I was reading about when humans first started using fire and began to cook meals, but I wonder when the first concepts of culinary arts emerged, i.e. the first recipes, chefs, or even references to cooking things in a particular fashion to improve the flavor.
There are 35 known recipes for solid food written in cuneiform, the oldest one dating to circa 1700 BCE. These are the earliest known recipes that I'm aware of, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that recipes in the form of mnemonic songs or poems predate that. The Hymn to Ninkasi, which is both a song in praise of the Sumerian goddess of beer and a recipe for beer, has been recovered from tablets dating to circa 1800 BCE and is presumed to be much older. Proto-cuneiform writings dating to 3200 BCE contain references to nine different types or styles of beer, each of which presumably had its own recipe.
Sources:
Jean Bottero, The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia
Peter Damerow, Sumerian Beer: The Origins of Brewing Technology in Ancient Mesopotamia