{"id":15634,"date":"2018-12-21T11:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T16:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=15634"},"modified":"2024-12-19T11:12:38","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T16:12:38","slug":"spice-of-history-a-gingerbread-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2018\/12\/21\/spice-of-history-a-gingerbread-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Spice of History: A Gingerbread Recipe"},"content":{"rendered":"

By the 2018\u20132019 NLM Associate Fellows, Stacy Brody, Sarah Clarke, Amelia Llorens, Cecelia Vetter, and Paije Wilson ~\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Recipe books from the 18th century (known as \u201creceipt books<\/a>\u201d at that time) hold a combination of food recipes, herbal remedies, and other such household creations thought to improve health, demonstrating the close tie between medicine and cookery during the time period.<\/p>\n

Inspired by a presentation from a colleague at the National Library of Medicine, and hankering for some homemade holiday cookies, we decided to bake gingerbread from one of the historic recipe books in the NLM Digital Collections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The original recipe that inspired our culinary history adventure came from a 1706 book of receipts<\/a> featured at a presentation on collection digitization.\u00a0 However, it presented us with a range of issues. Not only did we find the script nearly indecipherable, we also encountered unfamiliar ingredients and dated units of measure. Where could we find food-grade sandalwood, or, for that matter, a grain of musk? The author, Elizabeth Broomhoad, demonstrated her cooking skill in providing recipes for good, better, and best versions of her gingerbread<\/a>. However, we struggled with her baking instructions and didn\u2019t feel we could manage even the good version.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/a>
A book of choice receipts in preserveing, consearving, and candying, etc: receipts in cookery and physick, and other things, 1706 National Library of Medicine #2932051R <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"A <\/a>
A book of choice receipts in preserveing, consearving, and candying, etc: receipts in cookery and physick, and other things, 1706 National Library of Medicine #2932051R <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Eventually, we found a recipe we felt we could bake in a book that proclaimed itself to be “Very necessary for Ladies, Gentlemen and their Servants,” titled The guide to preferment: or, Powell’s complete book of cookery<\/em><\/a> and published in the late 18th century. Powell’s “ginger bread” recipe includes ingredients easily found in today’s grocery store and provides measures still in use today. As we baked, we pondered questions of culinary history\u2014when did ovens start to include thermometers and programmable temperatures to standardize baking times, and how much flour will make this buttery mix into a stiff paste? Answer: 6 \u00be cups.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
The guide to preferment: or, Powell’s complete book of cookery<\/em>, ca. 1785
National Library of Medicine #2731642R<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today’s bestselling cookbooks bear little resemblance to the recipe books of the past. Unlike a modern cookbook, Powell’s presents no image of prettily poised cookies beside a glass of milk. Instead, Powell offers recipes in which ingredients and instructions are written together and which include no precise notes on how to measure and mix ingredients. These paragraph recipes expect the user to have prior baking experience.<\/p>\n

We reached out to living historians Sarah Schackne-Hermann from Historic Richmond Town<\/a> and Michael Clarke from the Liberty Rifles<\/a> for help in modernizing Powell’s recipe For making Ginger Bread<\/a>. On weekends, both can be found educating the public while cooking in period ovens and over open fires following 18th and 19th century recipes. They answered our questions surrounding the baking instructions, such as, what is the temperature of a \u201cquick oven?\u201d Answer: about 350 F. And how long is \u201ca little time?\u201d Answer: about 5 to 10 minutes. They also confirmed that treacle is the British term for molasses.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Armed with their helpful advice, we melted four sticks of butter, mixed sugar and spice, and stirred in flour until our arms ached. Drawing on our own experiences baking holiday cookies, we adapted the historic recipe for the modern kitchen by chilling the dough before rolling it out. We took the creative liberty of cutting our cookies into heart shapes before baking. Our efforts yielded success: dizzyingly delicious aromas and 80 timelessly tasty cookies.\u00a0We hope you enjoy baking a bite of history and have a happy and healthy holiday season.<\/p>\n

Gingerbread Cookies Adapted from Powell’s recipe For making Ginger Bread<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n