The earliest English culinary recipes: dietary advice in Old English medical texts

Abstract

ABSTRACT The earliest culinary recipes written in the English language, or in England, are contained in the three main Old English medical collections, now known as Bald’s Leechbook, Leechbook III and the Lacnunga, dating from the tenth, or possibly late ninth, to eleventh centuries. These recipes reveal contemporary ideas about the suitability of various foods for people experiencing various conditions, but not for a generalised ‘healthy diet’, nor indeed for the diet of the population at large in England at the time. They form part of a fairly substantial body of dietary advice, drawing quite heavily on a Latin tradition that was common to most of Western Europe, which betrays clear traces of humoral theory.