Apicius Handschrift New York Academy of Medicine

''Apicius'', also known as ''De re culinaria'' or ''De re coquinaria'' (''On the Subject of Cooking'') is a collection of

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

cookery Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in variou ...

recipes. It is thought to have been compiled in the fifth century AD. Its language is in many ways closer to Vulgar than to

Classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...

, with later recipes using Vulgar Latin (such as ''ficatum'', ''bullire'') added to earlier recipes using Classical Latin (such as ''iecur'', ''fervere''). The book has been attributed to an otherwise unknown Caelius Apicius, an invention based on the fact that one of the two manuscripts is headed with the words "API CAE" or rather because a few recipes are attributed to Apicius in the text: Patinam Apicianam sic facies (IV, 14) Ofellas Apicianas (VII, 2). It has also been attributed to

Marcus Gavius Apicius Marcus Gavius Apicius is believed to have been a Roman gourmet and lover of luxury, who lived sometime in the 1st century AD, during the reign of Tiberius. The Roman cookbook ''Apicius'' is often attributed to him, though it is impossible to pro ...

, a Roman

gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by refined, even elaborate preparations and presentations of aesthetically balanced meals of several contrasting, of ...

who lived sometime in the 1st century AD during the reign of

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

. The book also may have been authored by a number of different Roman cooks from the first century AD. Based on textual analysis, the food scholar

Bruno Laurioux Bruno Laurioux is a French medievalist historian born in 1959 in Loudun. Biography Alumnus of the '' École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines'' (1979), Bruno Laurioux passes his History Agrégation (1982) and a PhD at the Pan ...

believes that the surviving version only dates from the fifth century (that is, the end of the Roman Empire): "The history of ''De Re Coquinaria'' indeed belongs then to the Middle Ages".

Organization

The Latin text is organized in ten books with Greek titles, in an arrangement similar to that of a modern cookbook: # ''Epimeles'' — The Careful Housekeeper # ''Sarcoptes'' — The Meat Mincer, Ground-beef # ''Cepuros'' — The Gardener, Vegetables # ''Pandecter'' — Many Ingredients # ''Ospreon'' — Pulse, Legumes # ''Aeropetes'' — Birds, Poultry # ''Polyteles'' — The Gourmet # ''Tetrapus'' — The Quadruped, Four-legged animals # ''Thalassa'' — The Sea, Sea-food # ''Halieus'' — The Fisherman

Foods

The

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is in ...

s described in the book are useful for reconstructing the dietary habits of the ancient world around the

Mediterranean Basin In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and wa ...

. But the recipes are geared for the wealthiest classes, and a few contain what were exotic ingredients at that time (e.g.,

flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of wading bird in the family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas (including the Caribbea ...

). A sample recipe from Apicius (8.6.2–3) follows: * Aliter haedinam sive agninam excaldatam: mittes in caccabum copadia. cepam, coriandrum minutatim succides, teres piper, ligusticum, cuminum, liquamen, oleum, vinum. coques, exinanies in patina, amulo obligas. liter haedinam sive agninam excaldatam a crudo trituram mortario accipere debet, caprina autem cum coquitur accipit trituram. * Hot kid or lamb

stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. A stew needs to have raw ingredients added to the gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables a ...

. Put the pieces of

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

into a pan. Finely chop an

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the on ...

and

coriander Coriander (;

, pound pepper, lovage,

cumin Cumin ( or , or Article title
) (''Cuminum cyminum'') is a

garum Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was used as a condiment in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage and later Byzantium. Liquamen is a similar preparation, and at times they were synonymous. Although garum enjoyed its gre ...

, oil, and

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...

. Cook, turn out into a shallow pan, thicken with wheat starch. If you take lamb you should add the contents of the mortar while the meat is still raw, if kid, add it while it is cooking.

Alternative editions

In a completely different manuscript, there is also a very abbreviated

epitome An epitome (; gr, ἐπιτομή, from ἐπιτέμνειν ''epitemnein'' meaning "to cut short") is a summary or miniature form, or an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment. Epitomacy represents " ...

entitled ''Apici excerpta a Vinidario'', a "pocket Apicius" by "an illustrious man" named Vinidarius, made as late as the Carolingian era. The Vinidarius of this book may have been a Goth, in which case his Gothic name may have been Vinithaharjis (𐍅𐌹𐌽𐌹𐌸𐌰𐌷𐌰𐍂𐌾𐌹𐍃), but this is only conjecture. Despite being called "illustrious", nothing about him is truly known. ''Apici excerpta a Vinidario'' survives in a single 8th-century

uncial Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, p. 494. script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to ...

manuscript. Despite the title, this booklet is not an excerpt purely from the ''Apicius'' text we have today, as it contains material not included in the longer ''Apicius'' manuscripts. Either some text was lost between the time the excerpt was made and the time the manuscripts were written, or there never was a "standard ''Apicius''" text because the contents changed over time as it was adapted by readers. Once manuscripts surfaced, there were two early printed editions of ''Apicius'', in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

(1498, under the title ''In re quoquinaria'') and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

(1500). Four more editions in the next four decades reflect the appeal of ''Apicius''. In the long-standard edition of C. T. Schuch (Heidelberg, 1867), the editor added some recipes from the Vinidarius manuscript. Between 1498 (the date of the first printed edition) and 1936 (the date of Joseph Dommers Vehling's translation into English and bibliography of Apicius), there were 14 editions of the Latin text (plus one possibly apocryphal edition). The work was not widely translated, however; the first translation was into Italian, in 1852, followed in the 20th century by two translations into

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

and

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

. The French translation by Bertrand Guégan was awarded the 1934

Prix Langlois The Prix Langlois was Former prizes awarded by the Académie française, a prize awarded by the Académie française from 1868 to 1987 for "the best translation in verse or prose of a Greek, Latin or foreign-language work". Laureates See also * ...

by the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

. Vehling made the first translation of the book into

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

under the title ''Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome''. It was published in 1936 and is still in print, having been reprinted in 1977 by

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books ...

. It is now of historical interest only, since Vehling's knowledge of Latin was not always adequate for the difficult task of translation, and several later and more reliable translations now exist.

Notes

Bibliography

Texts and translations

* ''Apicii decem libri qui dicuntur De re coquinaria'' ed. Mary Ella Milham. Leipzig: Teubner, 1969. atin* ''The Roman Cookery Book: A Critical Translation of the Art of Cooking By Apicius for Use in the Study and the Kitchen''. Trans. Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum. London: Harrap, 1958. atin and English* ''Apicius: A Critical Edition with an Introduction and an English Translation''. Ed. and trans. Christopher Grocock and Sally Grainger. Totnes:Prospect Books, 2006. atin and English* Apicius. ''L'art culinaire''. Ed. and trans. Jacques André. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1974. atin and French* Apicius. ''Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome''. Trans. Joseph Dommers Vehling. 1936. nglish* ''The Roman Cookery of Apicius''. Trans. John Edwards. Vancouver: Hartley & Marks, 1984. nglish* Nicole van der Auwera & Ad Meskens, Apicius. ''De re coquinaria: De romeinse kookkunst''. Trans. Nicole van der Auwera and Ad Meskens. Archief- en Bibliotheekwezen in België, Extranummer 63. Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 2001. utch

Secondary material

* Alföldi-Rosenbaum, Elisabeth (1972). "''Apicius de re coquinaria'' and the ''Vita Heliogabali''". In Straub, J., ed., ''Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1970''. Bonn, 1972. Pp. 5–18. * Bode, Matthias (1999). ''Apicius – Anmerkungen zum römischen Kochbuch''. St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag. * Déry, Carol. "The Art of Apicius". In Walker, Harlan, ed. ''Cooks and Other People: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1995''. Totnes: Prospect Books. Pp. 111–17. * Grainger, Sally (2006). ''Cooking'' Apicius: ''Roman Recipes for Today''. Totnes: Prospect Books. * Grainger, Sally (2007). "The Myth of Apicius". ''Gastronomica'', 7(2): 71–77. * Lindsay, H. (1997). “Who was Apicius?”. ''Symbolae Osloenses'', 72: 144-154. * Mayo, H. (2008). "New York Academy of Medicine MS1 and the textual tradition of Apicius". In Coulson, F. T., & Grotans, A., eds., ''Classica et Beneventana: Essays Presented to Virginia Brown on the Occasion of her 65th Birthday''. Turnhout: Brepols. Pp. 111–135. * Milham, Mary Ella (1950). ''A Glossarial Index to'' De re coquinaria ''of Apicius''. Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin.

External links

Latin text

Bibliotheca Augustana: De Re Coquinaria Libri Decem
Mary Ella Milham's edition, nicely presented (Latin)

at

The Latin Library The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. It is run by William L. Carey, adjunct professor of Latin and Roman Law at George Mason University. The texts have been drawn from different sources, are not intended for ...

* *
Another version of the Latin text (source not stated)

Diplomatic version of the Latin text, with parallel English translation and modern redaction of the recipes.

Secondary material

* [http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/historical/ant-rom-coll.html Partial re-translation from a German translation, adapted for modern cooking styles (the untranslated "Liebstoeckl" is lovage; Poleiminze is pennyroyal; Saturei is savory herb)]
A 6 course banquet incorporating 12 Apician recipes and 9 from other Roman sources
{{Authority control Latin prose texts Roman cookbooks Roman cuisine 4th-century Latin books 5th-century Latin books