Ancient Roman “De Re Coquinaria” Is the Oldest Surviving Cookbook in the World

Ancient Roman “De Re Coquinaria” Is the Oldest Surviving Cookbook in the World Have you ever wondered what people in ancient times ate for their meals? Salt, sugar, and most spices were historically precious, difficult to come by in daily life, and certainly not available to a large majority of the population. If most people in ancient times didn’t have access to ingredients that we take for granted […] READ: Ancient Roman “De Re Coquinaria” Is the Oldest Surviving Cookbook in the World

Art Aug 29, 2025 0 1 Add to Reading List

Ancient Roman “De Re Coquinaria” Is the Oldest Surviving Cookbook in the World

Peppered Honey Cake. (Photo: Carole Raddato via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Have you ever wondered what people in ancient times ate for their meals? Salt, sugar, and most spices were historically precious, difficult to come by in daily life, and certainly not available to a large majority of the population. If most people in ancient times didn’t have access to ingredients that we take for granted now, what did they cook?

An ancient Roman cookbook titled De Re Coquinaria gives us a glimpse into what an ancient diet could have looked like. Though it is difficult to place its origins exactly, the De Re Coquinaria is believed to date anywhere between the first and fifth century CE. It has been attributed to “Apicius,” a name that could refer to an unknown figure, the ancient Roman gourmet Marcus Gavius Apicius, or even a group of unnamed Roman cooks.

Joseph Dommers Vehling published an English translation of the recipe book in 1926. One of the biggest takeaways from the cookbook is the importance of meat in the Roman diet. Vehling remarked in a preface to the book that “cruel methods of slaughter were common.” He also noticed an evolution in the recipes themselves, primarily in the shift from beef-oriented meals to chicken and pork.

As Vehling astutely observed, “the ancient bill of fare and the ancient methods of cookery were entirely guided by the supply of raw materials—precisely like ours.” The Romans were also noticeably low-waste, utilizing parts of food materials that Vehling saw as inferior at the time that he published his translation of the cookbook.

Another interesting ancient Roman tradition may be connected to their “waste nothing” mentality. According to How Stuff Works, “cooks then were revered if they could disguise a common food item so that diners had no idea what they were eating.” This likely developed out of a need to cover the taste of spoilage, which may have occurred if the Romans were using food parts that are perhaps best left alone.

In terms of actual recipes, though, there is a wide variety of dishes, some that may be more easily replicable today than others. A common seafood mince that consists of sea-crab, fish, lobster, cuttlefish, ink fish, spiny lobster, scallops and oysters, for example, may actually be more expensive to make today than it was in the past. And, crucially, the recipes in De Re Coquinaria don’t contain measurements—cooking for the ancient Romans happened based off smell, feel, and custom more than anything.

If you’re interested in dining as the Romans did, you can find Vehling’s translation of De Re Coquinaria on Project Gutenberg or the Internet Archive. And while it may not be your cup of tea, it’s a great reminder of how cooking has evolved and continues to be an exercise in ingenuity, intuition, and improvisation. So, which recipe will you try first?