[Sca-cooks] researching recipes

[david friedman]

>Greetings!  I have riecently become interested in baking and on Nov 2nd I am
>planning on entering my first "real" competition.  I have 2 problems:
>
>1) I have a recipe that I love, know how to make and want to use.  I am fairly
>certain that it is period, but I can't prove it.  Suggestions on how to "work
>backwards" with the documentation?  I can give more specifics as needed.

By "fairly certain that it is period" do you mean you are fairly
certain that you got if from someone who got it from someone who ...
got it from a period cookbook? If so, you might try tracing up the
chain to locate the cookbook in question. Alternatively, you might
see if there are clues in the language of the recipe to where it is
from.

Or do you mean "I have no reason to think the recipe came from a
period source but am fairly certain that things very much like it
were made in period?" In that case, the only way of confirming your
belief is to find a period recipe very close to yours. A number of
period cookbooks have been webbed, including some on my site, which
means that they are not only accessible but searchable; that should
make it a little easier.

One danger in this approach is that if your objective is not so much
to learn about period cooking as to prove that the recipe you already
have "is period," you may misinterpret period recipes to fit that
objective. I have some examples in mind.

You might be able to disprove your belief by checking features of the
recipe against what is known about food history. If, for example, it
uses chemical leavening (baking soda or baking powder), we can be
pretty confident it isn't period.

Hope that helps. One further suggestion is that you post the recipe
here. If it is from a period source, someone might well recognize it.
--
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/