Although Elizabeth David was the very reverse of a recluse, she was famously reluctant to divulge information about herself to her readership, claiming that everything to be said was said in her books. We must take leave to doubt this, in the light of Artemis Cooper's Writing at the Kitchen Table, which follows on the heels of Lisa Chaney's Elizabeth David: A Mediterranean Passion. The more that is revealed about her, the more interesting she becomes. Artemis Cooper is the "authorised" biographer, writing with access to a mass of personal papers but this is not a hagiography. Mrs David, as crisply but sympathetically drawn in these pages, was a fascinating egotist, beautiful with a hard sensuality, generous but capable of furious rages and lasting grudges. She learned a valuable lesson in self-centredness from the quintessentially louche Norman Douglas, who in many ways seems to have been a key influence. Clearly she was not exactly a nice person, although it is encouraging (and not entirely surprising) to discover that she had a really dirty laugh--more of a cackle, in fact, it appears.

The story is well told: The patrician background she flouted (but not too much); the flight from England, greyness and failure; the rackety wartime years spent knocking around the Mediterranean in the company of high Bohemians such as Lawrence Durrell; the marriage of convenience in Cairo that at least gave her the status of a married woman but was soon abandoned; the lovers; the return to London and the start of a dazzling writing career; the fame and the status; the shop; the stroke that affected both palate and libido; the troubled later years. On none of this need she be judged and Artemis Cooper does not. After all, Elizabeth David was right. The best of her is in the writing; and the best of her was the precise, attentive, sensual appreciation of food and cooking. We must remember that above all she was an exquisitely skilful cook, whose influence, though mostly indirect, has been incalculable. It's all the more moving, then, to learn that at her funeral, "among the wreaths and baskets of flowers, and the violets she loved, someone had left a loaf of bread and a bunch of herbs tied up in brown paper." --Robin Davidson

2002-02-13 tale of a genius

I normally steer well clear of authorised accounts of people's lives after all the really interesting facts are invariably the very ones which people seek to hide. Elizabeth David being such a huge figure in the culinary world and the depth of research I perceived from merely a cursory glance at the index intrigued me enough to give it a whirl. While I can't say I'm ready to revise my longstanding rule I am glad I made the exception in this case. I can't help feeling however that through some of the stories presented the author could present a somewhat more revealing portrait of not constrained by the conditions of that fateful epithet.

Notwithstanding this is still a fine volume and bears many of the hallmarks of a classic. It would be of particular interest to foodies as well as anyone who was just after a collection of (true life) ripping yarns. David lead a remarkable life during turbulent times, travelled widely and wrote beautifully and authoritatively. She was reluctant however to reveal more of herself to her public than what was presented in her various classic treatises on food.

She remains one of the central figures in food literature and can be viewed in detail now as a thoroughly interesting character.