Rebinding of one of the World's Oldest Cookbooks is Completed

NEW YORK CITY, July 21--Conservators have completed the rebinding and restoration of the oldest cookbook in the West, popularly known as the Apicius, which dates back to the 9th century and is owned by The New York Academy of Medicine. This treasured book is part of our Rare Book Collection, housed in the Academy???s Library at 103rd St. and Fifth Avenue.

This medieval cookbook was restored by a highly skilled conservator who spent months rebinding it by hand and restoring the parchment leaves in a painstaking process. It is the only surviving Roman cookbook, a 9th century copy of the original 2nd century cookery manual. Only two copies of this cookbook, formally entitled De Re Coquinaria, are known to exist. The other 9th century copy resides in the Vatican library ??? but ours is older by a few years. The Apicius is regarded by culinary historians and those involved with cookery with an almost religious adoration.

This 57-leaf document is written in Latin and contains recipes used by the Romans. The book had been rebound in the 18th century by a French book dealer in mottled calf with gilt edges. The book dealer had removed the 9th century binding to separate the Apicius from a text by Hippocrates???the two had been bound together. (The Hippocrates now resides in a collection in Geneva, Switzerland, and is bound in the same 18th century mottled calf as formerly on the Academy???s Apicius manuscript). Some years ago, the worn 18th century binding was removed, and the 1,200-year-old manuscript needed to be rebound. Earlier this year, the Academy hired Deborah Evetts, the now-retired Head of Rare Book Conservation at the Pierpont Morgan Library, to restore the Apicius using a generous donation from the Culinary Trust. That donation was underwritten by The Brown-Forman Corporation and KitchenAid. Evetts cleaned and repaired the 9th century manuscript???s parchment leaves, added new vellum endsheets for protection, and hand-sewed through original sewing holes.

The modern fine binding was constructed of alum-tawed calfskin over heavy laminated boards that properly compress the parchment leaves. (The Academy has retained the worn 18th century binding, and has created a facsimile of the 9th century binding in which the book would have originally been bound). The Apicius is part of the Academy Library???s large collection of books and pamphlets on cookery and nutrition, some of which were bequeathed by Dr. Margaret Barclay Wilson beginning in 1929. Wilson was an Academy Fellow and a professor of physiology and hygiene at Hunter College. Cookery books in more than 20 languages are included in the Academy???s collection, including Le Cuisinier Francois by Francois Pierre de la Varenne (1662), considered to be the first great French cookbook, and the third edition (1804) of Amelia Simmons's American Cookery, which is the first cookbook of American authorship printed in the United States. The first edition was printed just eight years earlier.

The Academy's copy of the Apicius was penned in the 9th century in the scriptorium of the monastery at Fulda in Germany. Seven different scribes copied the text, which is rather plain and contains only some rubrication of initial letters in red but no other ornamentation.

???It has been suggested that the text was a safe one to hand to young monks being introduced to the ways of the monastic scriptorium,??? said Miriam Mandelbaum, the Academy???s Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. Authorship of the Apicius is in dispute: some scholars believe much of the material was written by Marcus Gavius Apicius, a renowned epicurean and bon vivant, while others believe that more than one person was responsible for the recipes contained in the 10 chapters.

The cookbook is a fascinating document that offers a glimpse of life in ancient Rome. It contains 500 recipes, and uses the secrets of ancient Roman and classical Greek cuisine in his recipes. We today eat many of the same green vegetables, meats, poultry, and seafood as called for in these recipes, and most of the same spices. Among the herbs used by Romans (and which they introduced to the West) are oregano, sage, coriander, parsley, rosemary, and thyme.

The Academy's copy of the Apicius passed through different hands over the centuries and eventually ended up at the Paris bookseller's shop. The cookbook was purchased by an English aristocrat and book collector. After his death, it was sold at auction and was purchased by Dr. Margaret Barclay Wilson, who eventually gave it to the Academy. The Culinary Trust is planning a press luncheon for September 27 at the French Culinary Institute. The Academy is planning an event for the new year to commemorate the long-awaited restoration of this book and to highlight other important books in our collection. The event is still in the planning stages; we hope for it to include lectures by Evetts, whose book conservation skills were integral to the restoration of the manuscript, food historian Sally Grainger, author of Cooking Apicius: Roman Recipes for Today, a book which will be published in the fall of 2006, and Chris Grocock, co-author with Grainger of Apicius: A Critical Edition with an Introduction and English Translation, to be published on September 7. Grainger???s book includes 64 recipes that can be reproduced in the modern kitchen. Some of the recipes are for ???mad Roman luxuries such as lark's tongues and boar's bottoms,??? but Grainger has also included more familiar dishes such as cucumber with mint dressing, duck with turnip, roast lamb with coriander, carrots or parsnips in a cumin-honey glaze, and deep fried honey fritters.

Founded in 1847, The New York Academy of Medicine is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit institution whose mission is to enhance the health of the public. The Academy is a leading center for urban health policy and action working to enhance the health of people living in cities worldwide through research, education, advocacy, and prevention. Visit us online at www.nyam.org.

Posted on July 21, 2006

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Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org

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