ZAP’S FACTS!
ORIGINS

The world's oldest cookbook is about 4,000 years old.

Ancient cooks wrote recipes for stews and bread on clay tablets in what is now Iraq - long before paper existed.

2 min read
The world's oldest cookbook is about 4,000 years old.
THE FULL STORY

The oldest cookbook ever found isn’t a book at all. It’s a set of three clay tablets discovered in Mesopotamia - modern-day Iraq - that date back about 4,000 years. The tablets list recipes for stews, breads, and pies in Akkadian, the language of ancient Babylon. Most of the recipes are very short and assume the cook already knows what to do.

One of the recipes is for a spiced lamb stew flavored with garlic, onions, leeks, and a sour milk product. Another describes how to make a kind of pie with a wheat-flour crust. The lack of measurements probably means the tablets were written for experienced palace cooks who didn’t need step-by-step help.

A much more detailed cookbook appeared in the Roman Empire around 1 AD, written by (or named after) a famous Roman gourmet called Apicius. His book includes recipes for honey-roasted dormouse, garum (a smelly fish sauce), and many vegetable dishes. We still cook from his recipes today, more than 2,000 years later.

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