Matt Brady investigates the rise of the written recipe through the ages, and some of the foods enjoyed in bygone eras.
When did food writing begin? How has it developed through the history of the human race? And what were the first recipes ever written?
Though food writing was originally solely reserved for the recording of recipes, now everything and anything to do with food is documented and discussed. You only need to see the topics that the lovefood team write about to prove that point.
I can’t hope to cover the full story of food writing in a single article, but hopefully this will serve as a springboard for those interested in the topic – and please do tell us about other interesting historical food books in the comments below!
The earliest foodies
A delicious recipe for turnips stewed in blood was among the recipes found on cuneiform tablets (an example of which is pictured left) stored at Yale University, known as the Yale Babylonian Tablets.
In the more recent, but still distant, past was the Greek 'Mithekos', who hailed from Syracuse. He’s the first chef we know by name, says Linda Civitello in Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People, but unfortunately his writings are lost – we only know about him because of references to him in the work of his contemporaries.
To make the wine, the instructions state to put six parts honey and two parts wine into a copper bowl and heat it over a slow fire, constantly stirring. As it boils, add a dash of cold wine, remove from the heat and skim. Repeat two or three times. Add crushed pepper, mastich, laurel leaves, saffron and date stones. Then add another eighteen parts light wine, and filter through crushed charcoal to clarify.
Medieval munchies
It was later presented to Elizabeth I. The title comes from the French 'cuire' (to cook), and means ‘Forms of Cooking’. It contains around 200 recipes, though this varies depending on which edition you look at. They tend to be quite meat-heavy and as such were likely to have been enjoyed exclusively by the very wealthy.
Here’s an extract for pigs in sage sauce – the letter þ is called 'thorn' and is pronounced ‘th’ as in ‘then’. A modern English version of the recipe can be found underneath.
Pygges in sawse sawge
Take Pigges yskaldid and quarter hem and seeþ hem in water and salt, take hem and lat hem kele. take persel sawge. and grynde it with brede and zolkes of ayrenn harde ysode. temper it up with vyneger sum what thyk. and, lay the Pygges in a vessell. and the sewe onoward and serue it forth.
Pigs in sage sauce
Take scalded pigs (presumably the pig carcasses had to be washed down in a boiling bath prior to this), quarter them and boil them in water and salt. Take them and let them cool. Take parsley and sage, and grind them with bread and yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Season with somewhat thick vinegar. Lay the pigs in a vessel, cover it with the sauce and serve.
Refining in the Renaissance
But this marks a significant cultural turning point – it's a book containing recipes specifically for use by women working in the household, not by cooks. Not only that, but it describes the housewife's role in the family: she should be a gardener, cook, and be able to cure sickness suffered by her family.
To stew a pike, says Markham, the housewife should dress it, then cover it with white wine, adding currants, sugar, cinnamon, barberries and “as many Prunes as wil serve to garnish the dish”, then stew until the fruit is soft.
Then she should stir up a sauce using a couple of egg yolks and a spoonful of cream with a lump of butter, then serve with sugar, prunes and barberries, plus slices of oranges and lemons.
Medicine
Two of the more interesting books to come out of the 1600s were Nicholas Culpeper’s The English Physician (1652) and The Complete Herbal (1653). These contain a wealth of suggestions as to the medicinal uses of hundreds of plants. They're not cookery books as such, but they do give a fascinating insight into the world of medicine four centuries ago. Culpeper reveals the uses he believed everyday plants like garlic, leeks and onions had. You can browse The Complete Herbal here:
One of Culpeper’s concoctions is the “juice of Lettuce mixed or boiled with Oil of Roses, applied to the forehead and the temples”, which apparently “procures sleep, and eases the headache proceeding of an hot cause.” Let us know how you get on with that one…
The 18th and 19th centuries
She lists animal joints and their use, historical comments about various breeds, expected cost to make the dishes and even gives dinner plans through the 12 months of the year for both large and family groups. Her recipe for orange salad is as follows:
“Ingredients: 6 oranges, 1/4lb. muscatel raisins, 2 oz. of pounded sugar, 4 tbsps brandy.
"Peel 5 of the oranges; divide them into slices without breaking the pulp, and arrange them on a glass dish. Stone the raisins, mix them with the sugar and brandy, and mingle them with the oranges. Squeeze the juice of the other orange over the whole, and the dish is ready for table. A little pounded spice may be put in when the flavour is liked; but this ingredient must be added very sparingly.
"Average cost, 1s. Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons.”
Contemporary cooking
Cookery books are now published in their hundreds every year. Recipes are disseminated online in their thousands (by sites such as lovefood.com!) and people can figure out what they’re having for tea by perusing recipes on the go on their mobiles.
You can even take a masterclass in food writing these days, a clear sign of our obsession with food. People not only want to eat it, but read and write about it too. It's a mainstream interest, and not just a curiosity reserved for professional chefs.
If you decide to try out any of the recipes here, please tell us how it went in the Comments below. And if you have any other interesting recipes from times gone by, do share those too.
Clay tablet picture attributed to Jastrow, other images public domain.
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