How many Columbia students does it take to reconstruct a historical recipe? In the Making and Knowing Project’s laboratory seminar, each semester begins the same way as students get a hands-on (and sometimes edible) introduction to the Project’s unique method of combining collaboration and experimentation.
Recently, we challenged a group of Columbia University undergraduate students to take on this assignment. Together, they attempted to follow a 1591 recipe for “marchipane” from “A Bookrye of Cookrye” Marchpane is a simple confection and can be considered an ancestor to our modern marzipan, though this particular version is baked. Let’s see how the students do!
