[Sca-cooks] Ars magirica, was what cookbook is this?

[Johnna Holloway]

Ars magirica hoc est, coquinaria, de cibariis, ferculis opsonijs, alimentis & potibus diuersis parandis, eorumque facultatibus. 

To start, it's not magic! That's a misreading of the title. According to Henry Notaker, the "magirica" is taken from the Greek and means "something that has to do with cookery." (Art or Technique of Cookery) 

It's not catalogued as a magic text by libraries such as Folger or Indiana's Lilly Library. ( and whoever wrote the catalogue description in Addall is wrong because the book is listed by Cagle and is part of the collection at the Lilly Library.) Notaker classifies it as a medical text with some cookery recipes.

Just to make life interesting-- The work is associated with Apicius. Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat footnotes a number of citations to Apicius. Ars Magirica.
Ken Albala in The Banquet notes "Willich's Ars magirica is one of the few books containing recipes written in Latin in the early modern period. Presumably this was not intended for working cooks but rather an academic audience."

It's been noted and up on Thomas Gloning's site for quite sometime:
Jacobus Bifrons [Jachiam Bifrun]: Epistola de caseis et operibus lactariis et modo quo in Rhaeticis regionibus et alpibus parantur, 1556 (Brief an Conrad Gesner über die Käseherstellung und die Milchverarbeitung in der Schweiz 1556. | A letter to Conrad Gesner on cheesemaking and dairy products in Switzerland, 1556.) | Facsimile files from: Jodocus Willich: Ars magirica hoc est, coquinaria, de cibariis, ferculis opsonijs, alimentis & potibus diuersis parandis, eorumque facultatibus. Zürich 1563, p. 220-227.

 Johnnae


On Feb 26, 2013, at 11:16 AM, Christiane wrote:

> I was poking around Google when I stumbled across this:
> http://books.google.com/books?id=ujYhXYQixeIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
> It appears to be a scanned copy of a book printed in 1563, covering magic, diet, recipes, etc. My extremely limited Latin isn't up to the task of really figuring out what this is all about (and the glosses seem to be in Greek, which I don't know at all).
> Anyway, enjoy. I'd love to know more about this book.
> Adelisa