Elizabeth David, a Luscious Revolution
by Carol W.
First published online March 5, 2009
In
the early 1970s, shortly after we moved to Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, I
enrolled in an evening class at the University of Manchester.
Manchester is at latitude 53 degrees.
Churchill-polar-bear-capital-Canada’s a smidgen further north, at 58
degrees. Although not nearly as cold as Canada, the northern English
winter was often foggy, with a damp, bone-chilling cold and rainy.
It got dark by 4:30 p.m.
As soon as Jim got home from work on Wednesday evenings I’d leave our toddler Anna
in his care, to share dinner then bedtime Beatrix Potter stories, while
I dashed the short distance to Beechfield Lane to catch the bus into the
sulphur-lit city.
Manchester, photo: Dr. Nicholas Higham, professor of mathmatics, University of Manchester
The
grimy, double-decker took about 50 minutes, winding through the outer
suburban villages then Victorian semi-detached, row houses, past old warehouses, then finally to the University near the city center. That
winter nine of us studied Women in English History.
Typical of much of my education I remember far more about the
after-class decamping to the ‘Straight Arms’ which was easily the
saddest, most stern pub I’d ever been to, slightly redeemed by being
near the bus stop. Its style was typical of old industrial town centers
of the North, a tile and brick building with ancient plumbing, high
ceilings, dark stained wood and a profusion of signage decidedly flinty,
“No Dancing,” “No Singing,” “No Swearing.”
Nonetheless
I learned much there, and had fun too. Sometimes the instructor’s
husband, a filmmaker, would join us. I became friends with two fellow
students, Ann and Pauline. It was at Pauline’s that I first experienced
the influence of Elizabeth David. Pauline invited Jim and me to dinner at her
family’s Victorian Heaton Park row-house on a frigid winter’s night
which she lit with the bright flame of Provence.
She’d spent college summers in the south of France where she discovered a
radically different cuisine from dour English fare. She brought home
from her travels a determination to ferret out olives and olive oils,
eggplant and zucchini, lots of garlic plus an enchanting dining style
all of which she brought to table that cold night in northern England.
The entree was roasted lamb with potatoes and a side dish of
ratatouille Nicoise. I can taste it still. Her inspiration: Elizabeth
David’s French Provincial Cooking (FPC). The next day I bought a paperback copy,
now annotated extensively.
It was the hors d’oeuvres that most dazzled. In little bowls, arranged
on a cloth-covered tray, Pauline served black olives in oil; cottage
cheese; celery heart and tomatoes stewed in olive oil, coriander and
peppercorns; herring in tomato sauce ( the Danish Food Centre near St.
Ann’s Square, Manchester offered a fine selection of fish and cheese at
that time), and thinly sliced salami.
Elizabeth David, in FPC instructs on hors d’oeuvres, “Something raw,
something salt, something dry or meaty, something gentle and smooth and
possibly something in the way of fish.” Yes, that’s the way David’s
recipes often read—open ended, kind of scary to the inexperienced but an
approach, when seasoned by trial and error, aimed to liberate cooks
from de rigueur lists, replaced by an inculcated understanding of how
ingredients blend and work together.
“…the main object of an hors-d’-oeuvre is to provide something
beautifully fresh looking which will at the same time arouse your
appetite and put you in good spirits,” David instructs in FPC. How many
sad meals lack these most essential ingredients? She goes on to
describe, as she does in all of her books, not just recipes but the
places she found these foods, who prepared them, reviews of exotic
cookery books dating back generations, and places she visits such as a
hotel in northern France, the Hotel de la Poste at Duclair. “There were
thinly sliced cucumbers, little mushrooms in a red-gold sauce,
tomatoes, cauliflower vinaigrette, carrots grated almost to a puree
(delicious this one), herring filllets.” She also makes note of
skillful use of color and presentation.
 |
| Provence translation to DC suburbs in winter, with admiring whippet |
David’s
early cookery books translated the joy of Mediterranean cuisine to a
battered, war-weary population. England had food rationing for 12
years, ending in 1953. David lamented the difficulties in obtaining
fresh basil and pine nuts but persevered. Terrance Conran, noted
English designer and restaurateur, said, in his introduction to the
Folio Society’s exquisite 2006 printing of Italian Food, part of their
David series, “Elizabeth David changed the U.K.
"In
the early fifties, when much of the British Isles was grey, broken and
rationed, her books brought the hope of a different sort of sunny,
colourful, well-fed life into our gloomy world.” Conran was so awed by
David that when he opened his London restaurant, Bibendum, after
establishing his Habitat home emporiums, he insisted on installing an
elevator, at considerable expense, hoping to attract the now infirmed
David who lived nearby. She became a frequent diner, often with
Francis Bacon whom she met there.
Born
Elizabeth Gwynne, circa 1913, to a wealthy member of Parliament, she
grew up on an idyllic 17th century Sussex estate, Wootton Manor.
In the 1930s she went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. It was there
she began her lifelong mission to expand cooking in the British Isles.
She was caught on the Continent during World War II, fleeing German
occupation, first to Corsica, then Greece and Crete when helped by the
British to escape to Alexandria then Cairo. Her war years read like a spy novel.
“So it was only later, after coming home to England, (after World War
II) that I realized in what way the family had fulfilled their task of
instilling French culture into at least one of their charges. Forgotten
were the Sorbonne professors and the yards of Racine learned by heart,
the ground plans of cathedrals I had never seen, and the saga of
Napoleon’s last days at St. Helena. What had stuck was the taste for a
kind of food quite ideally unlike anything I had known before,” David
recounts in FPC.
David was a scholar. the bibliography of FPC is 15 pages, her prose
renowned for its accuracy and wit. “The origin of Parmesan cheese must
be very remote. “The Parmesans (natives of Parma, Italy) claim that it
has been made in the district for 2000 years. In any case it was
already well-known in the 14th century...(a storyteller recounts) in the
province of Parma, ‘there’s a mountain consisting entirely of grated
Parmesan cheese...on which live people with nothing to do but make
maccheroni and ravioli, and cook it in capon broth,’” David recounts in
Italian Cooking.
“Provence is a country to which I am always returning...as soon as I can
get on to a train. Here in London it is an effort of will to believe
in the existence of such a place at all. But now and again the vision
of golden tiles on a round southern roof, or of some warm, stony,
herb-scented hillside will rise out of my kitchen pots with the smell of
a piece of orange peel scenting a beef stew,” David waxes euphoric in
her introduction to Italian Cooking.
“It is indeed certain...that the sprout from Brussels, the drabness and
dreariness and stuffy smells evoked by its very name, has nothing at all
to do with southern cooking,” David writes. Ever the culinary sleuth,
David adds rich details from battered, out-of-print cookery books. Her
writing style creates not only a desire to replicate certain dishes but
insight into their history.
“Provence is not without its bleak and savage side. The inhabitants
wage perpetual warfare against the ravages of mistral; it takes a strong
temperament to stand up to this ruthless wind which sweeps Provence for
the greater part of the year...It does not do to regard Provence simply
as Keat’s tranquil land of song and mirth. The melancholy and savagery
are part of its spell.” This could be said, too, of North Dakota.
Although
David’s Mediterranean series was written primarily for an English
audience her books translate well anywhere. She addresses measurements,
weights, oven temperatures, etc. in each of her books for good reason.
I remember how shocked I was when my Betty Crocker cake recipe flopped in England. English flour is milled differently plus the Imperial
cup is larger than the American one. Also the electricity is a stronger
current and the public gas is of a different vintage too. Weighing
food anywhere in the world is more consistent that using cups as a
measure.
Photos circa 1970s:
Jim stirring a pot of Elizabeth David’s currant jam Anna washing our garden tomatoes for ratatouille
In North Dakota we grew red and black currants , gooseberries (for a
couple of years anyway, until the dastardly fungus got them) and
strawberries. We also grew eggplant, zucchini, peas, beans, tomatoes,
potatoes, corn, peppers, onions, shallots, herbs, etc. etc. It was a
marvelous place to have a Mediterranean cookbook. The all round BEST
Elizabeth David recipe we ever made in North Dakota (besides black currant jam) was on a sunny
morning in June right after harvesting our first crop of sweet green
peas.
_______________________________________________________________
Potage Creme de Petits Pois Cream of Green Pea Soup
-Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking
This is one of the nicest, freshest and
most simple of summer soups. Those who claim not to be able to taste the
difference between frozen and fresh peas will perhaps find it
instructive to try this dish. Not that a very excellent soup cannot be
made with frozen peas, but when fresh peas are at the height of their
season, full grown but still young and sweet, the difference in
intensity of flavour and of scent is very marked indeed.
Quantities are 1 3/4 pounds of peas
the heart of a cabbage lettuce--I used Boston lettuce or you could use iceberg
1/4 pound (yes, 1/4 pound) of butter
1 3/4 pints of water
salt and sugar
Melt
the butter in your soup pan; put in the lettuce heart washed and
cut up into fine strips with a silver knife; add the shelled peas, salt,
and a lump or two of sugar. Cover the pan; cook gently for 10 minutes
until the peas are thoroughly soaked in the butter. Add the water; cook
at a moderate pace until the peas are quite tender. Sieve them, or
puree them in the electric liquidizer. Return to the pan and heat up. a
little extra seasoning may be necessary but nothing else at all.
Enough for four ample servings.
_______________________________________________________________
In 1963, at age 49, David had a cerebral hemorrhage. She went on to
receive many awards for her culinary skills but the honor that she most
treasured was being made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in
1982, which recognized her skills as a writer. In 1986 she was awarded a Commander of the British Empire--a Knighthood. She died in
1992, at 78.
_______________________________________________________________
As I write this feature our home is filled with the magical scent of
our friend Terry B’s oven braised beef stew ( Blue Kitchen ) Feb. 6, 2008.
Marinated in wine, bay leaves and onions it's bubbling
away in my new Staub braisier. What an oddly satisfying state of
affairs. The French connection is alive and well. Elizabeth David
helped promote the dissemination of fine cooking. I salute her. (and
Terry, Pauline, my Mom, Julia Child and aspiring cooks everywhere!).
