The Scientific Analysis of Renaissance Recipes

Abstract Collaborations between the humanities and sciences allow for novel insights into the material world of Renaissance recipe cultures, and in particular insights into the nature of material experimentation cultivated by practitioners; the global circuits of ingredients; and the impact of materials on bodies. Early modern users left behind invisible chemical traces on the surface of paper recipes, which have thus far not been studied. The scientific analysis and historical contextualization of biochemical information of early modern recipe users reveal an exciting new range of insights into the history of material practices, early modern medicine and recipes, and Renaissance material and medical practitioners. Which ingredients were used? Which substances were altered? What can be said about their effects on early modern bodies? These are just some of the questions that be can be addressed in novel ways with a focus on the advanced scientific analysis of proteins—amino acid chains—that early modern users left behind on recipe collections. As a team of scientific archaeologists, chemists, conservators, curators, historians, lab technicians, photographers, and material scientists, we have combined advanced imaging technologies and proteomics as non-invasive, interpretative tools to study the microscopic records of sixteenth-century recipes.

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