Modern Day Cooking Conversions
A tricky part of writing these recipes out is trying to capture how the recipe would be made at the time. You can't just hop down to a Safeway or Whole Foods, and many common ingredients weren't even invented until the mid to late 1800's anyway. I try to base a lot of my methods on actual medieval recipes, which... are interesting anyway. Most don't have precise measurements, temperatures, etc. In order to make these feasible to my audience, I've tried to come up with a language and conversion method to make it easy to recreate these in real life. - Arella
POTATO YEAST ----
Activated yeast, as you know it now, did not exist until far in the future. Most old recipes use starchy yeasts to help their breads and cakes rise. I prefer (and have personally tested) potato yeast. It takes a LOT of the yeast to do the same thing that modern day active yeast packets do. I 100% encourage my readers to skip the potato yeast entirely, the finished product will taste a lot better with the modern-day equivalent. For conversion's purposes, for every 1/4 cup of potato yeast, use 1/2 packet of active dry yeast.
1/4 Cup = 1/2 packet
1/2 Cup = 1 packet
3/4 Cup = 1 1/2 packets
1 Cup = 2 packets
So on and so forth...
OVEN TEMPERATURES ----
The biggest part of these older recipes is... the complete lack of actual temperatures to work with. If an oven was present, the recipe will reference the strength of the flame itself, if it references it at all. I've taken a page from this method. I mention the fire strength, but I have a particular term that can be converted into a modern day oven temperature.
Poor Flame = 250 F
Weak Flame = 275 F
Low Flame = 300 F
Low-Medium Flame = 325 F
Medium Flame = 350 F
Medium-High Flame = 375 F
High Flame = 400 F
Very High Flame = 425 F
Intense Flame = 450 F
Blazing Flame = 475 F
Broiling Flame = Broil Setting
MEAT REPLACEMENTS ----
You can't just find Displacer Beast steaks anywhere, after all. After researching the make-up of a creature, and trying to estimate what creature they'll be closest too, I try and use it like a common Earth modern-day meat, something not too expensive or exotic if possible.
CHICKEN: Cockatrice (Easy)
PORK: Behir, Berbalang
BEEF: Basilisk, Otyugh
LAMB: Chimera (1/3)
ALLIGATOR: Chimera (1/3), Cockatrice (Authentic), Wyvern
VENISON: (Chimera 1/3), Displacer Beast
FROG: Bullywug
