What is Recipe?
[[File:Illustrated recipes; 'Minted Pineapple', 'Quick Tomato Mold' Wellcome L0072307.jpg|thumb|180px|A pair of simple recipes.]] A '''recipe''' is a list of instructions that shows how to prepare or make something such as a food dish. Modern-day recipes are usually made up of several parts: *The name of the [[food]] being made *How much time it will take to make the food *The [[ingredients]] needed along with how much of it will be needed *The equipment needed *A list of steps that need to be followed in order to make the food *The number of people that the recipe will be able to feed Recipes from earlier times often included much less information: Older recipes usually just reminded a person of the ingredients needed. == History of the recipe == === Ancient history === The earliest known recipes are from 1600 {{BC}} and came from an [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] tablet from southern [[Babylonia]].<ref>Jean Bottéro, ''Textes culinaires Mésopotamiens'', 1995. {{ISBN|0931464927}}; commentary at [http://www.semeia.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=703 Society of Biblical Literature] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171028042121/http://www.semeia.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=703 |date=2017-10-28 }}</ref> The ancient Egyptians painted [[hieroglyph]]ics showing the preparation of food.<ref>{{cite book | last = Katz | first = Soloman H | title = Encyclopaedia of Food and Culture | publisher = Charles Schribners & Sons, New York | date = 2002 | pages = Vol 1 pp558 | isbn = 0684805685 | no-pp = true }}</ref> Many recipes are known from [[ancient Greece]]. Mithaecus's cookbook was an early one, but most of it has been lost. Athenaeus quotes one short recipe in his Deipnosophistae.<ref name=dalby>Dalby, Andrew. 2003 ''Food in the Ancient World from A to Z''. p. 97-98 {{ISBN|0415232597}}</ref> [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] recipes are known with some of them starting in the 2nd century B.C with [[Cato the Elder]]'s De Agri Cultura. Many other authors of this period explained eastern Mediter