About the work

A closer look.

You name one dish, dessert, or family recipe that matters to you. I find its real origin and write it down. WHAT YOU GET - 400 to 700 words on where the dish actually comes from: the first kitchen, the route it travelled, the versions that split off later. - Every source named: the book, the archive, the study. No vibes, no invented quotes. - A short note on where the popular story is wrong. WHAT TO SEND - The dish or recipe, and whatever you already believe about it. - One line on why it matters to you. HOW I WORK - First read is free. I reply with the single thread I would pull and where I would start, before you order anything. - 3 days after you confirm. One revision included. - If the dish turns up nothing true, I tell you straight and you owe nothing. - For a family recipe, I trace the dish's known history, not private family records. EXAMPLE A lemon tart. The curd is English, a Quaker-kitchen invention from the 1700s. The French are the ones who set it in a pâte sablée shell. Two countries in one cold slice, and nobody says so.