On the Development of the English Culinary Recipe

The earliest culinary recipes found in England were written in Anglo-Norman and they date back to the end of the 13th century (cf. Hieatt & Jones 1986). e rst English instructions were mostly translated from these. It is the 14th and 15th centuries when the text type was thriving. Scully (1995: 5) calls the period “a hey-day for medieval cookery,” due to the greater availability of the culinary texts comparing to the earlier times. us, a discussion of the evolution of the English recipe should start from the 14th century. e majority of the available studies deal with the particular features of the culinary instruction, as for instance Culy (1996) who discusses the use of null objects. e main focus of the present paper is to provide a brief comparison of some selected features of the culinary recipes at different stages of their development. e discussion will proceed from the earliest available English culinary material, i.e., the medieval recipe, through the early Modern English texts to the contemporary cooking instructions. e issues which will be taken into consideration are: (i) the general structure of the recipe, especially the components found in the earliest texts, i.e., the heading and the procedure; (ii) the function of the recipe in the particular periods; and (iii) the intended audience for whom the recipes were written down.