The First Printed Cookbook

After the stuffy rituals described by Olivier de la Marche, the innovations of De honesta voluptate et valetudine, the very first printed cookbook, are like a burst of sunlight. Here we see the gale wind of humanism in full, brilliant force, with Platina making a fundamental break with the medieval cookbook tradition. Gone is the religious focus, yielding to the well-being and pleasure of humanity. The book became an instant and long-standing success thanks to Platina’s excellent advice on diet and health. In his dedication, Platina hastens to explain, “I have written for the citizen who wishes good health and a clean life rather than debauchery.” Indeed, bits of his advice could have been written by a modern health counselor. For example, on the matter of sex, he asserts, “It is not so satisfactory in summer and autumn, and more suitable in winter and spring, and safer at night than during the day, if one does not stay up late or work immediately afterward.”⁵