The Oldest Cookbooks from Libraries Around the World

Libro de arte coquinaria

The Library of Congress

The 15th-century Libro de arte coquinaria, or The Art of Cooking, is the work of Maestro Martino da Como. Martino was known for cooking for his employer. Along the way, he achieved fame as “the prince of cooks.” Martino’s work is significant for another reason too. In the 15th century, his recipes made up a major part of the world’s first printed cookbook, Platina’s De honesta voluptate et valetudine.

Shanjia Qinggong

The Harvard-Yenching Library

Harvard-Yenching owns a 17th-century copy of the Simple Offerings of Rural Households (Shanjia Qinggong). Containing over 100 recipes, Simple Offerings is probably the earliest surviving cookbook in Chinese. The author, Lin Hong, was a man of letters who lived in the Southern Song Dynasty. Lin evidently preferred vegetarian foods, as most of his recipes were plant-based.

Wushi Zhongkui lu

The Harvard-Yenching Library

Harvard-Yenching is also home to a 17th-century copy of the Cooking Manual of Madame Wu (Wushi Zhongkui lu), one of two surviving cookbooks by a Chinese woman before the 20th century. Unfortunately, few of Madame Wu’s personal details are known. Scholars guess that she lived in the larger Shanghai region during the Southern Song Dynasty. Madame Wu apparently had a weakness for sweets, as she devoted a full chapter of her cookbook just to desserts.

Complete Kitchen and Cellar Dictionary The Oslo Public Library

The Oslo Public Library, known as the Deichman Library, has a 1716 copy of the Complete Kitchen and Cellar Dictionary, written by the German writer Paul Jacob Marperger. It belonged to a Norwegian lawyer named Johan Fredrik Bartholin, who donated it to the city of Christiania (the former name for Oslo) in 1784. The book has been in the Deichman collection since it opened in 1785.

【小题1】Who greatly contributed to the world’s first printed cookbook?

A．Lin Hong.	B．Paul Jacob Marperger.
C．Maestro Martino da Como.	D．Madame Wu.

【小题2】What similarity do the two Chinese cookbooks share?

A．Their authors were a man of letters.

B．They focused on plant-based recipes.

C．Their copies first appeared in Shanghai.

D．They were written in the Southern Song Dynasty.

【小题3】Which of the following is in the Deichman collection?

A．Shanjia Qinggong.	B．Wushi Zhongkui lu.
C．Libro de arte coquinaria.	D．Complete Kitchen and Cellar Dictionary.