Soda was [Sca-cooks] steam-baking

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Also sprach Decker, Terry D.:
>There is a little difference between sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) and washing
>soda (Na2CO3.10H2O).  Washing soda is sodium carbonate decahydrate, or
>sodium carbonate with ten water molecules bonded to it.  Sodium carbonate is
>a white powder.  Washing soda is transparent and crystalline.  The modern
>process for manufacturing sodium carbonate first produces sodium carbonate
>decahydrate which is then heated to release the water molecules.  For our
>purposes, they are interchangeable.

Okay, I'll go with this. I believe my idea that washing soda and
sodium carbonate were the same thing comes from Flower and Rosenbaum.
The point would seem to hinge on whether you can use washing soda in
this way without it being more poisonous than, say, baking soda, and
whether there's any reason to believe it's more what this Yuan recipe
had in mind by saying "soda".

Adamantius