Announcing the Sleuthing of the recipes of Breakfast

I have begun submitting my cookbook tracing the origin and evolution of Breakfast recipes to publishers. I still haven't settled on a title, so would welcome ideas. Eatamology, Edimology, Recipe Sleuthing, Origins and Evolution of Recipes? But how does Breakfast, or other themed recipes get into the title?

As one of my friend's describes it, I've been sleuthing the origin of recipes and their subsequent changes. He is correct, researching these recipe origins is like being a detective, examining cookbooks centuries old to newly published, combing through literature, letters, diaries, newspapers, magazines, plays, songs and more, scattered through the attics and chests of the internet, as well as shelves, archives and dust bins of libraries from around the world. Clues may be obscure, but they are everywhere.

And what happened is influenced by not only cooks of yesteryear, but the trade of nations, daily and seasonal weather (accumulatively known as climate), the ever-changing technologies of food preparation, preservation, transportation and more, as well as the continual evolution of individual taste. The encounters between the civilizations of the eastern and western hemispheres which began with the voyages of Columbus totally revamped the cuisines of the world. The influence of the foods of the Aztec, Maya and Inca continue to echo in the kitchens of today. Can one imagine Italian food without tomatoes, many Asian cuisines without the hot spicy flavors provided by chili peppers, Southern cooking without cornbread, sweet potatoes or grits, Thanksgiving without turkey, cranberry sauce or pies pumpkin and pecan, a summer evening without corn-on-the-cob, or a world without chocolate?

Originally my intention was to write ONE book tracing hundreds of recipes, but most recipes require several to many pages to detail their individual stories (I already have many hundreds of pages drafted). I recently decided to not give up on my vision, but rather to rescope, and am now planning a series of books, each focused around a common recipe theme, the exact shape of the series remains in flux. The recipes of Breakfast will be the first theme to exit my word processor.

Each recipe opens with one or more quotes, a brief description, an introduction, a modern interpretation, then dives into the biology, history, etymology, archaeology, technologies, and the so many other influences on why that recipe came into being at that time. Then, each recipe is traced through time, with one or more versions, variations per century, with explanations exploring and reviewing any changes. In closing, one or more additional modern interpretations or variations are again shared, along with a thought about the recipe's future.

Not every recipe I have discovered in my research can be included in my book(s), but even so, many of them should not be forgotten, so some which are cut, not making the final copy, will find a home here, the 'clippings' left on the editing floor, so to speak. I will be sharing those leftovers here, once I persuade myself that any given recipe won't make the cut to be part of the narrative I am weaving and explaining.

Bon appetit,