[Sca-cooks] Redaction

[Johnna Holloway]

In many ways what we do is adapt. We take a recipe that would have  
originally been roasted over an open hearth in front of a fire
and adapt it to being done in a closed oven at 350 degrees F for 3  
hours and cooked until it registers done on a meat thermometer.
Then we change that recipe for those that have convection ovens. Or  
change it slightly again so it can be done in roasters or slow cookers  
because the feast hall the autocrat chose has one stove and dinner is  
for 150.
For desserts we take recipes that would have been beaten by hand for  
perhaps hours and use our kitchen aid mixers. We also adapt our  
subtleties to comply with the common sense rule that all parts should  
be food safe and edible.

Most of us do not cook over open hearths or open fires nor do we  
prepare our feasts in such a fashion. What most people want is a  
recipe in modern format that list quantities, worked out times and  
temperatures, order of procedures, hints, etc and that works.

It can be adapted or redacted or a working recipe... just so it works  
for the reader when the time comes!

Johnnae

You wrote back in 2003
> But that  isn't what we are doing. What we call a redaction is an  
> original recipe plus additional information--"if you do it this way  
> it comes out tasty." It's a conjectural reconstruction, not an  
> adaptation.


>> An adaptation would be if you had the recipe for cooking over an  
>> open fire and converted it into "so many minutes on the stove at  
>> medium" and the like.
>> --
>> David/Cariadoc
>>
>> ---

and now in 2011
  David Friedman wrote:

> I don't think any of these terms really fits.
>
> "Redaction" seems to imply changing the words, not adding additional  
> information, such as quantities determined by trial and error.
>
> "Working recipe" suggests to me an intermediate stage, such as the  
> "working title" of the book I'm currently writing--which will  
> probably change eventually to a final title.
>
> "Adapted" suggests to me a recipe which has been altered to fit  
> modern tastes.
>
> I sometimes refer to a "worked out recipe," but I'm not sure that's  
> any better.