Postscript has rarely been without an Elizabeth David book on its shelves: they have no glossy photos of Mediterranean vegetable markets, no deliciously art-directed servings of something prepared earlier, and no lists of ingredients, yet David’s books, especially A Book of Mediterranean Food (1950) and French Country Cooking (1951), are enduring classics of English cookery writing.
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Elizabeth David herself was a very different kind of cook from today’s celebrity chefs. Born Elizabeth Gwynne in 1913, the daughter of a barrister turned Tory MP, and educated at a Private School for Ladies in Tunbridge Wells, then in Paris and Munich, she was well-connected, well-travelled and unfettered. She never needed to cook but chose to; she was the mistress in her kitchen rather than chef of a restaurant.
When war broke out in 1939, David was sailing to the Mediterranean with her lover on their own boat, the Evelyn Hope. Landing in Italy, unaware that they were now in enemy territory, the boat was impounded and the couple held as suspected spies. They fled to the Greek islands, then to Cairo, where Elizabeth, having parted with her lover, married Lt Col Anthony David.
During those travels, David investigated local ingredients and collected recipes; returning to England in 1946, she was appalled by the ‘cheerless, heartless food’ imposed by food rationing, longed for the sun and began writing about the recipes she loved. Never mind that olive oil, fresh tomatoes and aubergines were rarities, her books were to revolutionize British attitudes to food and cookery. They were well-written, erudite, opinionated, and infused with a passion for simple, fresh and unfussy dishes.
There was never an Elizabeth David restaurant, but in 1965 she did open the Elizabeth David shop in Pimlico, selling culinary equipment that was quite exotic at the time and blazing a trail for the now familiar kitchen shop. Her real vocation was researching and writing about food, contributing articles to newspapers and magazines as well as producing some of the most famous cookbooks of the last century.
Although she kept the name David, and the house in Chelsea originally bought with her husband, her marriage lasted only a few years and was followed by a succession of lovers and admirers. At times difficult and irascible, freely speaking her own mind – most famously in relation to English commercial bread and the ‘utterly useless’ garlic press – Elizabeth David had a passion for food and its place at the very heart of family and social life that remained until the very end. She is reported to have enjoyed a fine Chablis and caviar with friends at her bedside before she died in 1992.
