Coquinaria is a website with recipes from past and present. It went live in Februari 2002, and since that time new recipes are being published every two months. All recipes have been tested and photographed by food historian Christianne Muusers, the driving force behind this site.
The historical recipes are presented in three versions: the original text, a translation in modern English, and an adaptation for the modern kitchen. In this way, the cook can determine whether he or she agrees with my interpretation, or would have made other choices. Because especially older recipes are often just scribbles or notes; there are no quantities, no preparation times, and often some ingredients are lacking. A broad knowledge of historical cookery books and a wide experience in cooking are requisites to be able to translate old recipes for modern cooks. There are also some modern recipes, mainly for soup and stock. Below are some of the recipes on Coquinaria. click on a picture to get the recipe.
Coquinaria … What’s in a name?
Coquinaria is derived from the ars coquinaria, as the art of preparing food was called in the Middle Ages. This ars was part of the artes mechanicae (the mechanical arts), as opposed to the artes liberales. The classical cookbook wich is ascribed to a Roman nobleman named Apicius was titled De re coquinaria. Coquinaria means something like: “things that have to do with cooking”.
Translation from Dutch to English
I, Christianne Muusers, am Dutch, and most of my site is in Dutch too. But I have translated all historical recipes and several other recipes into English. English is not my native language. Since the winter of 2011 I have a beta-reader who checks my English on spelling, grammar and idiom: my daughter. Thank you! If you, reader, find any (or many) mistakes in spelling, grammar or the use of certain terms, the faults are mine. Please let me know by email, so I can correct these mistakes (please mention the title of the page you are writing me about).
The design of Coquinaria, a history
When this website fisrt went live in 2002, it was a very simple htm-website. From 2008 onwards the design was css-based, still in html. In 2014 I experimented with a separate mobile version, but that was too much work. So, in 2017 I have started with a new responsive design based on wordpress and the Genesis-framework, with the help of Studio Bicker. However, because this site has many hundreds of pages, it will take months before all pages have been processed. So you can see pages either in the old or the new design. If you notice anything wrong, do not hesitate to let me know. The English version of the new Coquinaria-website is made with the wpml-plugin, and I must say that it is not simple. So, please be patient whilst I try to figure out how to work with it!
Laatste wijziging 7 May 2018