The Story: The 'Historical Recipes' Project

Preamble

I think it is best to have a relatable story as a backdrop for the workshop. In the Software Carpentry Git-lesson, Wolfman, Dracula, and the Mummie explore where to build a Moonbase. I find this story a bit silly, which is not bad, but I think its usefulness is questionable, and learners cannot relate to the characters or the project. I want to reduce the 'irritation effect' of a made-up story while coming up with a more inclusive ensemble: researchers of all stages from different disciplines. If you think you can improve my story, I am happy to hear your suggestions! You can create an Issue for that.

Historical Recipes Research Project

A small group of researchers share a common interest: They are fascinated by historical recipes and recreating all kinds of dishes that people in the past widely enjoyed.

The researchers have different backgrounds, a genuinely interdisciplinary group! There's a historian, a linguist, a cultural studies researcher, an anthropologist, a botanist, and a chemist. They have contacted a junior web developer to join their project and got some funding for hiring a student assistant to help with technical stuff. Inspired by the Open Research movement, they bravely decided to share their project from the initial idea throughout the research process and publish their results as openly as possible. Since they are not working with sensitive or personal data and have no commercial interests, they chose GitHub as a platform for collaboration.

They plan to work mostly remotely. The project team elects a project leader (the Historian, an amateur chef) whose task is to coordinate the project and facilitate collaboration. The researchers want the project to be dynamic: some members may want to take a break from working on the project, new members might want to join instead. They want to involve students to contribute as part of their course work. They want to allow both the scientific community and anyone else interested in historical recipes to contribute.

The project leader is hesitant to embark on such a task since she is used to working with word processing software and spreadsheets. She shares her work and writes with others using commercial cloud services and local copies of files on USB sticks. She knows that tracking who did what, when, and where she saved the latest file version quickly becomes messy. Thus, she wants to give privileges to some collaborators - and review quickly and effectively others' contributions. She also wants to have an option for collecting suggestions, questions and feedback.

For the finished project, the team wants to make the project data findable and accessible. The group decides that assigning a DOI - a Digital Object Identifier - would be best. Then they could add the project DOI to the papers they plan on publishing and add the project efficiently to their lists of publications.

Point of Departure for the GitHub Workshop

The project is in its early stage: The members collect historical recipes from different sources and share them with the team. You are part of the Historical Recipes project team. You found an interesting recipe in an old Norwegian cookbook and try to create files with the ingredients and instructions, so your colleagues can review them.

The Workshop Example Recipe

Source

Scrambled eggs (Æggerøre)

• Taken from the Norwegian cookbook "Lærebog i de forskjellige Grene af Huusholdningen" (Manual for the different tasks of the household), by Hanna Winsnes, Christiania 1845. Available online and open access via the digital scholarly edition on Bokselskap.no and as a digital facsimile from the National Library of Norway
• Read the full text of the recipe

Original wording in C19th Dano-Norwegian

Æggerøre
12 Æg med Hvider slaaes, deri kommes 6 Skeer sød Fløde, og lidt fiinhakket Græsløg. En Skee Smør kommes i Bunden af en lille Gryde, og Æggene heldes i; den sættes paa svage Gløder, og fra det begynder at blive varmt, maa man bestandig skrabe det, der lægger sig ved Bunden, fra med en Træskee. Naar man finder den passende fast, øses den op; den taaler ikke at blive staaende i Gryden. Man pleier at regne 2 Æg til hver Person.

Translation into modern English

Scrambled Eggs

• Scramble 12 eggs (with the egg white) and whisk in 6 tablespoons of sweet cream and a few minced chives.
• Melt a tablespoon of butter in a small skillet and pour the eggs in
• Put on medium-low heat
• When the eggs start to stick to the skillet, scrape it loose with a wooden spoon
• Repeat until the desired consistency is reached
• Serve immediately
• Use two eggs per person

Text for the Ingredients.txt file

Ingredients:

• 12 eggs

• 6 tbsp sweet cream

• 1 tbsp butter

• a bunch of chives

• skillet

• wooden spoon

Text for the Instructions.txt file

• Scramble 12 eggs (with the egg white) and whisk in 6 tablespoons of sweet cream and a few minced chives.
• Melt a tablespoon of butter in a small skillet and pour the eggs in
• Put on medium-low heat
• When the eggs start to stick to the skillet, scrape it loose with a wooden spoon
• Repeat until the desired consistency is reached
• Serve immediately
• Use two eggs per person