Elizabeth David – A Book of Mediterranean Food – Reviewed by Antonia Lloyd

Elizabeth David’s first cookery book, A Book of Mediterranean Food, was published almost 75 years ago in 1950 and it changed British eating habits forever. Our Ambassador of Women In the Food Industry and Writer, Antonia Lloyd, reviews the 2024 hardback reissue.

In post-war Britain where rationing didn’t cease till 1953, it was an austere culinary landscape and David’s promise of garlic, saffron, olive oil, aromatic herbs, washed down with pungent local wines, was more than a breath of fresh air, it was a window on to a more expansive, colourful future. David’s legendary book wouldn’t just influence generations of chefs such as Claudia Roden, Julia Child, Jeremy Lee, Jamie Oliver, Simon Hopkinson, and Alice Waters but also became the handbook of home cooks like my grand-mother and mother, helping to shape culinary tastes at home for decades to come.

A Book of Mediterranean Food has been unavailable in a hardback edition in its original format since the 1960s and is now available in all its glory. Grub Street has restored it to print in a facsimile edition with the iconic illustrations by John Minton and this neat hardback allows for even more easy dipping in and out. At home we now boast three copies of David’s book – two in paperback that have been passed down – one belonged to my mother who bought hers in the US in 1966 that has recommended page numbers and scribbles all over it and the other is a 1965 UK edition bought by my mother-in-law. This new 2024 hardback edition is officially mine and has taken up a favourite position by my bed sending me off to sleep in a haze of intoxicating flavours and promise of deliciousness.

The book is based on a collection of recipes from Elizabeth David’s time living in France, Italy, the Greek Islands and Egypt, and also includes wonderful descriptions of eating habits in other countries, recollections of memorable meals and extracts from famous authors. Her original 1950s goal was to bring ‘a flavour of those blessed lands of sun and sea and olive trees into [our] English kitchens’ which she achieved with aplomb. This is honest Mediterranean cooking not grand, hotel fare and her extra flourishes from authors and fellow foodies pepper it beautifully.  I love her quotation by Marcel Boulestin: “It is not really an exaggeration to say that peace and happiness begin, geographically, where garlic is used in cooking.”

Looking back on it, I can see where my mother’s fondness for garlic must have first begun. David’s evocative details from her travels wake up your senses to the promise of simple food in sun-drenched lands. In Greece she describes the tradition of meze with your aperitif: ‘your feet almost in the Aegean as you drink your ouzou; boys with baskets of little clams or kidonia (sea quince) pass up and down the beach and open them for you at your table; or the waiter [brings you] small pieces of grilled octopus, quarters of fresh raw turnip… and a mound of bread’. This creates a hunger for new tastes that imbibes every page.

The recipes are timeless classics that are familiar and yet still offer new excitement. I can’t even imagine how overly stimulated cooks must have been when they first stumbled upon it in the early 50s.  A simple soupe au pistou with green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, seasoned and boiled up with vermicelli and enriched with a garlic aillade and served in a tureen with gruyere cheese.  A Mediterranean fish soup finished with fresh basil, parsley or fennel, lemon peel and a small clove of garlic to add that extra fresh flavour makes the palate water. We hear of the first chilled Spanish ‘gaspacho’ that was not well received by the Frenchman Monsieur Gautier in 1840, before David treats us to her more sophisticated version rich in tomato, onions using red wine, garlic and paprika.

There’s her recipe for chatchouka similar to the shaksukas we are all making these days – peppers or pimentos as she calls them, tomatoes, seasoning, eggs broken in and that’s it!  A classic recipe for mousaka which David informs us is well known all over the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East, is provided but this is the Greek version. Is this why I’ve always only ever really associated moussaka with Greece?

Reading her recipes feels like a stripped back take on so many favourite dishes that we know and love with just a few less ingredients but as much flavour as you’d ever ask for.  Her spanakopitta doesn’t have the extra herbs – it’s a spinach, gruyere cheese filling and I expect as delicious as ever.  The gigot of lamb provencale is reminiscent of my grandmother’s – it has slivers of 12 garlic cloves and anchoives inserted into the joint before being roasted.  I stumble across moules mariniere which has been ticked off in my mother’s copy; of course, it’s one of our all-time favourites. Layers of flavour and memory intertwine for me in this book.

At one point David declares ‘‘Who wants to eat the same food every day?’ The beauty of this book is that with no recourse to extraneous ingredients, she is suggesting dish after dish of sumptuous Mediterranean freshness, making the most of the key flavours in simple preparations. ‘Figues au Four’ (Figs in the oven) is literally unpeeled figs, with water and sugar baked in the oven and served ‘cold, with cream’.

Why does everything sound so heavenly? ‘If by any chance you happen to come upon a water melon and blackberries in the same season try this dish,’ advises David. Her direct tone is reminiscent of my grand-mother. Slices of melon with a squeeze of lemon mixed with blackberries, then placed on the melon half skin with sugar and ‘put on the ice’.  It’s the small details of presentation that elevate this simple idea. Without a doubt, late august when both fruits may be momentarily ripe and available, I shall be doing this.

For anyone looking for a timeless classic, I heartily recommend a return to Elizabeth David’s Mediterranean Cooking. It reminds one of the pure pleasure of sourcing ingredients, preparing fresh dishes with an eye on the seasons, and is a reassuring reset in our overly complex world.

The 2024 hardback reissue of  A Book of Mediterranean Food, is published by Grub Street. 

You may also like to read Antonia’s cookbook reviews of Elly Wentworth at The Angel of Dartmouth, Cooking with Anna by Anna Haugh,  Easy Wins by Anna Jones, The Taste of Belgium by Ruth Van Waerebeek and her review of Plant Feasts by Frankie Paz, our  review of The Asian Pantry by Dominique Woolf, our review of Recipes for a Better Menopause by Jane Baxter & Dr Federica Amati,  and our book review of Modern South Asian Kitchen by Sabrina Gidda.