The secret of a delicious food is its recipes. A recipe is a set of instructions that show how to prepare or make something, especially a culinary dish.
Some recipes will note how long the dish will keep and its suitability for freezing. Nutritional information, such as calories per serving and grams of protein, fat, and carbohydrates per serving, may also be given.
Earlier recipes often included much less information, serving more as a reminder of ingredients and proportions for someone who already knew how to prepare the dish.
Recipe writers sometimes also list variations of a traditional dish, to give different tastes of the same recipes.
The earliest known recipes date from approximately 1600 BC and come from an Akkadian tablet from southern Babylonia.
The ancient Egyptians painted hieroglyphics depicting the preparation of food.
Many ancient Greek recipes are known. Mithaecus's cookbook was an early one, but most of it has been lost; Athenaeus quotes one short recipe in his Deipnosophistae. Athenaeus mentions many other cookbooks, all of them lost.
Roman recipes are known starting in the 2nd century BCE with Cato the Elder's De Agri Cultura. Many other authors of this period described eastern Mediterranean cooking in Greek and in Latin.
The ancient Egyptians painted hieroglyphics depicting the preparation of food.
Many ancient Greek recipes are known. Mithaecus's cookbook was an early one, but most of it has been lost; Athenaeus quotes one short recipe in his Deipnosophistae. Athenaeus mentions many other cookbooks, all of them lost.
Roman recipes are known starting in the 2nd century BCE with Cato the Elder's De Agri Cultura. Many other authors of this period described eastern Mediterranean cooking in Greek and in Latin.