[Sca-cooks] Redactions...credit where credit is due or not due?

Ysabeau lady.ysabeau at gmail.com
Thu Mar 8 06:19:56 PST 2007


Ethical question being tossed out there. This is something I've kind of been
playing with in my head for a while so I thought I'd toss it out there for
discussion.

I don't have access to a lot of direct sources for period recipes, mostly
because I'm lazy. I like to cook and I'll go surf the net and find period
recipes with redactions out there or get them friends...or from this list.
I'll take the recipe and the redaction and use it as a starting point.
Usually the first time through I'll stay as close to the actual redaction as
possible. Then I'll start fiddling with it based on my own interpretations
and tastes. I have always been very careful to give credit where credit is
due when I use someone's redaction. At what point should I not say "this
period recipe was originally based on a redaction by Lady P  but I've
modified it based on my interpretation and tastes"? Should it be as soon as
I've deviated from the original redaction? Should it be only if I make a
substantial change like using chicken and lemon instead of chicken and
orange? At what point does it become ~my~ redaction and not a variation of
someone else's?

I don't cook for anyone but friends so it isn't a huge deal. I want to give
credit where credit is due...however, at some point I might change it and
then that person could come back and say "oh no I didn't! That isn't my
redaction...I would never do such and such!".

Thoughts?

Ysabeau


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