This is less a problem with recipes than with playing telephone ...
When my mom was newly married, in the 1950s, when a woman's entire value to the universe hinged on knowing how to cook (which she didn't), she survived by way of desperate phone calls to her best friend to get instructions.
One day the recipe she wrote down included "clives."
There were no clives in the kitchen.
She ran all over Manhattan looking for them.
One grocer after another said, "no, we don't have those."
Not one grocery professional did her the courtesy of saying, "lady, there's no such thing."
I have no idea how she managed to save dinner.
Whenever I go home for the holidays now I find a random jar in the pantry and label it CLIVES.
