Three-Step Program, Lemonade Included

June 25, 2024 in Uncategorized

Favorite Recipes for Lemonade

Entries Invited

A Recipe Competition
for the Friends
of the
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

[Posted on 25 June 2024 with updates]

Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Jacob van Hulsdonck (1582-1647), Still Life with Lemons, Oranges, and a Pomegranate. Image Public Domain.

As we launch the new community of Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, we consider activities which might be both welcoming and easy to organize, as well as fun.

In considering what sorts of activities the Friends might like, we thought about gatherings for conversations with refreshments.

We began to dream about coffee mornings, tea parties, cocktail parties, receptions, and the like. While our gatherings would be mostly online, some would be in-person or hybrid.  The online format would require that, in such cases, the refreshments would take the form of Bring Your Own (BYO), but we could easily share recipe tips.

Contents of the Goody Bags, with Stories and Baked Goodies created by Linda Civitello. Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

Already some of our online events have featured recipes, including a demonstration.

Our 2024 Spring Symposium in hybrid format featured a generous Goody Bag created and home-made by our Associate Linda Civitello (see also Linda Civitello), culinary historian and exclusive caterer.

This experience, together with our natural interest in food and sharing refreshments with friends in good company, led to the subject of recipes, shared recipes, and refreshments. Plus competitions, with prizes.  And so, we offer a Competition.

A Three-Step Program

We call this Competition a Three-Step Program.  In three steps, it sets out a plan to feature lemons, although other citrus fruits and other comestibles might pertain, to taste.

On the Subject of Lemons

“Native to South Asia, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Melanesia, and Australia,” the genus Citrus comprises oranges, mandarins, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and limes. Used, cultivated, and domesticated by indigenous cultures since ancient times in these tropical and sub-tropical regions, the cultivation spread from there “into Micronesia and Polynesia by the Austronesian expansion (c. 3000–1500 BCE); and to the Middle East and the Mediterranean (c. 1200 BCE) via the incense trade route, and onwards to Europe and the Americas.”

— See Citrus (Wikipedia)

History as Background

The RGME has had some Competitions with Prizes before.  For example, in 2015, with a book as prize, we asked for entries giving the transcription and translation into modern English for two medieval charters.  One award per charter.

Preston Charters, Faces.

Private Collection. “Preston Charters” Faces. Numbers added to the photograph report the present owner’s numbering for the set, from 5 to 7 and 9 to 13. Photograph Mildred Budny.

I was researching a group of medieval charters from a Private Collection, with discoveries about the people, places, place-names, and landscapes which they evoke at specific moments in history regarding particular locations of land in the possession of various individuals and carrying signatures (or marks) of named individuals involved in transactions regarding those lands; some of these documents retain their seals (or remnants of them) or seal-bags.  A series of blogposts ensued.

Also:

There came a point when I thought it might be worthwhile to open the field, and I wished for help with transcribing and translating the documents. For prizes, I chose books on medieval land-related subjects, among which the winners could choose.

I opened the competition widely as a blogpost on the RGME website, with images of the charters and instructions.  Submissions were received, an expert committee reviewed them, winners were selected, and awards were given.  The book-awards were selected and sent.  The winning translations+translations were published as a follow-up blogpost:

The Winner, in this case, Takes All, because one person won both competitions:  William H. Campbell.  Later he expertly organized a pair of Sessions about medieval book-bindings which the RGME co-sponsored with the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) at the University of Pennsylvania for the 2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies. Now he is one of our Honorary Invited Associates. (See our Officers, Associates, and Volunteers.)

Three Steps

1. Maxim: Life Gives You Lemons

2. Action: Make Lemonade (or similar)

3. Result: Send Your Favorite Recipe for our Competition

Extra Bonus: Prize Award

Our competition takes its inspiration from a predicament and its resourceful resolution.  A brief history of the proverbial phrase in English, in several manifestations, covers the ground:

The general idea appears to consider lemons, whether metaphorical or tangible, as being sour, therefore difficult, adverse, unfortunate, and so on. The advised response would work to make them palatable or better, by means of some additions and operations.

We could think of it, for our present purposes, as:

  • Challenge, Response, Prize.

Step 1. Find your Lemons

Note that the Competition does not require that the recipe for “Lemonade” have Lemon fruit itself.  Substitutions are allowed, such as other Citrus fruits.  Combinations of fruits (or flowers) are also allowed.

Customarily Lemonade, by virtue of its name, depends upon or implies Lemons as the main ingredient, with sweeteners of various kinds introduced to taste (and according to waistlines). Over the centuries, across cultures, and subject to availability or preference, sweeteners might range from dates or honey to sugar, maple syrup, stevia or other sugar substitutes / artificial sweeteners, and strawberries. These components are prepared in a variety of proportions, according to varieties, such as the sweeter hybrid Meyer Lemon, strictly #notalemon, which comprises a cross between a citrus and a mandarin orange / pomelo hybrid.

Some varieties are carbonated; some are alcoholic. The latter might, say, have bourbon, whiskey, tequila, gin, vodka, or sparkling wine. Straws might make an appearance, as might ice.  Garnishes appear in many variations, such as mint or lemon slices. Presentation, vessels, and accessories for the beverage can range from rough-and-ready, at-hand, or improvised, to elaborate and/or exquisite. It can be served on its own or in the company of foodstuffs, such as cookies or other baked goods.

See also, for example:

Elena Chockova, “Lemon – fleur et fruit” (25 November 2007). Image via Wikimedia Commons via CC Elena Chochkova, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Over to You

Please Share Your Recipe

Do you have a favorite, or favorites, among the many varieties of lemonade or ‘lemonade’?

For example, do you favor your mother’s or grandmother’s recipe for Lemonade? Are there companion goodies that you think customarily should go with Lemonade?

Please let us know your favorite recipe. The instructions can be as detailed or general as you wish.

You see, we understand that some people prefer to measure ingredients precisely; others prefer the “Chuck It In” Method.

That is what I used to call my father’s approach to cooking, so it seemed to me as a young observer of his methods rarely to be seen in the kitchen.  Roughly speaking, it looked somewhat like this:

Open the Cupboard / Refrigerator; Grab whatever is there or comes to hand; Chuck It In; Stir / Cook / Bake as Indicated or as Interest / Patience Allows; Dish It Out; Eat.

Despite his devotion to fruit and vegetable juices (all freshly made) in his later years, they never seemed to include Lemonade, so I must look to other families’ or cultures’ recipes. I’d be glad to learn about yours.

When it comes to judging the entries for our Competition, we would not have a bias ahead of time for precise measurements on the one hand or variable approximations or guesswork on the other, so please describe your recipe in the style to which you (or your source for it) are accustomed.

Do you have a name or title for your recipe?

If you like, please let us know its story. For example, is it handed down the family from one generation to the next (or the one after next), from mother, aunt, or grandmother to children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews, and so on? Did you invent or perfect it? Do you keep it, or did you find it, in some handwritten, typed, printed, or digital form?

Would you like to send pictures of the preparation and/or the product?

Competition for the Best Recipe(s)

Please send your entry for this Competition for the Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence to:

Depending upon responses, we might publish the winning recipe, or a selection of recipes, as a first installment of the Friends’ Favorite Recipes.

We would welcome your suggestions for other sorts of recipes for our next Competition.

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Questions or Suggestions?

Please leave your comments or questions below, Contact Us, or visit

Donations and contributions , in funds or in kind, are welcome and easy to give.  Given our low overheads, your donations have direct impact on our work and the furtherance of our mission.  For our Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization, your donations may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.  Thank you for your support!

We look forward to hearing from you.

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Update (22 August 2024)

The first entry has arrived. Simple as can be.

1. Our Layout and Font Designer describes the answer to “Live Gives You Lemons” succinctly:

  • Give Them Back

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Do you have a preferred recipe to share with us? We’d love to hear.

Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Jacob van Hulsdonck (1582-1647), Still Life with Lemons, Oranges, and a Pomegranate. Oil on panel, about 1620–1630, within frame. Image Public Domain, via https://useum.org/artwork/Still-Life-with-Lemons-Oranges-and-a-Pomegranate-Jacob-van-Hulsdonck

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