Newly-discovered food recipes from a 12th century Durham Priory manuscript have been found to pre-date 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 recipes for medical ointments and cures and was compiled and written at Durham Cathedral’s priory around 1140. The work was recently been re-examined and found to contain the food recipes, which experts believe are amongst 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.