Newly-discovered 12th century recipes to be recreated at Durham University event
Newly-discovered food recipes from a 12th century Durham Priory manuscript have been found to predate the earliest known ones by 150 years. The recipes are to be recreated at a Durham University event later in the month. The Latin manuscript mainly consists of medical potions and was compiled and written at Durham Cathedral's priory around 1140. The work was recently re-examined and found to contain the recipes which experts believe are the oldest in the western medieval culinary tradition, preceding the previously known examples from circa 1290. The manuscript is now held at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University. Dr Giles Gasper from Durham University's Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS), said: "Some of the medical potions in this book seem to have stood the test of time, some emphatically haven't! But we're looking forward to finding out whether these newly-discovered recipes have done so and whether they also possess what you might call a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi - or Quidditas, to use the Latin. "The recipes were noticed recently by Professor Faith Wallis, an expert in medical history and science and an international member of IMEMS. She immediately realised the significance of these recipes, since they so markedly predated the previously earliest-known ones by a century and a half.
