Cookbooks that serve as basic kitchen references (sometimes known as "kitchen bibles") began to appear in the
early modern period. They provided not just recipes but overall instruction for both kitchen technique and household management. Such books were written primarily for housewives and occasionally domestic servants as opposed to professional cooks, and at times books such as
The Joy of Cooking (
United States),
La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange (
France),
The Art of Cookery (
UK, U.S.), ''
Il cucchiaio d'argento (Italy), and A Gift to Young Housewives'' (
Russia) have served as references of record for national cuisines. Cookbooks also tell stories of the writers themselves and reflect upon the era in which they are written. They often reveal notions of social, political, environmental or economic contexts. For example, during the era of industrialization, convenience foods were brought into many households and were integrated and present in cookbooks written in this time. Related to this class are instructional cookbooks, which combine recipes with in-depth, step-by-step recipes to teach beginning cooks basic concepts and techniques. In vernacular literature, people may collect traditional recipes in
family cookbooks. While western cookbooks usually group recipes for main courses by the main ingredient of the dishes,
Japanese cookbooks usually group them by cooking techniques (e.g.,
fried foods,
steamed foods, and
grilled foods). Both styles of cookbook have additional recipe groupings such as
soups or
sweets. Cookbooks can also be considered
primary historical sources for historians, as they provide clues not only about the culinary techniques and ingredients of an era, but also about broader themes such as
gender roles,
social structures,
cultural identities, and even religious and
political ideologies. The cookbook format has evolved significantly from ancient recipe collections to modern
multimedia publications, reflecting changes in cooking technology, ingredient availability, cultural exchange, and educational approaches to culinary arts. Contemporary cookbooks increasingly integrate digital components,
video tutorials, and
interactive elements to enhance traditional text-based instruction. Instructional approaches vary between didactic styles, offering detailed step-by-step instructions, explanations of cooking principles, troubleshooting guides, and progressive skill-building, and reference styles, providing concise ingredient lists, precise measurements, brief preparation summaries, and quick-reference formats for experienced cooks.
Early works '', an early collection of Roman recipes Not all cultures left written records of their culinary practices, but some examples have survived, notably three
Akkadian tablets from Ancient Mesopotamia, dating to about 1700 BC, large fragments from
Archestratus, the Latin
Apicius and some texts from the
Tang dynasty. The earliest collection of recipes that has survived in Europe is
De re coquinaria, written in
Latin. An early version was first compiled sometime in the 1st century and has often been attributed to the Roman gourmet
Marcus Gavius Apicius, though this has been cast in doubt by modern research. An
Apicius came to designate a book of recipes. The current text appears to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century; the first print edition is from 1483. It records a mix of ancient Greek and Roman cuisine, but with few details on preparation and cooking. An abbreviated epitome entitled
Apici Excerpta a Vinidario, a "pocket Apicius" by
Vinidarius, "an illustrious man", was made in the
Carolingian era. In spite of its late date it represents the last manifestation of the cuisine of Antiquity.
American Cookbooks The history of American Cookbooks began in 1742 with the American publishing of "The Compleat Housewife; or, Accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion" by Eliza Smith. This work was not an original North American text but instead a copy of an English cookbook. In 1796, the first known American cookbook titled,
American Cookery, written by Amelia Simmons, was published in
Hartford, Connecticut. Until then, the cookbooks printed and used in the
Thirteen Colonies were British. The shortage of American culinary literature may be due to the gender roles and lack of education for women during this time period. While women served as the primary cooks, the lack of female literacy likely caused the lack of production of cookbooks.
Arabic The earliest cookbooks known in Arabic are those of
al-Warraq (an early 10th-century compendium of recipes from the 9th and 10th centuries) and
al-Baghdadi (13th century).
Indian Manasollasa from India contains recipes of vegetarian and non-vegetarian
cuisines. While the text is not the first among Indian books to describe fermented foods, it contains a range of cuisines based on fermentation of cereals and flours.
Chinese Chinese recipe books are known from the
Tang dynasty, but most were lost. One of the earliest surviving Chinese-language cookbooks is "Madame Wu's"
Wushi Zhongkuilu from the late 13th century and
Hu Sihui's "
Yinshan Zhengyao" (Important Principles of Food and Drink), believed to be from 1330. Hu Sihui,
Buyantu Khan's dietitian and therapist, recorded a Chinese-inflected Central Asian cuisine as eaten by the
Yuan court; his recipes were adapted from foods eaten all over the
Mongol Empire. In 1792,
Yuan Mei published
Recipes from the Garden of Contentment, which criticized the corruption of Chinese cuisine by the Manchu.
Korean Sanga yorok was written in 1459 by the physician Jeon Soon. It is the oldest Korean cookbook, found thus far.
Ŭmsik timibang, written around 1670 by
Chang Kyehyang, is the oldest
Korean cookbook first written by a woman.
European After a long interval, the first recipe books to be compiled in Europe since Late Antiquity started to appear in the late thirteenth century. About a hundred are known to have survived, some fragmentary, from the age before printing. The earliest genuinely medieval recipes have been found in a Danish manuscript dating from around 1300, which in turn are copies of older texts that date back to the early 13th century or perhaps earlier.
Low and
High German manuscripts are among the most numerous. Among them is
Daz buch von guter spise ("The Book of Good Food") written c. 1350 in Würzberg and
Kuchenmeysterey ("Kitchen Mastery"), the first printed German cookbook from 1485. Two French collections are probably the most famous:
Le Viandier ("The Provisioner") was compiled in the late 14th century by
Guillaume Tirel, master chef for two French kings; and
Le Menagier de Paris ("The Householder of Paris"), a household book written by an anonymous middle class Parisian in the 1390s.
Du fait de cuisine is another Medieval French cookbook, written in 1420. From Southern Europe there is the 14th century
Valencian manuscript Llibre de Sent Soví (1324), the
Catalan ("The book of all recipes of dishes") and several Italian collections, notably the Venetian mid-14th century
Libro per Cuoco, with its 135 recipes alphabetically arranged. The printed
De honesta voluptate et valetudine ("On honourable pleasure"), first published in 1475, is one of the first cookbooks based on Renaissance ideals, and, though it is as much a series of moral essays as a cookbook, has been described as "the anthology that closed the book on medieval Italian cooking". Medieval English cookbooks include
The Forme of Cury and
Utilis Coquinario, both written in the fourteenth century. The Forme of Cury is a cookbook authored by the chefs of
Richard II.
Utilis Coquinario is a similar cookbook though written by an unknown author. Another English manuscript (1390s) includes the earliest recorded recipe for ravioli, even though ravioli did not originate in England.
International and Ethnic International and ethnic cookbooks fall into two categories: the kitchen references of other cultures, translated into other languages; and books translating the recipes of another culture into the languages, techniques, and ingredients of a new audience. The latter style often doubles as a sort of culinary travelogue, giving background and context to a recipe that the first type of book would assume its audience is already familiar with. Popular Puerto Rican cookbook, Cocina Criolla, written by Carmen Aboy Valldejuli, includes recipes that are typically of traditional Puerto Rican cuisine such as
mofongo and
pasteles. Valldejuli's cookbook was not only important to Puerto Ricans, but also very popular in the United States where her original cookbook has since been published in several editions, including English versions. These include The Art of Caribbean Cookery - Doubleday, 1957; Puerto Rican Cookery - Pelican Publishing, 1983; and, Juntos en la Cocina (co-authored with her husband, Luis F. Valldejuli) - Pelican Publishing, 1986.
The Rise of the Modern Cookbook '' by Eliza Acton (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1871, p. 48) With the advent of the
printing press in the 16th and 17th centuries, numerous books were written on how to manage households and prepare food. In Holland and England competition grew between the noble families as to who could prepare the most lavish banquet. By the 1660s, cookery had progressed to an art form and good cooks were in demand. Many of them published their own books detailing their recipes in competition with their rivals. Many of these books have now been translated and are available online. By the 19th century, the Victorian preoccupation for domestic respectability brought about the emergence of cookery writing in its modern form. The first modern cookery writer and compiler of recipes for the home was
Eliza Acton. Her pioneering cookbook,
Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845), was aimed at the domestic reader rather than the professional cook or chef. This was an immensely influential book, and it established the format for modern writing about cookery. The publication introduced the now-universal practice of listing the ingredients and suggested cooking times with each recipe. It included the first recipe for
Brussels sprouts. Contemporary chef
Delia Smith is quoted as having called Acton "the best writer of recipes in the English language".
Modern Cookery long survived her, remaining in print until 1914 and available more recently in facsimile reprint. Acton's work was an important influence on
Isabella Beeton, who published ''
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in 24 monthly parts between 1857 and 1861. The book was a guide to running a Victorian household, with advice on fashion, child care, animal husbandry, poisons, the management of servants, science, religion, and industrialism. Despite its title, most of the text consisted of recipes, such that another popular name for the volume is Mrs Beeton's Cookbook''. Most of the recipes were illustrated with coloured engravings, and it was the first book to show recipes in a format that is still used today. Many of the recipes were plagiarised from earlier writers, including Acton. In 1885 the
Virginia Cookery Book was published by
Mary Stuart Smith. In 1896 the American cook
Fannie Farmer (1857–1915) published
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book which contained some 1,849 recipes. During the middle ages, cookbooks often included instructions on slaughtering livestock and plucking poultry. Along with that, the spread of germs and bacteria was a significant concern. This led to cookbooks providing guidance on how to practice good hygiene while cooking. Beyond actual culinary preparation instructions, earlier cookbooks occasionally included personal observations or notes from the author. For instance, in 1584, an Italian chef recorded his suspicions regarding his servants stealing from him and noted how he needed to supervise them. Similarly, in 1668, Italian Chef Francesco Liberati included a list of specific reasons as to why cooks should abstain from alcohol in his household cookbook. Modern cookbooks extend beyond recipes, incorporating visual elements like step-by-step photographs, finished
dish presentations, ingredient identification guides, and equipment demonstrations. They provide technical information, including detailed cooking techniques, kitchen equipment recommendations, ingredient selection, storage, substitution guides, food safety protocols, and nutritional data. Additionally, they offer cultural and educational context through historical backgrounds, cultural significance, regional variations, chef biographies, culinary philosophy, and sustainable seasonal cooking principles.
Professional cookbooks Professional cookbooks are designed for the use of working chefs and culinary students and sometimes double as textbooks for culinary schools. Such books deal not only in recipes and techniques, but often service and kitchen workflow matters. Many such books deal in substantially larger quantities than home cookbooks, such as making sauces by the liter or preparing dishes for large numbers of people in a
catering setting. While the most famous of such books today are books like
Le guide culinaire by
Escoffier or
The Professional Chef by the
Culinary Institute of America, such books go at least back to medieval times, represented then by works such as
Taillevent's
Viandier and Chiquart d'Amiço's
Du fait de cuisine.
Single-subject Single-subject books, usually dealing with a specific ingredient, technique, class of dishes or target group (e.g. for kids), are quite common as well.
Jack Monroe for example features
low budget recipes. Some imprints such as
Chronicle Books have specialized in this sort of book, with books on dishes like
curries,
pizza, and simplified
ethnic food. Popular subjects for narrow-subject books on technique include
grilling/
barbecue,
baking,
outdoor cooking, and even recipe cloning (Recipe cloning is copying commercial recipes where the original is a
trade secret).
Community Community cookbooks (also known as compiled, regional, charitable, and fund-raising cookbooks) are a unique genre of culinary literature. Community cookbooks focus on home cooking, often documenting regional, ethnic, family, and societal traditions, as well as local history.
Sondra Gotlieb, for example, wrote her cookbooks on Canadian food culture by visiting people and homes by region. She gathered recipes, observed the foodways, observed the people and their traditions of each region by being in their own homes. Gotlieb did this so that she could put together a comprehensive cookbook based on the communities and individuals that make up Canada.
Gooseberry Patch has been publishing community-style cookbooks since 1992 and built their brand on this community. Community cookbooks have sometimes been created to offer a counter-narrative of historical events or sustain a community through difficult times.
The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro, published in 1958 by the
National Council of Negro Women, includes recipes that illuminate histories of Black resistance, including "
Nat Turner Crackling Bread." The 1976 ''People's Philadelphia Cookbook'', published by grassroots organization The People's Fund, includes recipes from members of the
Black Panther Party,
The United Farm Workers, and the Gay Activist Alliance of Philadelphia. For ''In Memory's Kitchen'', written in the 1940s by Jewish women interned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, women drew on their memories to contribute recipes.
Chefs Cookbooks can also document the food of a specific chef (particularly in conjunction with a
cooking show) or restaurant. Many of these books, particularly those written by or for a well-established cook with a long-running TV show or popular restaurant, become part of extended series of books that can be released over the course of many years. Popular chef-authors throughout history include people such as
Delia Smith,
Julia Child,
James Beard,
Nigella Lawson,
Edouard de Pomiane,
Jeff Smith,
Emeril Lagasse,
Claudia Roden,
Madhur Jaffrey,
Katsuyo Kobayashi, and possibly even
Apicius, the semi-pseudonymous author of the Roman cookbook
De re coquinaria, who shared a name with at least
one other famous food figure of the ancient world. ==Famous cookbooks==