THE HISTORY OF RECIPES

I was looking around for corn cake recipes when I came across this interesting piece of information:

Recipes as an idea can be traced back into antiquity, certainly as far into history as ancient Egypt, and maybe even further. Having said that, generally, these early recipes were just very simple pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform recipes for food preparation.

Fascinatingly, the oldest recipe found, according to academics are some clay tablets in ancient Sumerian which show the making of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made people feel blissful and exhilarated.

Progressing into The time of the romans 25BC a man called Apicius created a collection of scripts describing recipes enjoyed by wealthy roman citizens. In his publication, Apicius describes how the roman meals were divided into hors d`oeuvres, main meal and desserts, something we still use today. Aspicius also recounts how the cooks of Roman times made use of many different spices, including a few you will know such as thyme, mint and dill.

As our culinary historical trip moves to more modern times we have two interesting books from the fourteenth century : a cookery book titled `Forme of Cury`, and another entitled `Curye on Inglish`. Surprisingly, these books are unconnected to the indian curry that is familiar to us all today, but rather recipes for the types of meals served to the rich and wealthy people of that time.

In the 15th century, knights returning from the crusades brought us many foods, spices and herbs from the Middle-East, including spices like parsley, basil and rosemary. These new herbs and spices created an eruption in books on cookery, most of which still exist in private collections.

By the arrival of the twentieth century, cooking publications are in high demand, due to increased literacy, people having increased free time and having more disposable income.

The introduction of television brought us cooking programs and the spin-off recipe books.

Which brings us neatly to the present day and the internet revolution, allowing everybody to search through thousands of recipes like those on this recipe site .