Recipes

The word recipes describe how to make or prepare something such as a culinary dish or baked goods thru a set of instructions.

They are also used as a formula or set of instructions in preparing or using medicine.

The most common use of recipes today is in the preparation of food or drink in the home.

Generally most recipes are made-up of several components. These consist of the name of the dish or drink and the normal amount of time it will take to prepare the item.

It also consists of the required ingredients and the recommended proportions or quantities of them.

Recipes also contain the required equipment and the environment necessary to prepare the item along with an ordered list of steps to take in preparation of the dish or drink.

These instructions also include the number of servings the recipe will normally provide as well as the expected texture and flavor.

Some other information provided in the recipe is the nutritional values such as calories and grams of fat, protein, and carbohydrates per serving may be included along with storage time, like how long the item will keep and its freezer life.

Earlier recipes where more of simpler forms that was used to remind someone of the ingredients and proportions because they already knew how to prepare the dish or drink.

The history of recipes dates back to around 1600 B.C. from southern Babylonia in the form of an Akkadian tablet.

There are painted hieroglyphics from the ancient Egyptians showing the preparation of food.

Some of the people who made mention of recipes in ancient Greece are Mithaecus, and Athenaeus who quotes one short in his writing of the Deipnosophistae.

In the 2nd century BCE in ancient Rome the Cato the Elder's De Agri Cultura is an example of early recipes as well as many other authors who described the cooking of the eastern Mediterranean in Greek and in Latin in this period of time.

One of the first surviving cookbooks from the classical world that comes from around 4th or 5th century was entitled Apicius which had a large collection of recipes.

A recipe book called Forme of Cury was commissioned by King Richard II of England in 1390 and another called Curye on Inglish was also published about this time.

Literally thousands of recipe and cookery books where available by the mid 1900s.

The advent of TV introduced cooking and recipes to a higher level than ever could be done before.