Elizabeth David

Elizabeth David (born Elizabeth Gwynne; 26 December 1913 – 22 May 1992) was one of Britain’s most celebrated writers of food and cookery. She was a free-loving, anti-establishment, globe trotter, whose recipes documenting the cuisines of Greece, Egypt, France and Italy reinvigorated the culinary culture of post-war England’s middle class. David’s travels to Greece introduced her to the wonders of Mediterranean cuisine, which she shared with her readership through her column in the British magazine, Harper’s Bazaar. Her first work, A Book of Mediterranean Food, was a collection of these published recipes. David went on to write recipes on Italian and French cuisine making them more accessible to the average home cook, but her true culinary passion had always been for seasonal cuisines. This love for fresh, in-season ingredients was celebrated in her 1955 book, Summer Cooking. In the 1970’s David paid tribute to her English roots with the publication of, Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen, in 1970 and, Kitchen and English Bread and Yeast Cookery in 1978.

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Newsletter: 🪴 Mark Diacono’s plant to plate cooking + the final instalment of our iPhone food photography course 🤳

We are delighted to bring you two books from food writer, photographer, and gardener Mark Diacono. His book A Taste of the Unexpected, which won the Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year, shares the author’s journey to growing his own food. A Year at Otter Farm, winner of the Andre Simon Food Book Award, continues this work, charting the creation and running of his smallholding in Southwest England