De Re Culinaria – History of recipe making since ancient times

As this site is about recipes, it is worth mentioning some historical information and history recipe making.

It is amazing to know that the earliest discovered recipes dates from 1600 BC, being discovered in Southern Babylonia (Mesopotamia Region), on a Akkadian Tablet. This ancient language was used to write also recipes. Human being had the desire to record good and tasty recipes on stones.

It is also known that even if we do not have recipes written in ancient Egypt, the Egyptians left many information about the different ingredients and the modern Egyptian recipes have the roots in the old and antic times. Check this website for information about ancient Egyptian recipes called Ta’amia.

European old cultures like Greeks and Romans also have left us since the Ancient times some evidences of cookboks.

De Re Culinaria( coquinaria), entitled Apicius, is one of the earliest recipes cookbooks, and it appeared since the 5th Century. Recipes like “Gustatio“( appetizer) , Primae Mensae (main course, Secunda Mensae ( dessert) are present even today in the vocabulary of Italian, where “Primo Piatto” o “Secondo Piatto” are used in every Italian home or restaurant.

Other cultures like Arabic or Persian, brought recipes after 10th century. History is full of such examples of recipes cookbook.

For a more comprehensive history, you can download the document about history recipe making.

This site is a humble tentative of adding our own experience with recipes and cooking.

This article is about history recipe making as one wise man said, ” to know where you want to go, you need to know where are you coming from”.

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