A proposed series would prepare recipes from naval cookbooks so viewers could see the dishes and decide whether to try them. A dedicated kitchen and a growing collection of books would make it possible to test recipes in practice. The plan was to choose one recipe from each book in turn, in a project envisaged as lasting 20 or 30 years. A 1908 Japanese Navy cookbook posed a particular difficulty: Alex Clarke had been unable to find an English edition and did not trust his own Japanese or automatic translation for cooking. He wanted a translator with a better understanding of the culinary context and nuance. Viewers were invited to help assemble a shared list of cookbooks that other readers could also obtain. Trying the recipes would offer a practical way to take part in naval history.
Notable Point · 21:25-23:54
Cooking naval history from old cookbooks
Testing recipes from naval cookbooks would let viewers explore food at sea, while a 1908 Japanese book raises a specific problem of culinary translation.