About
Elizabeth David
To a great many cooks, Elizabeth David needs no introduction. In the UK, America, Australia and elsewhere countless people grew up with a well-worn collection of her Penguin paperbacks. They sat on our mothers’ and grandmothers’ kitchen shelf alongside, maybe, Constance Spry, Jane Grigson, Claudia Roden and Julia Child, David the first choice when a recipe was needed.
One such remembers standing on a rocky knoll on a hot day in the Australian bush, talking with friends about all the times they’d made Elizabeth David’s flourless chocolate cake. This was in the 1970s, the book French Provincial Cooking an essential part of a shared culture.
David was a gifted writer who made an impact from the first publication in 1949 of a slim collection of recipes from the sun, Mediterranean Food. She followed this up quickly with Summer Cooking, Italian Food, French Provincial Cooking, and then Spices Salts and Aromatics in the English Kitchen and English Bread and Yeast Cookery. She also wrote a wide collection of entertaining and scholarly articles for the press. Harvest of the Cold Months was published after her death in 1994. She was a vivid, provocative voice who broke with convention throughout her life.
The timeline gives the remarkable story of this life. She has inspired and been celebrated by generations of cooks, restaurateurs, food and other writers and academics. More questioning voices about her legacy have also been raised. This website has links to a range of perspectives on Elizabeth David as well as information about her books.