[Sca-cooks] Al-Warraq and Bakers Borax

[Philip Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jun 21, 2009, at 7:21 PM, David Friedman wrote:

> Some of the bread recipes use "bakers borax" aka "armenian borax."  
> Anybody know what name, if any, one would buy it under nowadays?

Google Books has the following page containing a lexicon entry for  
baker's borax:

http://books.google.com/books?id=zDhbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA395&lpg=PA395&dq=%22baker's+borax%22&source=bl&ots=nU2p3UyhrT&sig=BbV2LK4TjR8FkEaRhlgwMCdXlqQ&hl=en&ei=6s4-SsXeLI3Btweo_u38Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

It defines it as a soda used by bakers... while it would be nice to  
know specifically what chemical is meant (presumably if it appears in  
a lot of food recipes there must be a relatively non-toxic dosage),  
the best practical substitution might be baking soda.

Adamantius