[Sca-cooks] Apician date recipe

[Philip & Susan Troy]

tgl at mailer.uni-marburg.de wrote:
>
> > > Where was Apicius writing his book?
> > Rome, 1st Century CE (14-37)
>
> I should like to point out (once again), that -- as far as I can see --
> the Apicius-collection we have in our hands now, is NOT a text _written
> by_ Apicius. The real Apicius (the gourmand) was born around 25 B.C.

Assuming you're referring to the M. Gavius Apicius who lived in the
reign of Tiberius, but he's not even the only candidate.

> Very probably he wrote a general cookbook and a more special cookbook on
> sauces. THESE WORKS ARE LOST NOW. What has come down to us under the
> name of Apicius was finished by the end of the fourth or the beginning
> of the fifth century. It seems that about 2/3 of the recipes in this
> collection can be said to go back to the two lost works of Apicius
> somehow, while the rest of the material is taken from different texts on
> agriculture, dietetics partly written in Greek. For more details see
> Maier, ed., Das römische Kochbuch ..., Stuttgart 1991, 250f. and E.
> Brandt, Untersuchungen zum römischen Kochbuche, 1927.

I think, since we don't know for sure who the Apicius in question really
was, his name has become something of a default term to describe the
unknown author. But I agree, it's a bad idea to complacently assume
there was this guy named Apicius writing the text we now have.

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98