How were the recipes recorded and passed along? What time period did they come from? And what culture, if any. What foods were used? etc.
This question came across my mind yesterday when I was imagining the process of creating a completely new recipe from scratch, for something no one has ever made before.
Apicus is one of the oldest cook books, from 400 ad, here is a link to it http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29728/29728-h/29728-h.htm There are also Mesopotamian recipes that are from tablets at yale, from about 1700BC. Archaeology magazine has 3 of those recipe here http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/food/