Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #334156 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

A SELECTION OF ELIZABETH DAVID's JOURNALISTIC WORK in Hardback
and with the dust-jacket painting of 'The Eggs', (by courtesy of Cedric Morris's Estate and in possession of the author) opening to 318 high quality pages casually interspersed with charming black and white illustrations and the odd photograph, this book is sure to appeal to the Elizabeth David fan.

'Here for the first time is a selection of ED's journalistic work written for a wide range of publications.
Articles, book reviews and travel pieces, they will be new to many of her readers and a delight to all for their highly personal flavour.....She writes so vividly that we can see, taste and even smell the dishes she describes....'

The book is spilt into bite-sized chapters, too many to mention here, but include, e.g.:-

Big Bad Bramleys
Eating out in Provincial France 1965-1977
Fruits de Mer
Para Navidad
Bruscandoli
How Bare is your Cupboard?
Table Talk
Whisky in the Kitchen
Potted Fish and Fish Pastes
The Markets of France
Traditional Christmas Dishes
Isabella Beaton and her Book

sandwiched between an introduction and a 9-page index with featured recipes in a bold typeface.

Recipes include:-

Omelette Molière
Croutons à la Marinière
Sardenara Casalinga
Hop-Top Soup
Stuffed and Rolled Pork
Apples with Lemon and Cinnamon
Spaghetti with Chicken Livers and Lemon
Oysters in Wine
Red Mullet
French Welsh Rabbit
Cheese and Guiness Fondue
Tomatoes à la Crème
English Lemon Curd
Clarified Butter
Somerset Syllabub
Gooseberry Fool
Ginger Cream
Welsh Salt Duck
Rhubarb Jam

REAR COVER QUOTE from JANE GRIGSON:-

'Every time we begin to feel fussed by the cookery elaborators with their flashy tricks and colour photos, we can restore confidence by returning to Elizabeth David.'

From Artemis Cooper's 'Writing at the Kitchen Table', pg 307 - 'An Omelette and a Glass of Wine' delighted Elizabeth's legion of fans.

From pages 50-51:-

'......everyone knows that the success of omelette-making starts with the pan and not with the genius of the cook.......And a heavy pan with a perfectly flat base IS, of course a necessity..........As to the omelette itself, it seems to me to be a confection which demands the most straightforward approach.
What one wants is the taste of fresh eggs and the fresh butter and, visually, a soft, bright golden roll plump and spilling out a little at the edges.
It should not be a busy, important urban dish but something gentle and pastoral, with the clean scent of the dairy, the kitchen-garden, the basket of early morning mushrooms or the sharp tang of freshly picked herbs, sorrel, chives, tarragon.
And although there are those who maintain that wine and egg dishes don't go together, I must say I do regard a glass or two of wine as not, obviously, essential but at least as an enormous enhancement of the enjoyment of a well-cooked omelette..............
But we are not in any case considering the great occasion menu but the almost primitive and elemental meal evoked by the words:-
'Let's just have an omelette and a glass of wine.'

And you simply can't put it better than that!

The title says it all
In the UK today you could be forgiven for thinking that the era condemned by Ms David in many of her writings was a figment of someone's imagination. Post-war shortages? Nasty and ersatz flavourings recommended as ingredients in recipes? Over-complicated and over-priced dishes in mediocre restaurants? How quaintly historic.

After all, we live surrounded by food and its images. There seem to be as many magazines featuring food as there are featuring improbably-breasted women on the top-shelf of the corner shop; book-stores are piled high with recipe books by chefs who have achieved celebrity status; and the question is often not 'does your local supermarket sell balsamic vinegar,' but, 'how many kinds, and where from, exactly'?

So what is the point of reading this (or indeed any) of Elizabeth David's books? The answer is as simple as the title of the book. David's culinary lifetime was spent in encouraging the fresh, the simple and above all the fitting meal. This is much more than giving hints and recipes, or stunning yourself and your guests with exotic and hard-to-achieve perfection, it is an attitude of mind about eating and appreciating food. Lost in a welter of food from every country and culture in the world (I even discovered an Inuit recipe for seal-blubber ice-cream the other day, which is one ingredient I suspect my supermarket-of-choice has not got around to selling, at least as yet), David's often ascerbic style when she writes about bad food provides as much relish as her descriptions of what is good.

And much as I might enjoy the occasional beautifully seared loin of some imported fish I've never tried before, on a bed of ginger and lemongrass flavoured veggies, with a something-or-other salsa,(to say nothing of the possibility of seal blubber ice-cream for pud), there are those days when only the perfectly simple will do. Perhaps a beautiful and simple omelette, with of course, a glass of chilled white wine. Enjoy!

Entertaining, scholarly writer who almost singlehandedly re-shaped the food we eat to-day
This is a collection of her writings taken from newspapers and magazines she wrote for. The recipes are clear enough for anyone to follow, even the most amateur cook.
Extremely witty, with a scholarly approach to her research, this makes an ideal bedside table book for anybody interested in raising the stakes in the kitchen.
Many women over the years have called her name blessed, and emphatically state that she saved their marriages.
Worth every penny.
Edward Mitchell