[Sca-cooks] Differing translations of Apicius

[Pat]

Joseph Dommers Vehling in his “Apiciana” at the end of his book (which I suppose is a bibliography of sorts) lists at least nineteen editions (15 of which are in Latin) published between 1483 and 1933 and multiple commentaries in various languages.  All of which he claims to have at least reviewed.  (Even though his Latin is of the grade school variety and he does not claim to read or speak any other language but American.)  He  was a professional chef.
Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum have an entire chapter giving the reasoning behind the edition they primarily choose to use.   They explain that all the extant versions most likely come from a 4th or 5th century compiler who combined a version of the Apicius work (or works, he apparently wrote two different books on cooking.) along with a book on agriculture, a Greek book on agriculture, a dietetic cookery-book, probably also Greek, and from other sources, chiefly medical writings.  About three fifths of the recipes given are actually from Apicius.  This compiler evidently used a later edition, as some of the recipes are named for emperors who reigned after the First Century when Apicius wrote his original.   Even this compiler’s work has been lost, and all we have are a few very rare versions printed in the 15th century and later.
Barbara Flower was a Classics scholar at Oxford, and Elisabeth Rosenbaum held doctorates from Berlin and London in the Classics.  Both were amatuer cooks, but researched and reproduced every recipe before producing the book.

 

Mordonna


Jeff Gedney <gedney1 at iconn.net> wrote:
He clearly is reading from a different text from Flowers.
Does Vehling give his sources? 
He implies that he is reading from several texts. 
The most important aspect of that is that there could well be copy errors or changes in the course of the recopying, that furter confuses the issue. 
They are supposed to be the SAME Apicius, but clearly the TEXT differs from copy to copy. 
Which one is the earliest Apicius?

Capt Elias
-Renaissance Geek of the Cyber Seas

- Help! I am being pecked to death by the Ducks of Dilletanteism! 
There are SO damn many more things I want to try in the SCA than I can possibly have time for. It's killing me!!!



Pat Griffin
Lady Anne du Bosc
known as Mordonna the Cook
Shire of Thorngill, Meridies
Mundanely, Millbrook, AL