 镬 is used to mean "wok" in Cantonese. However 镬 in Standard Mandarin is huo4 and according to my Chinese character dictionary (Xinhua Zidian)it means:

• 1, (regional/local usage) cooking pan or pot
• 2, large type of cauldron (ding) used in ancient times, often used for killing people

"Wok" (the object) in Standard Mandarin is chao3cai4guo1 炒菜锅, not 锅 guō. 锅 guō in Standard Mandarin just means a cooking pan or pot in general. So I think the intro needs rewriting:

• 镬 should not have Standard Mandarin pronounciation, as 镬 to mean "wok" is a regional/local usage
• Standard Mandarin chao3cai4guo1 炒菜锅 should be mentioned as the Standard Mandarin word for the item
• The sentence The Chinese character 鑊 is identical to 鍋 (guō (in Mandarin) , wo1 (in Cantonese)) according to Chinese linguistic research. seems to be wrong and should be removed.

LDHan 10:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree on removing the erroneous sentence about Wok and Guo are the same. However, I am not too sure about bring Mandarin into this article. The only reason why the native text 镬 is brought into this article is because it is the origin of the English word "Wok". The information about 炒菜锅 and any Mandarin specific terminology could be part of the zh.wikipedia article, but they may or may not be useful to the English article. See my user page regarding my opinion on using native text in English article, I strongly believe they are absolutely necessary especically for title terms of the articles, but I also strongly believe they should not be overused. There is a fine line between what is considered native or not. Arguably Cantonese is native to this topic, but Mandarin is not when Mandarin speakers don't even use the word "wok" to describe the same thing. Kowloonese 20:26, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree Cantonese should be mentioned as the origin the the English word "wok".

But as this article is about the item not the word "wok", Cantonese is not "native" to it. The item is used all over China, it was not invented in or is exclusive to Guangdong or Hong Kong, well it’s actually used in other countries as well:-) I think it’s helpful to mention the standard Mandarin Chinese name as it would help Chinese learners precisely because wok comes from a regional Chinese word. They might see that wok comes from "wok6" (镬) and mistakely assume that "huo4" (镬) is the word for wok in Standard Mandarin, when in fact chao3cai4guo1 (炒菜锅) is. It seems the current confusion in the article might be because of this misunderstanding.

I think in discussions about Chinese language/dialects, particulary ones involving Cantonese, it can be misleading and inaccurate to use the term Mandarin speakers to mean non-Cantonese speaking Chinese or mainland Chinese, there are tens of million Cantonese speakers in Guangdong who speak Mandarin perfectly well. Nearly everyone in mainland China is a Mandarin speaker, but they also speak Shanghai, Shandong, Yunan, Hunan, Guangdong etc dialects. Many westerners are under the mistaken impression that there two Chinese languages; Mandarin and Cantonese, and that Mandarin is spoken in mainland China and Cantonese in Hong Kong, partly from from this use of Mandarin speakers.

Here's suggestion for the intro:

The wok is a versatile round-bottomed cooking utensil used especially in East Asia and Southeast Asia. The word "wok" comes from the Cantonese Chinese word for the item: "wok6" (鑊) (Standard Mandarin uses a different word: chao3cai4guo1 (炒菜锅)).

LDHan 13:51, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I have amended the intro with the above. LDHan 21:26, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Guo1 and chao3cai4guo1

In Standard Mandarin chao3cai4guo1 means wok, guo1 is any pan/pot in general. Obviously the wok can be refered to as guo1 as a shorthand when it is clear what type of guo refered to, just as frying pan can be refered to as "pan" eg “turn down the heat or the food will stick to the pan”, but “pan” and “frying pan” are not the names of the frying pan. LDHan 16:12, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I know and I agree, but saying guo1 is not just a shorthand. Most chinese families have one main "cooking container", which is the wok and refer to it as gou1zi4 or guo1. I would go so far as to say that guo1 is to pots/pans as saying rou4 is to meat. Saying 锅 alone usually (if not always) refers to the chinese wok. It is only if you are referring to other types of pot/pan that you clarify it with extra words. Just like nu2rou4 -> beef and yang2rou4 -> lamb, with pots and pans you have 珐琅生铁锅 refering to frech style cast iron pots or 砂鍋 refering to the clay cooking pots. I just thought that the common reference should sit next to the more specific reference, and that both should be there. Sjschen 05:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to do a bit more "research" (ask a few people) about the use of "guo1", but"zi3" 子 as a suffix is always "zi", neutral tone, in pinyin the neutral tone is always indicated, so it should be eg "gūozi" (锅子), "zhuōzi" (desk), "dízi" (flute) etc. LDHan 15:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the sound type of 子 has always been a bit of an ambiguous issue. Everybody pronounces it differently, as you know from the extensive discussions in Talk:Standard Mandarin about similar matters. In this case I'll you be the judge since you seem to be more knowledgeable when it comes to sounds and stuff :) Sjschen 05:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

wok history

Can anyone add something about the history of the wok? - Cybergoth 20:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Cantonese wok slang

• "dai wok" = literally "a big wok", a situation too tricky to handle
• "seen wok" = "sliding the wok" or "passing the buck"

- Cybergoth 20:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

These Cantonese slangs evolved from 孭鑊 (read as 咩鑊) which originally came from the equivalent Chinese saying 背黑鍋. The bigger it is, the bigger the trouble. Kowloonese 01:18, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That said. What is the origin of the term 背黑鍋? Some says carrying a wok makes someone like like a turtle (which is insulting). However being a turtle seems unrelated to being a scapegoat. Kowloonese 20:22, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

wok as a swear word

I reverted that edit because I could not find a reference to "wok" as a substitute for swear words. Cybergoth 02:35, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Wok is indeed a sexual slang word in Hong Kong Cantonese. I have heard its usage personally back in the 1970. It is unknown if the slang still survives nowadays. See [1] in Chinese. The translation of this article said that one early reference of this slang usage came from a rape criminal case in Hong Kong's court of law in the 1950's. During the testimony in court, the witness used the term 開鑊 "open the wok" to describe sexual intercourse where wok refers to the female genitalia. The "quote" was of course publicized in the media. It was unlikely that the witness invented a new slang on the spot. This reference only illustrated one documented usage of the slang, but not the origin of the slang. Kowloonese 03:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Wok hei merge

Wok hei should be merged into this article. They are about the same thing and the wok hei article isn't much by itself. 71.250.60.232 13:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good idea since wok hei is the taste and essence imparted by a good hot stir-fry, and the wok is the thing that allows wok hay to be "released". The two are different concepts, and so merging is not a good idea. However, some cleanup is definitely in order. Sjschen 05:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

"Pit" stove

Chinese restaurants use a special stove which have a raised lip where the wok is placed and a burner located a good 4-6 inches below the lip in a large opening. I don't know what to call it except a "pit stove". Does anyone know the formal name? Sjschen 05:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

History section needed

We desperately need a History section for the Wok article. Anyone know where to find the info? Sjschen 04:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

External links

Please see: Wikipedia:External_links and Wikipedia:Spam for wikipedia policy on External links.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links

Links normally to be avoided:

Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article here would have once it becomes a Wikipedia:Featured article

Links that are added to promote a site, that primarily exist to sell products or services... colloquially known as external link spamming.

A website that you own or maintain...

LDHan 17:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the added link with an eye to removing it, and decided that it did in fact have useful information. Then someone else removed it. Then someone else (not the owner) put it back. It's clearly commercial, but there are some useful videos. (If I were the site owner, I would create a not-obviously-commercial page on the site with the videos and some useful text. Hint...) FiveRings 16:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the fact it's clearly a commercial site should be reason enough to delete the link. I haven't seen the videos but they are clips from a commercial DVD and are definitely not useful for people with slow internet connctions. The links were placed for only one purpose; to advertise and promote a business, and they were inserted by the owner using more than one user name (they have not made any other edits whatsoever). LDHan 18:25, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Headings and Subheadings

WRT recent removal of subheadings - long expanses of unbroken text are hard to read on screen, something noted by the Wikipedia:Guide to layout. That document does warn against single sentence paragraphs, and againt single short paragraphs being their own subsection, but this was not the case with this article. Please don't create style by fiat. FiveRings 18:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It was exactly the case in this article. Subheadings for every paragraph. I don't regard four-sentence paragraphs as being overly long. Chris Cunningham 13:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The issue isn't four-sentence paragraphs. It's four-paragraph sections. If an unbroken text section is longer than a laptop screen (which these are) it's too long. FiveRings 07:02, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I think in this particular case the best solution would be to remove or move some of the cruft / construction information from those sections so that they're shorter. There's quite a bit of room for improvement there, and that would keep us both happy :) As for resolution, isn't the rule based on 1024x768? Chris Cunningham 11:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I was actually thinking of bolding the relevant word at the beginning of the individual paragraph - this would break up the page without the heading stretch, and would match the format of the pots and pans page. Not sure about editing - would have to see what was taken out. Is there a reference page for the browser ratio? FiveRings 22:10, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Advertising (link to Viking product page)

The article contains a link to [2] as a citation for the statement that "Some high-end stoves now include a specially designed wok ring as part of their standard or special, optional equipment". This actually is quite a nice way of advertising through Wikipedia. I think we should get rid of it.

If it is really true and notable that 'some high-end stoves now include a specially designed wok ring', it should should be easy to find a source which doesn't have a commercial interest in being listed here; in other words, one that doesn't have a huge "add to shopping cart" button. If such a source cannot be found, I doubt the notability of the innovation. In any case, I think the current link should be removed. — mark ✎ 14:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

You'd think! Bizarrely, I've actually got one of these high-end cookers (and a lovely piece of equipment it is, too), and yet it seems that there's no information anywhere online about them which doesn't involve selling them. Chris Cunningham 14:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I put in that link, and I have no connection to viking whatsoever. I chose it because it was the *least* obtrusive information on the product. FiveRings 22:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh I believe you; I wasn't saying they added it themselves, or had someone add the link for them. I'm just saying that I don't think it belongs here anyway. If it's only on a few sites that sell it as a proprietary extension to their own stuff, it's not notable and shouldn't be included. At least that's my reasoning. We really should avoid blatantly commercial links like that. — mark ✎ 07:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)