Word Search: Journey from the world's first recipe on a tomb wall, to the cookbooks in our hands
We discover how written recipes were only for the elite, in ancient times
A dash of this, a pinch of that… imagine conjuring the tastiest, most mouth-watering dish you’ve ever made – and then promptly forgetting the recipe.
Click start to play today’s Word Search, where you can find a variety of kitchen staples. Don’t forget to visit Gulf News’ Food section for recipes, guides and information on all things gastronomical.
Ever since people learned to write, we’ve been writing down recipes. The oldest one ever found was in ancient Egypt, around 19th century BC, scrawled on the walls of a tomb. It instructed people on how to make flatbreads. The oldest known cookbook is a series of tablets called the Yale Culinary Tablets, dating back to 1700 BC from Mesopotamia. They contain the first recorded recipes, many of which, cater to royalty, and include about 25 recipes for stews, with a variety of meat and vegetarian options.
The first recorded cookbook that’s still in print today is Of Culinary Matters, originally called De Re Coquinaria, which was thought to be written by a man named Caelius Apicius in Rome, some time during the fourth century AD. The book contains over 500 recipes, with many of them including spices from India that had found their way to ancient Rome.
It was the same situation around the ancient world – foodies wrote down their favourite recipes. In the 10th century, Ibn Sayyar Al Warraq from Baghdad, Iraq, produced a book containing over 600 recipes, called Kitab Al Tablikh (The Book of Dishes).
In 12th century India, Sanskrit text composed by King Someshvara III of the Kalyani Chalukya dynasty included pages and pages of recipes. And in China, a court dietician named Hu Sihui wrote Yinshan Zhengyao (Important Principles of Food and Drink) in the 13th century – a book that’s considered to be a classic in Chinese medicine and cuisine.
But in the West, early cookbooks were only fit for kings. The oldest published recipes came from palaces and were part of court kitchens. They served as helpful tools for chief stewards, and allowed royalty to show off the luxury of their banquets.
A 14th century cookbook called The Forme of Cury ('cury' meaning ‘cookery’), for instance, is the oldest one written in English, and was created by the cooks of King Richard II of England. It contains 196 recipes, including tips on how to cook whales and herons with spices such as mace, pepper, and nutmeg.
Historic recipes, according to American magazine The Atlantic, didn’t go into much detail. They rarely mentioned quantities, weight or preparation guidelines – they just summarised steps and served as a reminder to people who already had an idea of how to cook the dish.
From there to today’s highly detailed, foolproof recipes, the culinary world has come a long way. And from someone who needs all the help she can get in the kitchen – thank God for that!
Do you use cookbooks or cook from recipes? Play today’s Word Search and tell us at games@gulfnews.com.