Writing Recipes
Taught by Sarah Lohman
Sarah Lohman is a culinary historian and the author of the bestselling books Endangered Eating: America’s Vanishing Foods and Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine. She focuses on the history of food as a way to access the stories of diverse Americans. Endangered Eating was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by Amazon’s Editors, Food & Wine, and Adam Gopnik on the Milk Street podcast. It was a finalist for the Nach Waxman Prize for Food & Drink Scholarship and winner of the Ohioana Library Book Prize for Nonfiction. Lohman’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and NPR. Lohman has lectured across the country, from the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, DC to The Culinary Historians of Southern California
"A well written recipe is like poetry," said food writer Dianne Jacob. But much like a poem, there are rules to writing a good one. Whether you're documenting your Grandmother's cooking to pass down in a family cookbook, or you're preparing recipes for a professional cookbook proposal, this class will help you write clear, organized recipes.
We'll briefly look a the evolution of the written recipe before diving into recipe composition, including the introduction, formatting, weights and measurements, common writing mistakes, the importance of descriptive language, and the process of recipe testing.
Lohman will use examples from her personal experience prepping recipes for publication. Students will workshop a recipe of their own, and there will be plenty of time for questions and conversation.
