Recipe history
Since the early beginnings of writing, humans have been recording recipes, but as expected, there is some confusion about who wrote the very first one. Supposedly, the earliest recipe known was for beer or ale, which was recorded on cuneiform tablets in Sumeria (modern-day Iraq).
(Courtesy Yale Babylonian Collection)
CLAY TABLET. FOUND: Possibly Larsa, Iraq. CULTURE: Old Babylonian. DATE: ca. 1800 B.C. LANGUAGE: Akkadian.
The earliest known recipes, by many centuries, are found on three tablets dating to the Old Babylonian period. Though seemingly simple, their minimal instructions could only have been followed by experienced chefs working for the highest echelons of society. This particular tablet features 25 recipes for stews and soups, both meat and vegetarian, including some directions—though no measurements or cooking times—for an amursanu-pigeon stew:
Split the pigeon in half—add other meat.
Prepare the water, add fat and salt to taste;
Breadcrumbs, onion, samidu, leeks, and garlic
(first soak the herbs in milk).
When it is cooked, it is ready to serve.
Except for amursanu, which is probably a type of pigeon, and samidu, an unknown spice, the ingredients are certainly recognizable. But the dish would be impossible to replicate, says Benjamin Foster, curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection. “People often think that because they can cook Arab or Persian food, they can make this stuff, but they don’t know how much regional cooking was changed by the Muslim conquests. If you cook these up using modern Near Eastern ingredients, it is pure fantasy—but often delicious.”
Many researchers believe beer came before bread, probably in the form of the accidental fermentation of barley. A recipe for beer is written on clay tablets in the Hymn to Ninkasi, which is nearly 4,000 years old. It calls for mixing a type of bread called “bappir” with water and aromatics, fermented in large vats and strained.
Emperor Shennung of China, who lived 2737-2697 B.C., is often credited as the author of the oldest medical book in the world that includes recipes. Some claim that the text was actually compiled a thousand years later. He tested and recorded herbs’ many medicinal properties and taught the art of agriculture.
The ancient Greeks were the first to collect cookery manuscripts. Aristophanes of Greece (450?-388? B.C.) left recipes, but only a fragment of one of them survived. It is a section on fish. It is written in verse and meant to be read aloud at a symposium. Some were quite strange and more often like suggestions than actual recipes.
Apicius, born in 25 B.C., partly wrote the Artis Magiricae Libre X. He is reputed to have compiled a recipe book, De re coquinaria libri decem (‘Cuisine in Ten Books’). It is believed the book was not compiled until several centuries after his death. And also that some of the recipes were extracted from dietetic manuals, a fortunate occurrence because diets often specified quantity, a practice only adopted in other recipes sometime in the fifteenth century.
Roman and Greek chefs wrote down their recipes, and their cookery ideas survived—at least in some monasteries in the Byzantine Empire.
The Bible, of course, has many references to food and wine. It hints at how it was made, prepared, and consumed.
“As soon then as they were come to land,
they saw a fire of coals there,
and fish laid thereon, and bread” …John 21:4
Athenaeus (ca. 200 AD) was a Greek author. He was also called Athenaeus of Naucratis since he was born and lived in Naucratis, Egypt. Little is known about him except what his books tell. Athenaeus is remembered primarily for his anthological anecdotal collection Deipnosophistae (Banquet of the Learned), in which various characters debate various topics. Conversations about food, luxury, diet, health, relationships, music, humor, and linguistics are all recorded in it. His recipes, however, are more literary than practical—or even appealing. It was Athenaeus who wrote sternly of the duties of a good cook. According to Athenaeus, the Greeks of the classical period had seventy-two sorts of bread.
The Arabs reveled in cookery. The first known non-Roman cookery manuscripts were written in Baghdad in the 9th century. The crusades revived the interest of Western Europe in culinary arts and, in particular, the spices of the East. Subsequently, dozens of cookery manuscripts were written in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The similarity of these manuscripts indicates the chefs and the Royal families they served were interconnected.
The first cookbook in France appears to be Treatise (1306)—the teaching of how to prepare, combine, and season every sort of viand according to the different customs of various countries, along with another anonymous book, The Great Cook of Every Variety of Cuisine, which appeared in 1350. A Catalonian cookbook written in 1324, Llibre de Sent Sovi, is the oldest surviving culinary manuscript of its kind. Yinshan Zhengyao, written by court therapist and dietitian Hu Sihui in 1330, is not only a cookbook but also a popular source for Chinese medicine. Daz buch von guter spise, written around 1350, is the oldest German cookbook. However, it was Guillaume Tirel, also known as Taillevent (1310-1395), chef to King Charles V and King Charles IV, who stands out with his Le Viandier in 1375.
The first cookbook in English (or at least the oldest surviving one) is The Forme of Cury from about 1390, written by “The Master Cooks of King Richard II.”
Twenty-five years after Johann Gutenberg printed his first book in 1450, Bartolomeo de Sacchi di Piadena (otherwise known as Platina) published ‘De honesta voluptate’ in Venice. It was translated into German, Italian, and French and frequently republished throughout Europe. About 250 of Platina’s recipes were borrowed from a manuscript by Martino, who lived during the 1450-75 period. Martino’s recipes were reprinted in Epulario (Of Feasting) two hundred years after their origin. Eight years after the publication of ‘De honesta voluptate,’ the Roman cookbook of Apicius was published in Italy. It was frequently republished and translated into French and Spanish. It only appeared in English centuries later.
Nostradamus (1503-1566) is best known for his book of prophecies, ‘Centuries Asrtologiques, ‘ published in 1555. That same year he published a book titled ‘Excellent er Moult Utile Opuscule a tous necessaire qui desirent avoir connaissance de plusieurs exquises recettes’ (“An excellent and most useful little work essential to all who wish to become acquainted with some exquisite recipes”).
Bartolomeo Scappi (1540-1570) was cook to various cardinals and perhaps Pope Pius IV. Scappi presents many classical cooking techniques: marinating, braising, and poaching. He explores the Arab art of pastry making and the likes of succussu all moresca (Moorish couscous). His book, published in 1570, contains over 1,000 recipes. It is exceptionally well illustrated and demonstrates the high point of Renaissance cookery at its best. By the 1650s, it was out of print, and the culinary initiative had passed to Paris.
The most important French cookbook after the publication of Platina was Francois Pierre de la Varenne’s Le Cuisinier Francois published in 1652. This signaled the end of the anarchy of the medieval age and Renaissance fantasy and methodically organized cooking. It started with bouillon or stock, the sauce’s base ingredient, etc. The goal was a harmonious blend of ingredients where none predominated. The cookbook continued to be reprinted in France until 1815. It had an estimated 250 editions with over 250,000 copies published. This alerted publishers to the financial possibilities of cookbooks. La Varenne worked for the Marquis d’Uxelles. He is attributed with founding the classical French cooking school. Pierre Francoise de la Varenne (1615-1678) was also the author of Le Vrai Cuisinier, published in 1651. It was the first cookbook to summarize the cooking practices of the French Nobility.
The first book published in America that included recipes was The Compleat Housewife, or Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion (1742). The first cookbook ever printed and published in America was American Cookery by Amelia Simmons (1796).
In the 18th century, British cookbooks took a different direction. These cookbooks, frequently written by women, were filled with practical wisdom and rich experience gained in the kitchen. Some of the best cookbooks ever written fall into this category (i.e., Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery’ published in 1747). Another popular British work was Susannah Carter’s The Frugal Housewife, first published in London in 1772.
While British cookbooks were published in America beginning in 1742, they did not accurately reflect American cookery. British cookery practices dominated the colonial kitchen, but physical isolation, varied climatic conditions, and New World foods contributed to culinary drift. The cooking of other European refugees, colonists, African and Caribbean enslaved people, and Native Americans mingled and melded with the preeminent English style, creating a unique melting pot for American cuisine.
Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery (1796) was the first cookbook authored by an American. It, too, mainly reflected English cookery practices, and many of the recipes were borrowed from American editions of the previously mentioned work by Susannah Carter (The Frugal Housewife).
Louis Marquis de Cussy was born in 1766. He was a French gastronome who wrote Les Classiques de la Table.
Marie-Antoine Carême (1784-1833) is regarded as the founder of “la grande cuisine,” the classic French cuisine. He worked for emperors, kings and princes and wrote several books: Le Pârissier pittoresque (1815), Le Maître d’hôtel français (1822), Le Pâtissier royal parisien (1825), and, most important, L’Art de la cuisine au XIX siècle (1833).
Mary Randolph’s Virginia Housewife (1824) broke from British cookery practices and made a breakthrough for American cuisine. She set the standards for cookery in the States for decades to come.
‘Modern Cookery for Private Families’ by Eliza Acton appeared in England in 1845. It was the first cookbook to include an ingredient list for the recipes.
Nantucket Recipes, published in Boston in 1870, was the first known fund-raising cookbook printed in the USA: It was intended for sale at “the Fair for the New England Hospital for Women and Children.” The following year, three charitable cookbooks were published in Massachusetts communities and one in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Like most subsequent charitable cookbooks, these early works were printed in small quantities and sold locally. Their success encouraged other groups to compile and publish charitable cookbooks of their own, and a new genre of cookery works was created. Non-professionals wrote or collected these works and intended to generate income for a particular community charity or religious group.
Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857-1915), an American authority on cooking, was born in Boston. In 1902 she founded Miss Farmer’s School of Cookery Boston. Rather than training prospective domestic science teachers, the book aimed to instruct housewives and nurses in the art of cookery. She edited The Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1896). Twenty-one editions were published before her death. From this emerged the Fannie Farmer Cookbook which is still being published today.
Some of the most important books ever written were by Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), “The King of Chefs and the Chef of Kings.” His written work is, without question, that of a man far in advance of his time, yet he always acknowledged the contribution of his predecessors.
1886 – Le Traite sur L’art de Travailler les Fleurs en Cire
1903 – Le Guide Culinaire
1910 – Les Fleurs en Cire (a new edition)
1911 – Le Carnet d’Epicure
1912 – Le Livre des Menus
1927 – Le Riz
1929 – La Morue
1934 – Ma Cuisine
Since Escoffier, many have contributed to the ever-expanding list of recipes. Just to mention a few: Curnonsky, Fernand Point, Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, James Beard, Elizabeth David, Julia Child, Craig Claiborne, Roger Verge, Paul Bocuse, Jacques Pepin, Michel Guerard, Alain Chapel, Fredy Girardet, Alain Senderens, Paul Prudhomme, Anton Mosimann, Jeremiah Tower, Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Charlie Trotter, Daniel Boulud, and many, many others.
Many recipes and cookbooks also have been written for specific diets (i.e., Dr. Atkins, Dr. Sears, Dr. Ornish, and others).
