SC - Did medieval cooks read Apicus?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hullo, the list!

I'm not sure if anyone ever addressed this one; I just ran across it in
my Inbox, looking a bit neglected...

Brian Songy wrote:
> 
> I was wondering what ancient (i.e. pre-600A.D.) texts did medieval cooks
> have access to?  For example, were copies of Apicus widely available before
> the advent of movable type?

Obviously, if a source is ancient, and we have it today, then at least,
_in theory_, medieval people had access to it. Bearing in mind, of
course, levels of literacy and the cost of books, access for many was
probably impractical, at best.

It seems evident from textual clues that Platina had seen Apicius De Re
Coquinaria, for example, but then he was a senior librarian at the
Vatican library, as I recall. There are also a few faint glimpses from
"dark ages" and Carolingian sources that suggest the cuisine of much of
Europe wasn't too different from the eating patterns of Classical Rome,
with notable exceptions like al-Andalus. I read something a while back
(and of course I now have no clue what or where) that referred to a
favorite dish of some bishop or other in the early Middle Ages as being
made from cooked, chopped olives and dates, and bound/cooked with beaten
eggs like a Roman patina.

As for even earlier sources of recipes, like Athenaeus, Cato the Elder,
and Columella, they probably influenced Apicius more than they
influenced any later cook's efforts, which is not really saying much
when you consider that we don't know how many copies there were of books
we know through manuscript sources. I mean, I think it's a pretty safe
bet that less than one percent (probably a lot less) of cooks in the
early Roman Empire cooked specific dishes from Apicius, but Apicius is
probably a fairly decent guide to what was eaten by the well-to-do in
much of Europe in the early Empire. 

Similarly, I think there are five extant copies of Taillevent's
Viandier, and one of _them_ predates the estimated actual lifespan of
Taillevent. How can we guess as to how many copies there were in late
14th-century France?

I think it's pretty likely that most cooks knew, to some extent by
heart, the dishes taught them by whoever taught them the craft, and not
much else in the area of cookbooks. There may even have been the
rationale that one wouldn't need cookbooks if one had cooks to figure
out all that stuff.

Adamantius
Østgardr, East  
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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