– it’s cold! A dreary chill and rain have just descended across Europe and perhaps most of you are also cranking up the heat and bringing out winter scarves and hats. December has arrived and it seems apt for us to follow our fun and successful series on “Heat!” with a thematic series on “Cold!”. Within medical conceptions of the human body across a number of cultures, notions of hot and cold are hardly be separated. Within kitchens, craft and artisanal workshops, although heat played a crucial role in production processes, cold was also essential occasionally – especially if ingredients had to be preserved for a period of time, or if heat had to be tempered in some way.

To get ready for the long winter, our contributors have explored the notion of “Cold!” in a number of areas. Thijs Hagendijk returns to the RP with a post on the Dutch polymath and painter Simon Eikelenberg (1663-1738), detailing how cold features in the practices of his paint making with surprising insights.  Jean-Olivier Richard, a historian with interests in early modern natural philosophy, alchemy and environmental history, invites us reflect upon mankind’s impact on our planet by offering a reading of “divine recipes for a cooling earth”.

Having written about how to “treat the heat in 1793 Beijing”, Marta Hanson returns to the RP this month with a post titled “Treating the Deadly Cold in 1918 China”, co-authored with Michael Shiyung Liu. Returning to another theme explored in the Heat! Series – fertility recipes – Yi-Li Wu will tell us about Chinese formulas dealing with cold genitals, the standard historical explanation for male and female infertility.

Finally, as we move closer to the holidays, we offer a few posts to “warm” you up. Marieke Hendriksen and Ruben Verwaal return with more adventures with Boerhaave’s “little furnace” (go here for part 1 of their explorations). New contributor historian Reinhild Kreis will tell us about Christmas Cookies in 20^th century Germany and our Tales from the Archives will feature the wonderful post on “snowballs” by Rachel Snell.

We can’t do much about the chilly weather outside but we hope that this wide-ranging edition of the Recipes Project might distract you from the weather and inspire you to think about the cold and chills in different ways.

Enjoy and happy holidays!

Marieke Hendriksen and Elaine Leong

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Ps. This is my last edition for a little while as I’m taking a tiny break from editing the Recipes Project in 2019. Things have been all-go at the RP headquarters over the past few months, and we have some really exciting news to share with you after the holidays. So, watch this space and see you all soon, Elaine.

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