Italian food

by Elizabeth David

ISBN: 9781911621294

Published: 2019-03-06

Jane Grigson wrote of Italian Food 'Basil was no more than the name of bachelor uncles, courgette was printed in italics as an alien word, and few of us knew how to eat spaghetti or pick a globe artichoke to pieces. ... Then came Elizabeth David like sunshine, writing with brief elegance about good food, that is, about food well contrived, well cooked. She made us understand that we could do better with what we had.' Published in 1954 the importance of this book, which required a full year's research in Italy, can only be appreciated when you realize that she was working in a post-rationing England which regarded Italian cuisine as nothing more than variations on pasta and veal. What she discovered was an enormous wealth of regional diversity in ingredients, methods, and even language, where the same pasta shape can be called three or four names in different parts of the country. She understood that all Italian cooking is regional; there is no 'national' cuisine and so there are...