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

[James Prescott]

At 08:19 -0600 2007-03-08, Ysabeau wrote:

>  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?

If you started from their redaction, then it is always "based on
their redaction".

It would only be yours if you went back to the original, and created
your redaction from scratch.  Even then, if you remembered and used
any significant ideas from the other redaction (ideas that weren't
obvious from looking at the original) it would be proper to say
something like "inspired by" or "using ideas from" or whatever.

If you would like to be able to say that it is your redaction
without having to add any qualifiers, then cover up the other
redaction without even reading it, and work directly from the
original recipe.


Thorvald