I don't know if this answers your question, but there's some very interesting stuff in "Uncorking The Past" by Professor Patrick McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania. McGovern works on chemical analysis of the residues left behind in ancient drink-containers - jugs, amphorae etc from the Neolithic onwards to the Bronze Age, with a particular focus on alcoholic drinks.
McGovern often the collaborates with local microbreweries in Philadelphia to try and recreate ancient beers, wines and grogs (combinations of the two). So, for example, he worked on the bowls and jugs discovered in the Phrygian "Midas Tomb" (which many now think was the tomb of Midas' father), which date from the 8th Century BC.
Having worked out approximately what was in the containers from chemical/biological traces, he went to Dogfish Brewery and now they manufacture a recreation. It's called Midas Touch beer.
Necessarily, with these things, there's some element of guesswork. I believe that in Midas Touch they couldn't work out what the souring agent had been so they took an educated guess at saffron.
McGovern isn't the only guy who does this, and "Uncorking the Past" (which I finished reading a few days ago, and thoroughly recommend) has numerous examples of other academics in the field home-brewing a recreation of their discoveries.
Obviously none of this is working from written recipes. So if that was your question, I apologise. Obviously the oldest foods are.... well... cooked meat etc, but you're heading back there into evolutionary territory. Midas Touch Beer is the earliest complex bit of food or drink that I know of that is not only reproducible, but actually mass produced.
Edit: added date of Midas Tomb.
I did a previous answer on a similar question three months ago. I'll copy an edited version here:
As far as I can make out, the oldest written recipe is for beer. It is contained in a Sumerian hymn to the goddess of beer, Ninkasi.
You can read the translation of the hymn here, at the Electronic Text Corpus.
I'll copy the above translation here:
A hymn to Ninkasi (Ninkasi A)
1-4. Given birth by the flowing water ……, tenderly cared for by Ninḫursaĝa! Ninkasi, given birth by the flowing water ……, tenderly cared for by Ninḫursaĝa!
5-8. Having founded your town upon wax, she completed its great walls for you. Ninkasi, having founded your town upon wax, she completed its great walls for you.
9-12. Your father is Enki, Lord Nudimmud, and your mother is Ninti, the queen of the abzu. Ninkasi, your father is Enki, Lord Nudimmud, and your mother is Ninti, the queen of the abzu.
13-16. It is you who handle the …… and dough with a big shovel, mixing, in a pit, the beerbread with sweet aromatics. Ninkasi, it is you who handle the …… and dough with a big shovel, mixing, in a pit, the beerbread with sweet aromatics.
17-20. It is you who bake the beerbread in the big oven, and put in order the piles of hulled grain. Ninkasi, it is you who bake the beerbread in the big oven, and put in order the piles of hulled grain.
21-24. It is you who water the earth-covered malt; the noble dogs guard it even from the potentates (?). Ninkasi, it is you who water the earth-covered malt; the noble dogs guard it even from the potentates (?).
25-28. It is you who soak the malt in a jar; the waves rise, the waves fall. Ninkasi, it is you who soak the malt in a jar; the waves rise, the waves fall.
29-32. It is you who spread the cooked mash on large reed mats; coolness overcomes ……. Ninkasi, it is you who spread the cooked mash on large reed mats; coolness overcomes …….
33-36. It is you who hold with both hands the great sweetwort, brewing it with honey and wine. Ninkasi, it is you who hold with both hands the great sweetwort, brewing it with honey and wine.
37-40. 1 line fragmentary You …… the sweetwort to the vessel. Ninkasi, ……. You …… the sweetwort to the vessel.
41-44. You place the fermenting vat, which makes a pleasant sound, appropriately on top of a large collector vat. Ninkasi, you place the fermenting vat, which makes a pleasant sound, appropriately on top of a large collector vat.
45-48. It is you who pour out the filtered beer of the collector vat; it is like the onrush of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Ninkasi, it is you who pour out the filtered beer of the collector vat; it is like the onrush of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
The poem, as far as I can make out, is dated to ~1800 BC.
The beer would have been very different to what we would drink today, there would have been a lot of floaty things in there, and you would have drunk it with a straw to strain those out, as seen in this cylinder seal impression from the Ur III period, which dates to roughly 2100 BC.
There have in fact been attempts to recreate this beer, as you can read in this article here, most notably by the Anchor Brewing Company. Unfortunately, the beer is unsuitable for bottling, as it is not designed to keep a long time, so you won't find it in stores today.
You might find this previous post interesting...
As a possible follow-up question, what's the earliest recipe for a meal (soup, stew, etc.)?
I almost posted this question on here the other day, but it makes more sense to just piggyback off of yours. What is the oldest written recipe that can be traced back as passed down through the generations?
I guess it's hard to know which is the "oldest", but I'm just interested in specific examples of old recipes that can be traced through lineage, rather than archeologically discovered.
I just did a presentation on something similar to this for a local food advocacy group. We talked about the transition points for human food systems, and how the rise of agriculture gave way to the idea of recipes. Something to keep in mind when we talk about ancient agriculture and cooking is that the so-called "founder crops" of the ancient world were substantially different from the hybrids we use today - wheat is a great example. Modern wheat cultivars have been bred and chosen for their ease of harvesting, whereas in Egypt, they made do with a tougher variety known as emmer wheat. Emmer is, to put it succinctly, a bitch to grind. It required substantial hands-on processing in order to prepare it for milling using a device known as a quern. Interestingly, the quern went through a technological revolution in the Middle Kingdom - they took it off the floor so it was easier to use.
Digression over, the bread itself in Ancient Egypt was pretty widely varying in both texture and ingredients, but it all started with emmer wheat flour. The bread was actually leavened, too, which is something that surprised me.
Follow up question; I thought for sure going into this thread the answer would be some sort of flat bread or something similar made from grains. Apparently it's beer.
Is this because we don't know how to recreate the bread/grains they used to eat or does beer simply pre-date it?
To clarify, do you mean
*The earliest text which includes a recipe of some sort
or
*The earliest recipe which has been reconstructed through archaology (this is essentially unanswerable as we start to get into the contents of pre-homo-sapiens stomachs).
Hey folks,
most of you know the drill, but so far, we had serving of comments on this thread that consisted of an hors d'oeuvre of comments only saying "beer" followed by a nice platter of speculation to be enjoyed with a side of comments only consisting of a link and topped off with a main-course of plagiarism.
Our special team of mod-chefs would like to remind you of the proper ingredients to an answer in this sub, which consist of depth, information, context,and being comprehensive, best presented on a bed of sources.
So before you serve you answer, please as yourself:
Any further under-cooked, incomplete or otherwise rule-breaking comments will run risk of getting Das Ban-Boot in order to better learn the recipes to commenting here.
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