[Sca-cooks] BAD sources for historical cooks

[Johnna Holloway]

Margaret Rudkin of Pepperidge Farm
(http://www.pepperidgefarm.com/MargaretRudkin.aspx)
was another one of those cookbook collectors that looked
at her old cookery books and saw modern dishes.
She took the one Platina recipe in Latin, looked at it and came up
with a modern sort of pumpkin pie. (Platina's gourds or marrows
would have been Old World originally of course and not the
New World squash or pumpkin..)
The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook  is priced at
99 cents and up currently on Amazon, so I suppose again that
someone might buy it. According to the company, it became the first 
cookbook to chart on /The New York Times/ Bestseller List in 1963.

Margaret Rudkin officially retired from Pepperidge Farm in 1966.

Johnnae*
*

Patricia Collum wrote:
> I found it- it is a translation of Platina she had a student do. And her 
> recipe called for browning the chicken slowly in the fat from 8 slices of 
> bacon. Nowadays I would probably have removed most of the fat first. Than 
> you stew the chicken in a pot, but she never says when to add the chicken 
> stock listed; and she says about how Platina and the other old cooks don't 
> give enough info like her modern recipes and rely upon a cook's basic 
> knowledge. I realize looking back that I didn't have enough basic knowledge 
> to use -her- recipe.
>
> Cecily
>