The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the Cooks, Writers, and Recipes That Made the Modern CookbookHardcover (2024)

FAQs

Who wrote the first modern cookbook? ›

Anyone who has ever enjoyed chutney, mulligatawny soup, or Christmas pudding has much to thank Eliza Acton for. Her 1845 book Modern Cookery for Private Families, also known as Modern Cookery in all its Branches was where recipes for these dishes were published for the first time.

The first recorded cookbook that is still in print today is Of Culinary Matters (originally, De Re Coquinaria), written by Apicius, in fourth century AD Rome. It contains more than 500 recipes, including many with Indian spices.

Cookbooks: Cookbooks explain how to create snacks, meals, or beverages, by cooking, baking, or mixing ingredients. The subject Cookery is usually assigned to these books, and they are usually found in the 641.5 section.

The first recorded cookbook is said to be four clay tablets from 1700 BC in Ancient Mesopotamia, but by the 1300s, cookbooks were a norm for kings and nobles.

Betty Crocker's Cookbook (originally called Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book) by Betty Crocker (1950) – approx. 65 million copies.

The food historian Elizabeth Ray, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, states that Acton travelled abroad for the good of her health, because she had a weak constitution. It is possible that she was pregnant when she left for Paris and that she went abroad to give birth to an illegitimate daughter.

But do cookbooks still sell? Yes, they do. In fact, it's a burgeoning and competitive market. But that's just another reason to make sure that you do everything possible to make your cookbook the best it can be.

Justin Miller (USA, b. 10 Janurary 1990) was aged seven when his cookbook "Cooking with Justin: Recipes for Kids (And Parents)" was published in 1997.

Older cookbooks tend to cover the basics

In fact, if you search the word "sugar" in the archived text, there are over 1,000 results. While vintage cookbooks may not always take health and wellness into consideration, Backdoor Survival notes that vintage cookbooks are a great way to learn how to cook from scratch.

The number makes it possible to find any book and to return it to its proper place on the library shelves. The classification system is used in 200,000 libraries in at least 135 countries.

What is 920 in Dewey Decimal? ›

Collective Biography (920)

The call number uses the Dewey number for collective biography, 920, and then the first three letters of the author's last name.

100 covers philosophy, parapsychology and occultism, and psychology.

A recent study found what could be the earliest known evidence of ancient cooking: the leftovers of a fish dinner from 780,000 years ago. Cooking helped change our ancestors. It helped fuel our evolution and gave us bigger brains.

American Cookery, published by the “orphan” Amelia Simmons in 1796, was the first cookbook by an American to be published in the United States. Its 47 pages (in the first edition) contained fine recipes for roasts—stuffed goose, stuffed leg of veal, roast lamb. There were stews, too, and all manner of pies.

American Cookery, the very first American cookbook, was written by Amelia Simmons (more on this mysterious woman later). In it, she promised local food and a kind of socioculinary equality. The title page stated that the recipes were "adapted to this country and all grades of life."

The earliest collection of recipes that has survived in Europe is De re coquinaria, written in Latin. An early version was first compiled sometime in the 1st century and has often been attributed to the Roman gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicius, though this has been cast in doubt by modern research.

Malinda Russell (ca. 1812 – ?) was a free African-American woman from Tennessee who earned her living as a cook and published the first known cookbook by an African-American woman.