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Rating: 
Summary: The year is AD, not CE, which is an anti-christian PC term.
Review: Marcus Gavius Apicius The Roman recipes were taken from "De re coquinara" by Marcus Gavius Apicius. The age of this work is unclear. According to the Swedish National Encyclopedia Apicius lived during the first half of the first century AD. The "De re coquinara" is attributed to Apicius althogh it is believed to have been written by a certain Caelius in the 3rd century AD.
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Summary: Good Thing It Was A Gift
Review: Spared the horror of paying good money for this, I concur with the other reviewers that this is a letdown. The measurements have been tampered with and the reliability of the historicity is questionable. There is a reductionist spirit here at work.
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Summary: Worth a read, if you actually want to prepare the recipes.
Review: The book I have to say are decent and the recipes, defiantely reproducable, if you are looking for a cookbook then this is your book, if for some crazy hobby of trying to cook with ingredients impossible to get then this is not your book. The author adds or omits ingredients that you would simply not find, anywhere, even Sicily, promise. The dishes are close to true and if you are interested in Sicilian cooking you get a very different perspective. Try reading Pomp and Sustenance after this book and you will see what I mean. As for the "Christian" zealots in the other reviews, get a life, please, from the Roman point of view it is CE, AD is just so narrow minded, and take a look around we are not the only people on this earth.
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Summary: Not Worthy of Apicius
Review: The main failure of this book is its lack of integrity regarding history & honesty of ingredients in the recipes. Beyond that, I am most offended by the AGGRESSIVE attempt @ revisionist/politically correct history; at trying to portray our epoch as anything other than A.D. (After Death of Christ). It seems as though even the culinary sciences are not free from the counter cultural revolutionary dogmatists.
Rating:
Summary: Worth a Read
Review: The main failure of this book is its lack of integrity regarding history & honesty of ingredients in the recipes. Beyond that, I am most offended by the AGGRESSIVE attempt @ revisionist/politically correct history; at trying to portray our epoch as anything other than A.D. (After Death of Christ). It seems as though even the culinary sciences are not free from the counter cultural revolutionary dogmatists.
Rating:
Summary: Worth a Read
Review: While others who have commented on the book take the author/translator to task for substitutions, mistranslations and other faults, I found that by and large the redactions were not terribly different from others I have read. These include several versions, so I am aquainted with Apicius and his recipes and have tried quite a few, and not from just one source. What I find most praiseworthy about this book is Dommers Vehling's obvious interest in gastronomy in general and in ancient cookery in particular. He makes a fairly honest attempt to fill in some of the background for the reader. And although he may be guilty of having his own point of view, we must remember that he was writing over sixty years ago. Dommers also gives the Latin names of the recipes, makes comments on many of them and makes references to other translattions of Apicius' De Re Coquinaria. And so I feel that this book is worth reading, especially for the price.
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Summary: Vehler's Apicius is not the best
Review: While this book is a good research tool for readers of Latin, I find Mr. Vehling took too many modern liberties in his redactions of the recipes. He often substitutes, adds, or deletes ingredients without explanation or just cause.
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