South Wind through the Garden: The Best of Elizabeth David edited by Jill Norman, Michael Joseph, 384pp, £20 in UK
What I've always thought of as "my problem" with Elizabeth David's books on cookery is explained for me in this volume by contributor John Ruden: "They are not cook books as Americans define them, where one finds simple formulas for dishes or long and elaborate instructions for creating the approximations of food served in expensive restaurants. Instead, her writing is a background or history of how people ate, and the simple recipes that follow are explanations of the concept of what is to be produced." Well, thanks John, you've put your finger on what it is that restrains me from wholeheartedly praising Ms David as a writer of "cook books" - I've been using the American definition.
Using Mr Ruden's criteria, the book is an unqualified success. Articles about Elizabeth David's private life, reviews of books, restaurants and recipes all go to make up this anthology. Anecdotes and sometimes admonishments attached to the articles make for interesting reading. A chapter which details the influence of Norman Douglas on her life and work (the title of this book is taken, in part, from his novel, South Wind) begins with advice from him to a lovesick Elizabeth - "Always do as you please, and send everybody to Hell, and take the consequences" - continues with a cautionary note about dining - don't give the restaurant more than twenty minutes' notice of arrival so as to avoid getting "heated-up muck" - and ends with a few culinary tips. Dining with Douglas in a restaurant, Elizabeth reports him producing from his pocket a chunk of Parmesan cheese - "Ask Pascal to be so good as to grate this at our table" - and a bunch of fresh basil leaves - "Tear the leaves, mind. Don't chop them. Spoils the flavour." Well, what else would you expect from an author who had a long and close friendship with Ms David and in various of his novels delivered dissertations on the qualities necessary to a good cook and a denunciation of Neapolitan fish soup, and described authentic pre-1914 macaroni as "those macaroni of a lily-like candour"? The whole chapter on Douglas whets one's appetite for the life-style typified by long walks and talks in continental countrysides and stops at local inns to savour the native cuisine. Just the kind of peripatetic, gourmet good life to read about (and envy!) from the comfort of one's armchair.
Interspersed with chapters dealing with personal details and reflections, there are a number of sections on cookery books which influenced the author. In a chapter devoted to "Pomiane, Master of the Unsacrosanct", David selects this Franco-Polish food writer and scientist as the one who for her epitomises the best kind of cookery writing. She quotes a recipe of his adapted from a Swiss mountain dish, Tranches de Fromage, and comments: "It is courageous, courteous, adult. It is creative in the true sense . . . because it invites the reader to use his own critical and inventive faculties, sends him out to make discoveries, form his own opinions, observe things for himself, instead of slavishly accepting what the books tell him." Pomiane's unorthodox approach to traditional French cookery, we are told, liberated "a whole generation of cooks" from illogical and harmful eating habits and led to the "lighter meals and more logical sauces" championed by Elizabeth herself in the late Sixties and early Seventies. The chapter sums up Elizabeth David's approach to food and cooking.
Like Pomiane himself, the essays on food in this volume are knowledgeable, entertaining and diverse. The most refreshing aspect of all of the recipes accompanying the background and historical settings is that none of the dishes is a compromise or an adaptation to fit English tastes. Ms David is meticulous in her description of foods and their regional differences, whether she is writing about the fare of France, England, the Mediterranean or the Middle East, and this lends a great weight (in the sense of importance, not mass) to the work. She uses personal details to give an added appeal to the usual list of ingredients and instructions. This was the hallmark of her cookery writing. Take as an example her piece on "Langouste Comme Chez Ne nette", in which she combines an account of the surroundings and ambience of this French restaurant (the "just right"-sized room with its faded wallpaper, the flowers on the table, a garden glimpsed through the dining room doors, and Madame, in a black dress, gently rebuking David for her query about the dish: "Ah, nous ne sommes pas en Provence, Madame, ici c'est le Languedoc") and follows it with a recipe for crawfish which evokes and defines its region of origin; in an abbreviated form it reads: "Cut a live crawfish into not too large pieces; put them at once into a wide and shallow pan containing a little smoking olive oil, add salt and pepper, and cook until the shell turns red . . . Pour in a small glass of good cognac, add a half bottle of still champagne . . . Press the sauce through a sieve and at the last minute, add 3 good spoonfuls of aioli and pour over the crawfish."
By its sheer intelligence and good style of writing, the book has succeeded in winning me over to Ms David's readership. However, for me one problem still remains. Once the anecdotes and recipes had been read, I felt complete and had no desire to rush into the kitchen and "cook". That feeling, to my way of thinking, is a complete contradiction to the way one should feel after reading such a book - or am I just looking to the American definition?
Janet Dunham is a weaver and cook