Most probably people had gained first experience in food preparation shortly after the invention of fire when they discovered possibility of using it for cooking. A man is a social being and likes to share information and achievements including the culinary experiments. These have been shared first with the people around, and later were written.

As we know from the history of media variety of materials have been used, including stone, wood, clay tablets, the shells of broken pottery and later papyrus, parchment and eventually paper, which became the most common literary material. All of these materials are easily damaged if not stored properly. So most probably many noted down recipes have been lost forever.

Luckily, some records have survived even fire like clay tablets that have been fixed in this way and now serve as a source of valuable information about culinary culture of those distant times.

It took ages to discover and decode the content of cuneiform script writings and Egyptian hieroglyphs. The recent one became possible only after finding so. called Rosetta stone in 19. century.

It is very likely that many recipes still waiting to be read in the stocks of the world's largest libraries whose collections are being gradually examined and deciphered by experts in the field.