History of Education in Culinary Arts

Cooking is a delicate art that must, in most cases, be taught.

Cooking is a very old art, perhaps the oldest. The history of education in the culinary arts goes back to well before recorded history. The first known cookbook was arguably written by an ancient Greek named Archestratus in 350 BC, "The Good Life"--a long poem in which various food recipes are poetically described. Since then much has happened in the culinary arts.

First Popular Cookbooks

While cookbooks existed long before its official invention, the printing press revolutionized education in the culinary arts by making the recipes of great cooks available for a large audience. Previous cooking ideas were mostly traded from person to person and were part of a very privileged knowledge. The first cookbooks known to be mass-printed were those of the Italian Bartolema Scappi, who mostly provided recipes for marzipan and other sweets. Many cookbooks for home use followed.

Haute Cuisine

During the reign of the absolutist French monarchs, many of the great chefs worked exclusively at Versailles and for the aristocracy. Doing this they developed a complex science of food known as "haute cuisine." After the French Revolution, this special knowledge, which had previously only been used to serve the tables of the royalty and aristocracy, spread to the rest of society through restaurants, cooking schools and cookbooks.

Le Cordon Bleu

One of the truly great cooking schools is Le Cordon Bleu, which opened in Paris in 1895 and is still educating today. Named after an order of 16th century knights, the school was originally conceived as an "extra" for subscribers to Martha Diestel's "La Cuisinière Cordon-bleu," a popular magazine. Here master chefs demonstrated techniques to students. A notable student of Le Cordon Bleu is Julia Child, who further popularized education in this style of cooking.

Modern Cookbooks

The 19th century saw an explosion in the cookbook industry as the lessons of French cooking spread to the masses, and other cooking traditions became available to the average family cook. In 1845, Eliza Acton wrote the first English cookbook with precise ingredient amounts and times, "Modern Cookery for Private Families," which made the recipes more accessible for more people and quickly became the method of most modern cookbooks.

Today's Cookbooks

In 1936, "The Joy of Cooking" was published by Irma S. Rombauer, a homemaker from St. Louis, Missouri. This book would go on to be one of the most popular of all time. Julia Child published "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 1961, becoming a wild bestseller and helping to further educate regular people in gourmet cooking techniques. Today culinary education is furthered by a wide variety of cookbooks at all levels of skill.

References

• "The Guardian": A Brief History of Haute Cuisine
• Recycled Reads Blog: Book Value
• Food in Antiquity: Archestratus--The Life of Luxury
• The Cooks Palate: Cookbook History

Resources

• The Joy Kitchen: Recipes Young and Old