Everyday holds the possibility of a miracle
-Elizabeth David
1913-1992
There are certain people who are easy to idolise. All their accomplishments can be reviewed and respected through their list of accolades. But, the person who achieved public recognition wasn’t the same person who first endeavoured to try. They have evolved, developed, had setbacks and fought criticism. Like you and I, they too took courage from their passions and the people that influenced them. What builds our character and determines our fate are our influences. Here I explored the influences of various well-known people and I start with the iconic British food writer Elizabeth David.
The Mediterranean
It’s difficult to pin-point a moment when Elizabeth David’s interest in food began. The first could be attributed to a book given to her by her mother. ‘The gentle art of cookery’ by Mrs C.F Leyel and Miss Olga Hartley. The other is when she set sail to France on the eve of the second world war with Charles Cowan Gibson. It was to be a journey of life changing experiences.
Perhaps more than anything that seduce Elizabeth passion for cookery were the markets. They would’ve been flowing with bright produce and heady aromas of perfumed freshness in Marseille. Unbeknownst to her France would soon be occupied and quickly following that, Italy would join the war against the allies. After evacuating to Italy, they managed to escape after being detained by officers.
Elizabeth and Charles made it to Greece and for a time had respite on one of the Greek islands.
Vegetables, salads and fruits were in abundance and inexpensive. Meat and dairy were costly but a greater variety compare to the sparse rationing in Britain.
It wasn’t long before Elizabeth was writing home to her sister of what could be achieved through a few choice ingredients for little money. She loved the simplistic cooking that savoured the food of the sun.
Eventually Crete was overrun by the invading German forces. Charles and Elizabeth evacuated to Egypt and then went there separate ways. She joined the war effort and worked for the Ministry of information and in Egypt she married. After a brief stay in India she returned back to England in 1946. After returning from these travels came an appreciation for good cuisine.
Mediterranean Cooking
When she returned to Britain the diet was reliable. It’s filled the stomach but lacked taste. There was a stark contrast with what the Mediterranean and Middle East had achieved on their limitations to what England had. England may had not had the climate for the fruit and vegetables grown in sunny climates but what Elizabeth found most horrifying is that no one seemed to care.
In 1950, John Lehmann published her first book. ‘A book of Mediterranean food.’
This was a book of collective recipes that actually at the time could not be cooked as the ingredients were either rationed or not available to purchase. It was the ideas however, the flavours that were intended to stimulate her and her reader at a time where there was little to entice the tastebuds.
I think it wasn’t so much that Elizabeth loved to eat although she took great pleasure in it. It’s more that she cared that the English didn’t care. She had an absolute conviction that food could be cooked simply and provide real enjoyment. That a good table of food provided the ability to unite friends and families. Flavours tasted then and there would bring people back to that happy moment when eaten again. It wasn’t just about the food, it went much deeper than that. It became a whole philosophy.
The kitchen and the lifestyle
Not only is her influence felt through cooking but also the kitchen itself. She inspired the atmosphere we often set out to create in our own kitchen. Today they function not only to cook but to eat and to entertain but it wasn’t always like that.
Before the kitchen was normally below or at the back of the house. It was the work room where either the servant or the woman of the house would work and present meals into the dinning room. Elizabeth took pride in her kitchen and would do most of the socialising and work in the kitchen. It was the beating heart of her house. Her ideology about the kitchen coincided with the 1950s American dream kitchen. Lino flooring big American appliances of fridges, freezers and ovens. Table top whisks and bright cabinets. But where the American idea was solely based on appearance and function. Elizabeth’s kitchen combined both function, appearance and living. It had soul.
‘Some sensible person once remarked that you spend the whole of your life either in your bed or in your shoes. Having done the best you can by shoes and bed, devote all the time and resources at your disposal to the building up of a fine kitchen. It will be, as it should be, the most comforting and comfortable room in the house.’ Elizabeth David.
Later in life she opened her own kitchen store. This paved the way of not only demonstrating what or how to cook, but what to use and setting about the design of a ordered kitchen. She recommended copper pans and gave suggestions on a place for retinning them. Though they were expensive to buy and their upkeep took effort she acknowledged ‘they are lovely to look at.’
Something which has again come back into fashion.
Food History
The more of a historian she became, the more she understood the erosion of the English tradition. While much of her writing life had been forcus on Mediterranean food, later in her life she became fixated on British food and British tradition. She realised that generations had lost the hand me down recipes of families for various reasons and began to collect and argue for their appreciation. Focusing on its history and skills which were being lost overtime. She may have been influenced to begin with simple, fresh and in season cuisine of sunshine filled countries but her interest in food truly expanded overtime. Eventually reaching beyond taste but food as an identity, a culture and a moment to bond.
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