Anthimus, De Observatione Ciborum: On the Observance of Foods

de obseruatione ciborum was written as a letter to Theodoric the Ostrogoth, barbarian ruler of Italy at the beginning of the 6th century CE by the Greek physician Anthimus (511-534) while serving as Theodoric’s ambassador to the King of the Franks. Not a recipe book but a letter about foods - which were good for you, which bad, and, sometimes, how to cook and serve them, it may yet reasonably be called the first French cookery book. This is the paperback edition of a book first published in 1996 with its new and more accurate modern language translation, printed with the Latin and English in parallel on facing pages. The translator, Mark Grant, provides a general historical introduction - which corrects various errors of fact in earlier editions - a Latin text based on the editio princeps of 1864, a modern English translation, and a full commentary on the work itself, with many cross-references to classical medical treatises, the literature of classical cookery and modern scholarship concerning the food and cookery of the early Merovingian Franks.

Anthimus was a Greek doctor condemned by the Emperor in Constantinople to a life of exile at the court of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, barbarian ruler of Italy at the beginning of the 6th century AD. In the course of his life in Ravenna, he was sent as ambassador to the King of the Franks and wrote, perhaps as a sweetener to his fierce yet royal host, a letter about foods - which were good for you, which bad, and, sometimes, how to cook and serve them. It may reasonably be called the first French cookery book; and this is a new and more accurate modern language edition, printed with the Latin and English in parallel on facing pages.