Preface

This new collection of adapted recipes taken from the ancient cookery book known as Apicius was in part inspired by the completion of the recent edition of the Latin text that my husband Dr Christopher Grocock and I have published. In that volume I hope we have managed to translate the Latin in as precise a way as possible, and to solve some of the more common confusions found in the original recipes.

I began reconstructing Roman dishes in the mid-1990s, and in 1996 published with Andrew Dalby The Classical Cook Book for the British Museum Press. It seemed entirely appropriate that I should take advantage of the publication of Apicius to select and test a new batch of recipes for the modern cook to follow.