Imagine you are a housewife living in the late 1800s. You have only married recently, and there are so many things which you must now remember and do, which you were not responsible for before. One of the things which you find most daunting is preparing a dinner menu. Selecting the appropriate dishes, and ensuring the selection works together is such a difficult process, and especially when there is somebody important coming to dine with you. You are fortunate indeed that your mother provided you with a wonderful book upon your wedding day – The Dinner Year Book has indeed been a godsend!
When I showed the children this recipe book, they were intrigued and surprised to discover such a range of different recipes which would once have been just a part of life. Many of the children are used to having similar meals each week, or at least having leftovers for dinner the following day, and were amazed by this book which prescribes something different every day! What’s more, they could not imagine having such a range of dishes available for dinner, and having a special dessert each day seemed like something between heaven and “over the top – hadn’t they heard of ice-cream?”
Cookbooks have a surprisingly long history, dating back as far as the first century or perhaps even earlier. It is believed that recipes were certainly recorded before this, but the earliest surviving book of recipes comes from the first century and is thought by many to have been written (in Latin) by Marcus Gavius Apicius. Whether he wrote the collection or not, the name Apicius actually came to mean a collection of recipes, though we are more familiar with the term ‘cookbook’ today. Other ancient cultures also had cookbooks, with Chinese recipe books known to exist as early as the Tang Dynasty while Arabic cookbooks are thought to date to about the 9th century. In the western world though, the writing of cookbooks died out, until in the 13th century people again began to compile recipes into collections.
It wasn’t until the printing press was invented, and the 16th and 17th centuries though that cookbooks really began to take off. With the ability to easily print numerous copies of a publication, people began to write books explaining household management and food preparation and soon there was competition between well off families as to who could prepare the best meal. By the late 1600s cooking had become an art form of its own, and good cooks (and their recipes) were in high demand. As demand grew, many of these cooks began to publish their own collections of recipes. Yet most of these books were aimed at domestic cooks, not the housewife herself. Eliza Acton was the first to write a book aimed specifically at the housewife and her book Modern Cookery For Private Families, published in 1845, was extremely popular. This popularity led others to begin to publish their own cookbooks, the most famous of which was Mrs Beeton. Today, cookbooks exist for every culture, cuisine, size and taste, and of course with the advent of new technology, many are now available online.