Cookbook | Definition & History (2024)

cookbook, collection of recipes, instructions, and information about the preparation and serving of foods. At its best, a cookbook is also a chronicle and treasury of the fine art of cooking, an art whose masterpieces—created only to be consumed—would otherwise be lost.

Cookbooks have been written in almost every literate society. One of the most famous of the early ones is the Deipnosophistai (“The Learned Banquet”), a treatise on food and food preparation written in the 2nd century bce by Athenaeus, a Greek gourmet. The treatise is presented in the form of a dialogue between two banqueters, who talk for days and relate recipes for dishes such as stuffed vine leaves and several varieties of cheesecake. Athenaeus was by no means the earliest Greek writer on cooking; he mentions more than 20 authors who preceded him, one of whom, Archestratus, produced his masterpiece, Hēdypatheia (“Pleasant Living”), in 350 bce.

Another famous gourmet of the ancient world was Apicius, a wealthy Roman merchant of the reign of Tiberius (14–37 ce). Apicius’s colossal banquets eventually drove him to bankruptcy and suicide, but he left behind a cookbook so prized that it has been preserved, in numerous editions, down to the 20th century.

The gastronomy of early China is preserved in a number of treatises, one of the most interesting of which is called The Important Things to Know About Eating and Drinking, by Huou, master chef of the imperial court of Kublai Khan (1215–94). Huou’s collection consists largely of recipes for soups, but it is also a useful encyclopaedia of household information.

Medieval Europe also produced cookbooks. Among the earliest in English was The Form of Cury (the word cury is an obsolete term for cooked food), compiled in the 12th century. It consists of 196 recipes, many of which reveal their French origin in names such as “Blank Manng” and “Payn Fondewe.” One of the first French books, called La Ménagier de Paris, was published in 1394 and contained recipes for such delicacies as frogs and snails.

The printing press revolutionized the culinary arts by making cookbooks widely available. The first known to have been printed, in 1485, was produced by an Italian, Bartolema Scappi, who mainly recorded recipes for marzipans and other sweets.

Cookbooks proliferated as the rising middle classes gained interest in better food preparation. The first cookbook written by a woman was Hannah Wooley’s The Queen-like Closet; or Rich Cabinet, published in 1670. The secrets of French cuisine were made available to a wide public by the cookbooks of great chefs like Alexis Soyer of the mid-19th century, whose Shilling Cookery for the People sold more than 100,000 copies. One of the most successful and popular cookbooks of all time was produced in the United States in 1896, when Fannie Merritt Farmer took on the editorship of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Farmer was the first to standardize the methods and measurements of her recipes, assuring reliable results to her readers.

The 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed a prodigious burst of interest in cookery, including thousands of national or regional specialty dishes that were previously unknown outside their own countries or areas. Some well-known cookbooks published during this time included Mastering the Art of French Cooking, 2 vol. (1961, 1970), by American cook Julia Child and French cooks Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle; James Beard’s American Cookery (1972), by American culinary expert James Beard; and Gordon Ramsay’s Passion for Flavour (1996), by Scottish chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay.

Cookbooks have become a mainstay of the publishing world, with scores produced annually by amateur and professional chefs, cooking schools, and the food departments of the major food producers and popular magazines.