Apicius is the sole remaining cookery book from the days of the Roman Empire. Though there were many ancient Greek and Latin works concerning food, this collection of recipes is unique. The editors suggest that it is a survival from many such collections maintained by working cooks and that the attribution to Apicius the man (a real-life Roman noble of the 2nd century AD), is a mere literary convention. There have been many English translations of this work (and, abroad, some important academic editions) but none reliable since 1958 (Flower and Rosenbaum). In any case, this edition and translation has revisited all surviving manuscripts in Europe and the USA and proposes many new readings and interpretations. The great quality of this editorial team is while the Latin scholarship is supplied by Chris Grocock, Sally Grainger contributes a lifetime's experience in the practical cookery of adaptations of the recipes in this text. This supplies a wholly new angle from which to verify the textual and editorial suggestions.

Why aren’t the recipes for this book available on ckbk?

This book has been licensed, and will soon be available on ckbk. New books are converted and uploaded each month.

Books which are part of ckbk's collection show one of these two logos:

now available on ckbk
coming soon to ckbk

Recommended by

William Woys Weaver

Food historian, author, gardener, epicure

I cite here the edited Latin edition by Mary Ella Milham mostly because it is the original text thus avoiding the controversies of other edited or translated editions. While the cookery book attributed to Apicius is in fact a compilation of several hands from several periods with no one particular author responsible for the total work, this is the most important cookbook surviving from Antiquity and thus it remains a source of study for insights into the cuisine of the ancient Greeks and Romans. It had a profound influence on the Renaissance and remains one of the great culinary classics of world culture.

Apicius: A Critical Edition with an Introduction and English Translation

Recommended by

William Woys Weaver

Eleanor Barnett

Jonathon Sawyer

Hervé This

Ben Reade

Sally Grainger

Ken Albala