Apicius

by Apicius, Sally Grainger

Apicius is the sole remaining cookery book from the days of the Roman Empire. Though there were many ancient Greek and Latin works concerning food, this collection of recipes is unique. The editors suggest that it is a survival from many such collections maintained by working cooks and that the attribution to Apicius the man (a real-life Roman noble of the 2nd century AD), is a mere literary convention. There have been many English translations of this work (and, abroad, some important academic editions) but none reliable since 1958 (Flower and Rosenbaum). In any case, this edition and translation has revisited all surviving manuscripts in Europe and the USA and proposes many new readings and interpretations. The great quality of this editorial team is while the Latin scholarship is supplied by Chris Grocock, Sally Grainger contributes a lifetime’s experience in the practical cookery of adaptations of the recipes in this text. This supplies a wholly new angle from which to verify the textual and editorial suggestions.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food and Drink, History

448 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2006

About the author

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 its impossible to prove the connection. He was the subject of On the Luxury of Apicius, a famous work, now lost, by the Greek grammarian Apion.

Evidence for the life of M. Gavius Apicius derives partly from contemporary or almost-contemporary sources but is partly filtered through the above-named work by Apion, whose purpose was presumably to explain the names and origins of luxury foods, especially those anecdotally linked to Apicius.

Reviews

[Rhode PVD · Rating 5 out of 5]

The introduction is 123 pages all by itself - it's a marvelous background text in and of itself. The the cookbook translation is done in my absolute favorite manner with the original Latin on each left page facing its matching translation on the right. So much fun for fans of Latin!

The translation is somewhat creative in that recipes have measurements such a lbs and pints that were obviously not directly from the original text. (In fact, as I recall, perhaps wrongly, people didn't start using formal, normalized measurements in written recipes until late Vistorian times.) These measurements are not overdone in terms of explicitness, for example you won't find tbs or tps, but rather a more general "spoons".

Each translated page also has footnotes that are tons of fun for a historic food-lover to read. For example, apparently a suckling pig could easily be wrapped in papyrus. Who knew?

I will treasure this book. It was expensive, but totally worth it.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the Nut tart recipe.


Try patina as dessert: roast pine nuts, peeled and chopped nuts. Add honey, pepper, garum, milk, eggs, a little undiluted wine, and oil. Pour on to a plate. (Apicius, 136)

Original text:
Patina versatilis vice dulcis: nucleos pineos, nuces fractas et purgatas, attorrebis eas, teres cum melle, pipere, liquamine, lacte, ovis, modico mero et oleo, versas in discum.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a new translation with an extensive foreward, footnotes, glossary and index. I only know bits and pieces of Latin, but I appreciate that the Latin text is included-- a page of Latin on one page and the English translation on the other throughout the whole book. The recipes are translated exactly as-is, so if you want to cook from this book, you're on your own figuring it out. Which makes it more fun, of course. Almost all of the ingredients are not that difficult to obtain today (with the exception of silphium), although some of them you might need to grow (e.g. lovage) or make (e.g. the various grades of wine syrups, verjus and grape must) on your own.

[Frank]

The oldest cookbook in the Western canon, what's not to love?