Review

Few writers are as revered, oft-quoted and, it must be said, as downright intimidating as Elizabeth David. It is therefore a difficult and yes, intimidating, task to review any book by David because so much has been said – so well – before. David is the Serious Cook’s Cook, a reputation cemented by an infamously incisive, opinionated wit, one that until recently was, I felt, seriously off-putting. How wrong I was. Reading these essays now – a knowledgeable cook, confident about what I serve – in two sunny afternoons, was an unexpected pleasure. David may be best approached when one is serious about food, but she’s also hugely entertaining. Must we always treat her so seriously?

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine, a collection skillfully pieced together by David herself, is the perfect introduction to the breadth and depth of her writing. First published in 1984, this collection of articles spanning many decades was inexplicably been out of print in Britain for some years (but still available in the US). Here you will find remarkably candid – often hilarious – reviews of books and restaurants; historical essays sit comfortably with the well-loved romance of markets in rural France. The omelette (and glass of wine) of the collection’s title is just one of many elegantly phrased recipes for the simple, pleasurable sort of eating and drinking she favoured. Culinary gems are peppered throughout.

David railed against the packaged, mass-produced, dreadful food she came home to after WWII. Fifty years later we rail against them still. Her book reviews are among the most entertaining and insightful essays of the bunch. Each is a lesson in making your subject subtly your own. This, at the end a restrained but rightly scathing review of a book entitled ‘Pot-Luck Cookery; original cooking with what you have in hand, in the cupboard or refrigerator’ made me guffaw.

‘Myself, I’d rather spend my eighteen shillings on food. I wouldn’t care to face a roomful of hungry guests with nothing in the house but Pantry shelf fishbits. They might cut up rough. And I don’t know whether, in such an event, one would be entitled to send a bill for the damages to the publisher.’

Just who could get away with that nowadays?

David broke the food writing mould, rescuing it from a formulaic slump and elevating it to the realm of the literary. For that reason alone, we should be grateful. That she did so with grace and wit makes me wish, whole-heartedly, I’d got around to her sooner.