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(More customer reviews)Olive oil --- available in drug stores (because it was used only to treat ear infections).
Garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese --- unknown and unavailable.
Eggs, butter, olives, tomatoes --- scarce.
That was England in the years after World War II.
(And you wonder why there are jokes about English food.)
Elizabeth David changed all that. She pushed simple French and Italian recipes into the consciousness of English housewives. In short order, groceries started stocking ingredients she championed. Soon enough, you could even find zucchini in English supermarkets.
Elizabeth David was --- almost all the pros say this --- the most important food writer of the last century.
Don't know her? There are reasons. She died in 1992, just as chefs and cookbook writers were becoming celebrities. As a result, though her books were always available, her contribution to our daily meals --- what she described as "simpler food, simply presented" --- has been obscured by those who stand tall because they're climbed onto her shoulders.
Like Alice Waters, of Chez Panisse: "When I go back and read her books now, I feel I plagiarized them. All of it seeped in so much, it's embarrassing to read them now."
More reasons: Elizabeth David was an extremely difficult personality. She was an exacting writer when it came to prose, a little vague when it came to measuring ingredients. She had no patience for dullness or stupidity, and could be a withering conversationalist. And though she wanted her books to be important, she had little desire to be a public figure.
Also, she had a complicated and busy personal life: husbands, lovers, travel. And then, when she was 49, she had a stroke that robbed her --- how cruel is this --- both of her libido and her ability to taste salt.
Forget all of that. Just get "At Elizabeth David's Table: Classic Recipes and Timeless Kitchen Wisdom" --- a selection of her most beloved recipes, published in a sturdy format for long use and dotted with terrific photos --- and start cooking.
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At Elizabeth David's Table: Classic Recipes and Timeless Kitchen Wisdom Legendary cook Elizabeth David is the woman who changed the face of British cooking. She introduced a dreary post-war Britain to the sun-drenched culinary delights of the Mediterranean; to foods like olive oil, pasta, and garlic, to fresh herbs like basil and to vegetables like zucchini and eggplant-foods that have become the staples of our diets today. Her recipes brought color and life into kitchens everywhere, yet her books never contained any photographs. Now, published for the first time, comes this full color, beautifully illustrated collection of her most inspiring and delicious dishes. Never before have her recipes been photographed to showcase the richness and variety of the food that she was so passionate about.
Published to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Elizabeth's first book, her instant classic Mediterranean Food, At Elizabeth David's Table has twelve chapters guiding the reader from tasty soups and starters, through to meat, fish and desserts. Sections on successful bread making, as well as more extravagant dishes, ensure that this will become the cooking bible that readers will turn to, time and time again. Interspersed throughout the book are some of Elizabeth's short essays-from how to cook ‘fast and fresh' using store-bought and pantry ingredients, to evocative portraits of French and Italian markets.
With an introduction by Ruth Reichl, the famed editor of the modern classic The Gourmet Cookbook and the irreplaceable Gourmet magazine, and a preface by Jill Norman, literary trustee of Elizabeth David's estate, At Elizabeth David's Table is the must-have cookbook for home cooks, gourmets, and chefs alike.
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