Roman recipes
- Written
- Compiled about 300–500 from older recipes; the surviving manuscripts were copied in the 800s
- Place
- The Roman Empire
- Language
- Latin
- Kind of source
- recipes
- Reading time
- 5 minutes
- Difficulty
- Accessible
- Intensity
- Low
To make a sweet, take dates, pull out the stones, stuff them with nuts or pepper, touch them with salt, fry them in honey, and serve. That is the whole recipe. Most of the recipes in this book are as short, written as quick orders to a cook who already knew how much to use and how long to cook it.
The book is known as Apicius. Marcus Gavius Apicius (the name is also spelled Gabius) was a rich Roman of the early first century CE whose name became a byword for costly eating. The philosopher Seneca, who lived in the same years, wrote that Apicius taught the "science of the cookshop" in Rome, spent a vast fortune on food, and poisoned himself when he found he had only ten million sesterces left. Apicius did not write this book. Its editors of 1922 judged it a shortened version, made in the fourth or fifth century and partly in everyday late Latin, of an older collection named after him. The cook who used it may have had recipes centuries apart side by side.
It survives in two manuscripts copied in the ninth century from an older copy at the monastery of Fulda in Germany. One is in the Vatican Library; the other belonged in 1922 to the Phillipps library at Cheltenham, England. Later copies descend from them. Their text is often damaged, and the editors marked the words they added or would delete.
The book is a collection, not a diary of real meals. It cannot tell us what most Romans ate. Many of its ingredients were costly: pepper came from India, and the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, in the first century, gave its price in the market as four to fifteen denarii a pound. By our count pepper appears in about three of every four recipes, and fish sauce in seven of every ten. The recipes kept here favor sauces, honey, fruit, eggs, and things to drink. Elsewhere the book cooks flamingo, dormouse, and sow's womb.
Notice how much each recipe leaves to the cook, and which instructions are about keeping food, or about making a cheaper thing pass for a dearer one.
The edited translation, in simplified modern English. Bracketed words were added for clarity; [...] marks a cut. Tap a note number to read the note. Point at or tap a phrase to see the original behind it. Phrase links checked in a separate review.
Book 1: Drinks and keeping food
1.1.2Spiced honey that keeps for good, for travelers on the road.1 Put ground pepper and skimmed honey in a small cask, to keep as a store. When it is time for a drink, take out just as much honey as you need, or mix in as much wine. If the cask is larger, put some wine in with the honey mixture, so that the honey pours out more easily.
1.3.1To make rose wine: Take rose petals and cut off their white bases. Thread them on a linen string to make strings of petals, and soak as many strings as you can in wine for seven days. After seven days, take the roses out of the wine. Put in fresh strings of petals the same way, let them rest in the wine for another seven days, and take the roses out. Do the same a third time: take the roses out and strain the wine. When you want to drink it, add honey, and your rose wine is made. Be sure to use only the best roses, and dry of dew. Make violet wine from violets the same way, and blend it with honey the same way.
1.3.2To make rose wine without roses: Put green citron leaves2 in a small basket woven of palm leaves, and lower it into a jar of must3 before the must begins to ferment. After forty days, take it out. When you need it, add honey and use it as rose wine.
1.5To turn dark wine white: Put bean meal or the whites of three eggs into a flask of the wine and shake it for a very long time. The next day it will be white. Ashes of the "white vine"4 do the same.
1.7.1To keep meat fresh for any length of time without salting it: Cover fresh meat of any kind you like with honey, but hang the jar up. Use it whenever you want. This works better in winter; in summer it will last only a few days. You can do the same with cooked meat.
1.11.2To make bad honey good: You can make bad honey good enough to sell by mixing one part of the bad with two parts of good.
1.11.3To test whether honey has gone bad: Dip elecampane in the honey and set it alight. If the honey is sound, it burns brightly.5
1.12.1To keep grapes for a long time: Pick grapes from the vine without damaging them. Boil rainwater down to a third, and pour it into a jar; put the grapes in the same jar. Have the jar sealed with pitch and plaster, and have it stored in a cold place that the sun cannot reach. Whenever you want, you will find the grapes fresh. Give the water itself to the sick in place of honey water.6 Grapes buried in barley will also keep without damage.
1.21Herb sauce:7 Mint, rue, coriander, and fennel, all fresh; lovage,8 pepper, honey, and fish sauce.9 If needed, add vinegar.
Book 4: Patinas
4.2.9A patina10 of roses: Take roses and pull off the petals. Cut off the white bases, put the petals in a mortar, pour on fish sauce, and grind them. Then add one and a half cyathi11 of fish sauce, and strain the juice. Take four brains, remove the sinews, and grind them with eight scruples12 of pepper. Pour on some of the rose juice and grind again. Then break eight eggs and add one and a half cyathi of wine, one cyathus of raisin wine,13 and a little oil. Grease a pan, set it on hot ashes, and pour in the mixture described above. When it has cooked over the hot ashes, sprinkle it with ground pepper and serve.
4.2.35A patina of pears: Boil some pears and take out their cores. Grind them with pepper, cumin, honey, raisin wine, fish sauce, and a little oil. Add eggs and make a patina. Sprinkle pepper on top and serve.
Book 5: Peas and beans
5.3.1Peas: Cook the peas. When the foam has been skimmed off, put leek, coriander, and cumin on top. Grind pepper, lovage, caraway, dill, and fresh basil; pour on fish sauce, and season it with wine and fish sauce. Bring it to a boil. When it boils, stir it. If anything is missing, add it, and serve.
Book 7: Sweets and eggs
7.13.1Homemade sweets: Take dates14 and remove the stones. Stuff them with nuts, pine nuts, or ground pepper. Touch the outsides with salt, fry them in cooked honey, and serve.
7.13.3Another sweet: Take loaves of fine white bread,15 scrape off the crusts, and break them into fairly large pieces. Soak them in milk, fry them in oil, pour honey over them, and serve.
7.13.7Milk patina:16 Take as much milk as you think the dish will need, and sweeten it with honey, as for milk dishes. Add five eggs to a sextarius17 of milk, or three eggs to a hemina. Beat them into the milk until it is all one mixture. Strain it into a dish of Cumaean ware18 and cook it over a low fire. When it has set, sprinkle it with pepper and serve.
7.13.8Sponge eggs with milk: Beat four eggs, a hemina of milk, and an uncia19 of oil together until they are all one mixture. Put a little oil in a thin pan, heat it until it bubbles, and pour in the mixture you have prepared. When it has cooked on one side, turn it out onto a plate. Pour honey over it, sprinkle it with pepper, and serve.
7.19.3For soft-boiled eggs: Pepper, lovage, and soaked pine nuts. Pour on honey and vinegar, and season with fish sauce.
Notes
- A conditum was a spiced wine. The book's first recipe makes one from wine, honey, pepper, and other spices; this one keeps the honey and pepper in a cask, to be mixed with wine as needed. back
- Latin citrus usually means the citron, a lemonlike fruit tree, but the same word also named an African tree prized for its fragrant wood. back
- Mustum, the juice of freshly pressed grapes, before it ferments into wine. back
- Vitis alba, "the white vine," a plant usually identified as white bryony. back
- Elecampane (helenium) is a plant, Inula helenium. The editors suspected the text is damaged here; Vollmer guessed that it once said to pour the honey into a lamp and light it. back
- A drink of honey mixed with water, called hydromel. back
- Moretaria, sauces in the manner of moretum, a country dish of garlic, rue, vinegar, oil, and other ingredients. Rue is a bitter herb. back
- Ligusticum, "the Ligurian [herb]," lovage, named for Liguria in northwest Italy. back
- Liquamen, a fish sauce like the better-known garum, which Pliny the Elder describes as made from fish innards steeped in salt. back
- A patina was a shallow pan, and also the dish cooked in it. Many of the book's patinas are set with eggs. back
- A cyathus was a ladle for serving wine and a measure of one-twelfth of a sextarius: a little under 50 milliliters, about three tablespoons. back
- A scruple (scripulum) was the smallest Roman weight in common use, one twenty-fourth of an uncia, a little over a gram. back
- Passum, a sweet wine made from grapes dried in the sun until they had lost about half their weight. back
- The Latin gives two words for dates, palmulae and dactyli; how they differed is not clear. back
- Made from siligo, a very white wheat, or the fine flour ground from it. back
- The Latin name, tyropatina, joins Greek tyros, "cheese," to patina, though the recipe uses no cheese. back
- A sextarius held a little under an English pint, a little over half a liter. A hemina was half a sextarius. back
- Pottery from Cumae, a town on the coast of Campania, in southern Italy. back
- The uncia was one-twelfth of a pound. As a measure of liquid it was one-twelfth of a sextarius, the same as a cyathus. back
Conditum melizomum perpetuum, quod subministratur per viam peregrinanti: piper tritum cum melle despumato in cupellam mittis conditi loco, et ad momentum quantum sit bibendum, tantum aut mellis proferas aut vini misceas. sed si <maius> vas erit, nonnihil vini melizomo mittas, adiciendum propter mellis exitum solutiorem.
Spiced honey-mixture [conditum melizomum], everlasting, which is supplied to one traveling on the road: you put ground pepper with skimmed honey into a small cask in place of a store [conditi loco?], and at the moment, as much as is to be drunk, so much you bring out of the honey or mix [in] of wine. But if the vessel is ⟨larger⟩, you should put some wine into the honey-mixture, to be added for the sake of a looser outflow of the honey.
Spiced honey that keeps for good, for travelers on the road. Put ground pepper and skimmed honey in a small cask, to keep as a store. When it is time for a drink, take out just as much honey as you need, or mix in as much wine. If the cask is larger, put some wine in with the honey mixture, so that the honey pours out more easily.
- A conditum was a spiced wine. The book's first recipe makes one from wine, honey, pepper, and other spices; this one keeps the honey and pepper in a cask, to be mixed with wine as needed.
Rosatum sic facies: folia rosarum, albo sublato, lino inseris et sutilis facias, et vino quam plurimas infundes, ut septem diebus in vino sint. post septem dies rosam de vino tollis, et alias sutiles recentes similiter mittis, ut per dies septem in vino requiescant, et rosam eximis. similiter et tertio facies, et rosam eximis, et vinum colas, et, cum ad bibendum voles uti, addito melle rosatum conficies. sane custodito ut rosam a rore siccam et optimam mittas. Similiter, ut supra, et de <viola> violatium facies, et eodem modo melle temperabis.
Rose wine you will make thus: rose petals, the white removed, you thread on linen and make strings [sutiles], and soak as many as possible in wine, so that they are in the wine for seven days. After seven days you take the rose out of the wine, and you put in other fresh strings in the same way, so that they rest in the wine for seven days, and you take out the rose. In the same way you will do it a third time, and take out the rose, and strain the wine, and, when you wish to use it for drinking, with honey added you will make rose wine. Of course, take care that you put in rose dry of dew and the best. In the same way, as above, you will make violet wine from ⟨violets⟩, and in the same way you will blend it with honey.
To make rose wine: Take rose petals and cut off their white bases. Thread them on a linen string to make strings of petals, and soak as many strings as you can in wine for seven days. After seven days, take the roses out of the wine. Put in fresh strings of petals the same way, let them rest in the wine for another seven days, and take the roses out. Do the same a third time: take the roses out and strain the wine. When you want to drink it, add honey, and your rose wine is made. Be sure to use only the best roses, and dry of dew. Make violet wine from violets the same way, and blend it with honey the same way.
Rosatum sine rosa sic facies: folia citri viridia in sportella palmea in dolium musti mittes antequam ferveat, et post quadraginta dies exime. cum necesse fuerit, mel addes et pro rosato utere.
Rose wine without rose you will make thus: green citron leaves in a little palm-leaf basket you will put into a jar of must before it ferments, and after forty days take [it] out. When it is needed, you will add honey and use it for rose wine.
To make rose wine without roses: Put green citron leaves in a small basket woven of palm leaves, and lower it into a jar of must before the must begins to ferment. After forty days, take it out. When you need it, add honey and use it as rose wine.
- Latin citrus usually means the citron, a lemonlike fruit tree, but the same word also named an African tree prized for its fragrant wood.
- Mustum, the juice of freshly pressed grapes, before it ferments into wine.
Vinum ex atro candidum facies: lomentum ex faba factum vel ovorum trium alborem in lagonam mittis et diutissime agitas: alia die erit candidum. et cineres vitis albae idem faciunt.
You will make white wine from dark: you put bean meal [lomentum made from bean] or the white of three eggs into a flask and shake [it] very long: the next day it will be white. And ashes of the white vine do the same.
To turn dark wine white: Put bean meal or the whites of three eggs into a flask of the wine and shake it for a very long time. The next day it will be white. Ashes of the "white vine" do the same.
- Vitis alba, "the white vine," a plant usually identified as white bryony.
Vt carnes sine sale quovis tempore recentes sint: carnes recentes quales volueris melle tegantur, sed vas pendeat, et, quando volueris, utere. hoc hieme melius fit, aestate paucis diebus durabit. et in carne cocta itidem facies.
So that meats may be fresh at any time without salt: let fresh meats, of whatever kind you wish, be covered with honey, but let the vessel hang, and when you wish, use [them]. This is done better in winter; in summer it will last a few days. And with cooked meat you will do likewise.
To keep meat fresh for any length of time without salting it: Cover fresh meat of any kind you like with honey, but hang the jar up. Use it whenever you want. This works better in winter; in summer it will last only a few days. You can do the same with cooked meat.
Vt mel malum bonum facias: mel malum bonum facies ad vendendum, unam partem mali et duas boni si simul miscueris.
That you may make bad honey good: you will make bad honey good for selling, if you mix together one part of the bad and two of the good.
To make bad honey good: You can make bad honey good enough to sell by mixing one part of the bad with two parts of good.
Mel corruptum ut probes: helenium infundes in melle et incende: si incorruptum est, lucet.
That you may test spoiled honey: you will steep elecampane [helenium] in the honey and set [it] alight: if it is unspoiled, it shines.
To test whether honey has gone bad: Dip elecampane in the honey and set it alight. If the honey is sound, it burns brightly.
- Elecampane (helenium) is a plant, Inula helenium. The editors suspected the text is damaged here; Vollmer guessed that it once said to pour the honey into a lamp and light it.
Vvae ut diu serventur: accipies uvas de vite inlaesas, et aquam pluvialem ad tertias decoques, et mittis in vas, in quo et uvas mittis. vas picari et gypsari facies, et in locum frigidum, ubi sol accessum non habet, reponi facies, et, quando volueris, uvas virides invenies. et ipsam aquam pro hydromelli aegris dabis. et si in hordeo obruas, inlaesas invenies.
That grapes may be kept long: you will take grapes from the vine undamaged, and you will boil down rainwater to a third, and you put it into a vessel, into which you also put the grapes. You will have the vessel pitched and plastered, and you will have it put away in a cold place, where the sun has no access, and, when you wish, you will find green [fresh] grapes. And the water itself you will give to the sick as [in place of?] hydromel. And if you bury [them] in barley, you will find them undamaged.
To keep grapes for a long time: Pick grapes from the vine without damaging them. Boil rainwater down to a third, and pour it into a jar; put the grapes in the same jar. Have the jar sealed with pitch and plaster, and have it stored in a cold place that the sun cannot reach. Whenever you want, you will find the grapes fresh. Give the water itself to the sick in place of honey water. Grapes buried in barley will also keep without damage.
- A drink of honey mixed with water, called hydromel.
Moretaria: mentam, rutam, coriandrum, feniculum, omnia viridia, ligusticum, piper, mel, liquamen. si opus fuerit, acetum addes.
Herb sauces [moretaria]: mint, rue, coriander, fennel, all green [fresh], lovage, pepper, honey, liquamen. If it is needed, you will add vinegar.
Herb sauce: Mint, rue, coriander, and fennel, all fresh; lovage, pepper, honey, and fish sauce. If needed, add vinegar.
- Moretaria, sauces in the manner of moretum, a country dish of garlic, rue, vinegar, oil, and other ingredients. Rue is a bitter herb.
- Ligusticum, "the Ligurian [herb]," lovage, named for Liguria in northwest Italy.
- Liquamen, a fish sauce like the better-known garum, which Pliny the Elder describes as made from fish innards steeped in salt.
Patinam de rosis: accipies rosas et exfoliabis: album tolles, mittes in mortarium, suffundes liquamen, fricabis. postea mittes liquaminis cyathum unum semis, et sucum per colum colabis. accipies cerebella IV, enervabis et teres piperis scripulos VIII. suffundes ex suco, fricabis. postea ova VIII frangis, <mittis> vini cyathum unum semis et passi cyathum unum, olei modicum. postea patinam perunges et eam impones cineri calido, et sic impensam supra scriptam mittes. cum cocta fuerit in thermospodio, piperis pulverem super asperges et inferes.
Patina of roses: you will take roses and strip off the petals: you will remove the white, put [them] into a mortar, pour on liquamen, rub [grind]. Then you will put in one and a half cyathi of liquamen, and strain the juice through a strainer. You will take 4 brains, remove their sinews, and grind 8 scruples of pepper. You will pour on [some] of the juice, rub. Then you break 8 eggs, ⟨add⟩ one and a half cyathi of wine and one cyathus of raisin wine [passum], a little oil. Then you will grease a pan and set it on hot ash, and so put in the mixture written above. When it is cooked in the hot ashes [thermospodium], sprinkle powdered pepper over [it] and serve.
A patina of roses: Take roses and pull off the petals. Cut off the white bases, put the petals in a mortar, pour on fish sauce, and grind them. Then add one and a half cyathi of fish sauce, and strain the juice. Take four brains, remove the sinews, and grind them with eight scruples of pepper. Pour on some of the rose juice and grind again. Then break eight eggs and add one and a half cyathi of wine, one cyathus of raisin wine, and a little oil. Grease a pan, set it on hot ashes, and pour in the mixture described above. When it has cooked over the hot ashes, sprinkle it with ground pepper and serve.
- A patina was a shallow pan, and also the dish cooked in it. Many of the book's patinas are set with eggs.
- A cyathus was a ladle for serving wine and a measure of one-twelfth of a sextarius: a little under 50 milliliters, about three tablespoons.
- A scruple (scripulum) was the smallest Roman weight in common use, one twenty-fourth of an uncia, a little over a gram.
- Passum, a sweet wine made from grapes dried in the sun until they had lost about half their weight.
Patina de piris: pira elixa et purgata e medio teres cum pipere, cumino, melle, passo, liquamine, oleo modico. ovis missis patinam facies, piper super asparges et inferes.
Patina of pears: boiled pears, cleaned out from the middle, you will grind with pepper, cumin, honey, raisin wine, liquamen, a little oil. With eggs put in, you will make a patina, sprinkle pepper over [it] and serve.
A patina of pears: Boil some pears and take out their cores. Grind them with pepper, cumin, honey, raisin wine, fish sauce, and a little oil. Add eggs and make a patina. Sprinkle pepper on top and serve.
Pisam coques. cum despumaverit, porrum, coriandrum et cuminum supra mittis. teres piper, ligusticum, [careum hoc est caravita] careum, anethum, ocimum viride, suffundis liquamen, vino et liquamine temperabis, facies ut ferveat. cum ferbuerit, agitabis. si quid defuerit, mittis et inferes.
Peas: you will cook the pea. When it has been skimmed, you put leek, coriander and cumin on top. You will grind pepper, lovage, [caraway, that is caravita] caraway, dill, green basil, pour on liquamen, you will blend [it] with wine and liquamen, you will make it boil. When it has boiled, you will stir. If anything is lacking, you add [it] and serve.
Peas: Cook the peas. When the foam has been skimmed off, put leek, coriander, and cumin on top. Grind pepper, lovage, caraway, dill, and fresh basil; pour on fish sauce, and season it with wine and fish sauce. Bring it to a boil. When it boils, stir it. If anything is missing, add it, and serve.
Dulcia domestica: palmulas vel dactylos excepto semine, nuce vel nucleis vel pipere trito infercies. sale foris contingis, frigis in melle cocto, et inferes.
Homemade sweets: you will stuff palm dates or dates [palmulas vel dactylos], the stone removed, with nut or pine kernels or ground pepper. You touch [them] with salt outside, you fry [them] in cooked honey, and serve.
Homemade sweets: Take dates and remove the stones. Stuff them with nuts, pine nuts, or ground pepper. Touch the outsides with salt, fry them in cooked honey, and serve.
- The Latin gives two words for dates, palmulae and dactyli; how they differed is not clear.
Aliter dulcia: siligineos rasos frangis, et buccellas maiores facies. in lacte infundis, frigis, ex [in] oleo, mel superfundis et inferes.
Another [way], sweets: you break scraped [loaves] of fine wheat [siligineos], and make largish morsels. You soak [them] in milk, you fry [them] in oil, you pour honey over and serve.
Another sweet: Take loaves of fine white bread, scrape off the crusts, and break them into fairly large pieces. Soak them in milk, fry them in oil, pour honey over them, and serve.
- Made from siligo, a very white wheat, or the fine flour ground from it.
Tyropatinam: accipies lac, quod adversus patinam aestimabis, temperabis lac cum melle quasi ad lactantia, ova quinque ad sextarium mittis, si ad heminam, ova tria. in lacte dissolvis ita ut unum corpus facias, in Cumana colas et igni lento coques. cum duxerit ad se, piper aspargis et inferes.
Cheese-patina [tyropatina]: you will take milk, as much as you will judge [enough] for the patina; you will blend the milk with honey as for milk dishes [lactantia?]; you put five eggs to a sextarius, if to a hemina, three eggs. You dissolve [them] in the milk so that you make one body, you strain [it] into a Cumaean [dish] and you will cook [it] on a slow fire. When it has drawn itself together [set], you sprinkle pepper and serve.
Milk patina: Take as much milk as you think the dish will need, and sweeten it with honey, as for milk dishes. Add five eggs to a sextarius of milk, or three eggs to a hemina. Beat them into the milk until it is all one mixture. Strain it into a dish of Cumaean ware and cook it over a low fire. When it has set, sprinkle it with pepper and serve.
- The Latin name, tyropatina, joins Greek tyros, "cheese," to patina, though the recipe uses no cheese.
- A sextarius held a little under an English pint, a little over half a liter. A hemina was half a sextarius.
- Pottery from Cumae, a town on the coast of Campania, in southern Italy.
Ova spongia ex lacte: ova quattuor, lactis heminam, olei unciam in se dissolvis, ita ut unum corpus facias. in patellam subtilem adicies olei modicum, facies ut bulliat, et adicies impensam quam parasti. una parte cum fuerit coctum, in disco vertes, melle perfundis, piper aspargis et inferes.
Sponge eggs from milk: four eggs, a hemina of milk, an uncia of oil you dissolve together, so that you make one body. Into a thin pan you will put a little oil, you will make it bubble, and you will add the mixture which you have prepared. When it has cooked on one side, you will turn it onto a dish, you pour honey over, you sprinkle pepper and serve.
Sponge eggs with milk: Beat four eggs, a hemina of milk, and an uncia of oil together until they are all one mixture. Put a little oil in a thin pan, heat it until it bubbles, and pour in the mixture you have prepared. When it has cooked on one side, turn it out onto a plate. Pour honey over it, sprinkle it with pepper, and serve.
- The uncia was one-twelfth of a pound. As a measure of liquid it was one-twelfth of a sextarius, the same as a cyathus.
In ovis hapalis: piper, ligusticum, nucleos infusos. suffundes mel, acetum: liquamine temperabis.
For soft eggs: pepper, lovage, soaked pine kernels. You will pour on honey, vinegar; you will blend with liquamen.
For soft-boiled eggs: Pepper, lovage, and soaked pine nuts. Pour on honey and vinegar, and season with fish sauce.
Page images of the original object or of the printed edition, from the libraries and archives that hold them. The pages shown are copied here where the holder marks them public domain; titles link to the holder's own viewer. Click a page to see it full size.
Apicii librorum X qui dicuntur De re coquinaria quae extant (Leipzig, 1922)
University of Toronto, Robarts Library, via Internet Archive. pp. 6–57 (image numbers n11–n62). Marked "not in copyright" on the Internet Archive record. Linked only, not copied..
The printing our text follows; every kept recipe was read against these pages.
Other translations of this passage. Links go to copies that are free to read online.
Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome (Chicago: Walter M. Hill, 1936)
Joseph Dommers Vehling, 1936. English. In copyright; not free online.
The whole book, with commentary. Its US copyright status has not been checked.
Altrömische Kochkunst in zehn Büchern (Leipzig: K. Däweritz, 1911)
Eduard Danneil, 1911. German. Public domain.
The whole book, in a free translation by a professional cook.
New translation from the Latin text of Giarratano and Vollmer's edition (Leipzig, 1922), read in the Project Gutenberg transcription and checked against the page images of the 1922 printing.
Seventeen short recipes, each given whole. Schuch's edition numbers 478 recipes in the book's ten books, so this is just under 4 percent of them.
The recipes speak to the cook as "you" in the future and present tenses ("you will grind," "you put"); we give them as instructions. Untranslated measures are in italics and glossed once. Liquamen is translated "fish sauce." Patina is kept, since no English dish name fits. Words the editors would delete (in square brackets in the Latin) are left untranslated. Our insertions are in square brackets.
- Original
- Text as printed in the named edition or on the object, read from page images. Edition: Apicii librorum X qui dicuntur De re coquinaria quae extant, ed. C. Giarratano and Fr. Vollmer (Leipzig: Teubner, 1922), pp. 6–57. Digital text: Project Gutenberg 16439 (2005, updated 2021), copied by code; only the Latin text of the recipes, without the critical apparatus, the editors' line numbers or their recipe headings in spaced type. Every kept recipe read against the page images of the University of Toronto copy, Internet Archive apiciilibrorvmxq00apicuoft. Angle brackets < > mark words the editors added; square brackets [ ] mark words they would delete.
- Transliterated
- Not needed: the original is in the Latin alphabet
- Close English
- Close translation drafted by Claude (Anthropic), kept as a working draft
- Simplified English
- Drafted by Claude (Anthropic) from the original and checked unit by unit against the original in a separate review, then compared with earlier translations and tested for borrowed wording.
- Editor’s review
- Not yet.
- Specialist review
- Not yet. Readings a specialist should confirm are listed for later review.
- Rights
- Original: public domain. Edition: being checked.
Sources for the notes
- Apicius. Apicii librorum X qui dicuntur De re coquinaria quae extant. Edited by C. Giarratano and Fr. Vollmer. Leipzig: Teubner, 1922. The preface and list of manuscripts (front matter, unnumbered pages before p. 5; scan images n7–n9) and the text of books 1–7 (pp. 5–57), from which the recipes kept come (books 1, 4, 5 and 7), in Project Gutenberg 16439 and in the page images of Internet Archive apiciilibrorvmxq00apicuoft.
- Seneca. Ad Helviam matrem de consolatione 10.8–10. Latin text, The Latin Library.
- Pliny the Elder. The Natural History of Pliny. Translated by John Bostock and H. T. Riley. London: Bohn, 1855–57. Book 12, chap. 14 (pepper; vol. 3) and book 31, chap. 43 (garum; vol. 5).
- Smith, William, ed. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly; John Murray; Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1849. "Apicius" (which spells the name M. Gabius Apicius).
- Smith, William, and Charles Anthon, eds. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. New York: Harper, 1882. "Cotyla," "Cyathus," "Scrupulum," "Sextarius," "Uncia," and "Vinum" (on passum, must, and honey wines).
- Lewis, Charlton T., and Charles Short. Harpers' Latin Dictionary. New York: Harper, 1879. Entries consulted for the glosses: careum, citrus, conditum (under condio), Cumanus, dactylus, hapalus, hydromeli, inula, ligusticus, liquamen, lomentum, moretarius, moretum, mustus, patina, passum (under pando), ruta, siligo, simila, thermospodium, tyropatina, violacium, vitis alba (under ophiostaphylon).