Short answers, pulled from the story.
No historical record confirms that Marcus Gavius Apicius actually wrote the text, though some recipes are attributed to him directly. Scholars debate whether the author existed or if the work is a later compilation from the fifth century.
The New York Academy of Medicine acquired a single manuscript from the monastery of Fulda in Germany on the 1929. This specific copy dates around 900 AD and contains the surviving version of the cookbook.
Many sections use Vulgar Latin forms like ficatum and bullire rather than Classical terms such as iecur or fervere. These linguistic shifts suggest later additions to an older core text during the fifth century.
The Latin text divides into ten books arranged similarly to a modern cookbook format with Greek titles for each category. The books cover categories including The Butcher, The Gardener, The Bird, Quadruped animals, The Sea, and The Fisherman.
An illustrious man named Vinidarius created this pocket version which dates as late as the Carolingian era. He may have been a Goth whose Gothic name could be Vinithaharjis though nothing about him is truly known.