Welcome to the
ONLINE CULINARY HISTORY NETWORK

"Physical handling is one of the most destructive things that can happen to a fragile object.
 One of the best ways to preserve it is to limit physical access to it.
This is a very strong case for creating a digital library."
(Peter Noerr, "The Digital Library Toolkit")

We are endeavoring to build an online research library and network of historical culinary texts, dating from earliest times to the year 1700.

We intend to serve as a portal for host libraries, universities, and other collections to make available selected culinary texts to a targeted audience. Similarly, our portal will enable researchers to quickly find desired texts without having to navigate a maze of websites and online catalogs.  As a rule, most of the material presented at, or linked to, our site is available free of charge, except in those cases where holding libraries or copyright holders of material charge users a fee.

New transcriptions and translations generated for, or linked to, this project will enhance the historical texts, and will make them more accessible to younger readers. Once this site is fully functional, easy-to-read grids will assist the researcher in finding texts alphabetically, by date, or by original language. Images, transcriptions, and translations will be searchable, cross-linked, glossed, and indexed, wherever possible.

In order to bring to the reader's attention much of the commentary these early culinary texts have generated, each parent text will be linked to a page listing its derivative works. Works still in print may be linked to ordering information from commercial vendors. Works that are out of print, or unpublished works, may also be made available (with permissions).

This archive will be of use not only to culinary historians, but cross-disciplinarily to those studying Languages, Literature, History, and Medieval Studies.  This is a volunteer project; we welcome your assistance with scanning, transcription, encoding, proofreading, and translation, and your comments and suggestions.

Please have a look at an example project, Liber Cure Cocorum.

Titles List: (Viewed by Language)  (All) |  Arabic  |  Catalan  |  Chinese  |  Danish  |  Dutch  |  English  |  French  |  German  |  Italian  |  Latin  |  Japanese  |  Portuguese  |  Scandinavian  |  Spanish

Glossary of Medieval & Renaissance Culinary Terms  |  Works in Progress  | Online Language Resources | Links to modernized recipes | Email