Cook books seem to have been numerous in antiquity, but only Apicius, who lived in the first century AD, has come down to us. His work is preserved in two ninth century AD manuscripts. One is from Tours, under the Abbot Vivian (844-851). The Tours Manuscript is now in the Vatican Library.

The other copy was brought from Fulda to Italy in 1455, and is now in the Library of the Academy of Medicine in New York.
Apart from these manuscripts, some fragments made by Vinidarius, an Ostragoth living in Northern Italy in the fifth or sixth century, have survived in an eighth century manuscript.


B.Flower and E.Rosenbaum note that Apicius shows very clearly that the Romans didn't like the taste of meat, fish, or vegitables in their pure form. There is hardly a single recipe which does not add a sauce to the main ingredient, a sauce which changes the original taste radically. (At the end of one of the recipes Apicius notes with pride that ono one at the table will know what he is eating...)

Petronius' feast held by Trimalchio offers many examples of the Roman passion for disguising both the apearance and taste of foods.