South Wind Through the Kitchen: The Best of Elizabeth David

South Wind Through the Kitchen is the best of British cookery writer, Elizabeth David. Selected from her nine books, here are classic essays on the food of Provence and of Paris, on Italian fish markets and Middle Eastern herb gardens. There are nearly 200 recipes: appetizers, soups, eggs, fish, meat, poultry, vegetables, sauces, breads, preserves, and desserts. Whether discussing the pains of rolling puff pastry or the ease of making pizza, railing against the practices of English bakeries or praising the sausage rolls at the Hôtel du Midi, David always speaks her own mind. Best of all, she’s a contagious enthusiast: she makes you want to rise from your chair to travel, shop, or try your hand at an omelette. “Reading her,” writes Julian Barnes, “you have a strong sense of a person whose cardinal principles are truth and pleasure. Perhaps it is not absurd to compare her effect on a certain sector of tired, hungry, impoverished '50s Britain with Kinsey’s effect on America.”

Elizabeth David was a British cookery writer who, dismayed by the bad food, wrote a series of articles about Mediterranean food that caught the public imagination and, in 1950, A Book of Mediterranean Food. She boldly called for ingredients such as aubergines, basil, figs, garlic, olive oil and saffron, which at the time were scarcely available even in London. Within a few years, however, paella, moussaka, ratatouille, hummus and gazpacho became familiar dishes across Britain, both in restaurants and in home cooking. Books on French and Italian cuisine followed, and within ten years David was a major influence on British cooking. She was deeply hostile to second-rate cooking and to bogus substitutes for classic dishes and ingredients.

Jill Norman was editor of the Penguin Cookery Library and the author of several cookbooks, including The Complete Book of Spices and The Cook’s Book.