There is one even older contender - from 1468 or 1480 depending on which expert you choose to believe.
The first celebrity chef appears to be this chap up above. He was an Italian from Piadena called Bartolomeo Sacchi, nicknamed il "Platina". He was cooking up a storm in the late 1400s (way before Mrs Beaton although she does have a good claim to producing the first 'oldest mass-selling cookbook in Britain').
This site below - based on an article from "Electronic Telegraph ISSUE 1447 Wednesday 12 May 1999 when the book was coming up for auction (reserve price £6,000) - says the following...
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/exlibris/1999/05/msg00157.ht... copy
"Bear on the bone served up in oldest cook book
(By Sally Pook)
One of the world's oldest known printed cookery books, with 300 recipes in Latin, including ones for bear and left-over hog.....(is the) De Honesta Voluptate...written in the late 15th century.
It was a best seller among the upper classes and scholars. Its 93 leaves are bound in calf leather over wooden boards and capital letters drawn in manuscript head each section of gothic lettering...
It is a guide to what 15th century man and woman should eat to remain healthy and prevent illness, suggesting that readers should
"eat well, perhaps frugally".
Dominic Winter, a specialist book auctioneer, who is handling the sale...re, said: " It is the first cookery book to be printed and it is about maintaining a healthy diet rather than just recipes."
The first half of the book discusses the nature and cultivation of food,while the second half reads like a cookbook, with recipes for dishes based on their medicinal properties. A recipe for bear advises that it is "not like any other quadrapede" but the head is "incredibly good to eat".
Another section is understood to suggest that cannabis be taken if the reader is stricken by plague.
The book was compiled by Bartholomaeus Platina, an Italian physician
influenced on the principles of health by classicists, ancient poets and Arabic ideas. His book ran to three editions at Cividale, Italy, in 1474, 1475 and 1480. None of the first two is known to have survived. Only 20 copies are known of the third."
End of article.
But, it is obviously not all bliss and harmony in the rare book trade! The site owners add...
"Three comments: there were not two "lost" editions of the book printed at Cividale before this, only the Rome and Venice editions mentioned by Fred Schreiber.
Il Platina (Bartolomeo Sacchi from Piadena) was a papal secretary and Vatican Librarian, not a physician.
And the Cividale edition is a pretty common book, 79 copies already recorded in ISTC. There's a nice picture of the book in the online Telegraph."
PS, elsewhere I have read that the original manuscript of this book was actually first produced in 1468.
I have tried to access the Telegraph to download the original pic of the book for you but with no luck.
Maybe someone else can have a bash?
