South Wind Through the Kitchen: The Best of Elizabeth David

About this book

South Wind Through the Kitchen is the best of British cookery writer Elizabeth David. Selected from her nine books here are classic essays on the food of Provence and of Paris on Italian fish markets and Middle Eastern herb gardens. There are nearly 200 recipes: appetizers soups eggs fish meat poultry vegetables sauces breads preserves and desserts. Whether discussing the pains of rolling puff pastry or the ease of making pizza railing against the practices of English bakeries or praising the sausage rolls at the Htel du Midi David always speaks her own mind. Best of all shes a contagious enthusiast: she makes you want to rise from your chair to travel shop or try your hand at an omelette. Reading her writes Julian Barnes you have a strong sense of a person whose cardinal principles are truth and pleasure. Perhaps it is not absurd to compare her effect on a certain sector of tired hungry impoverished 50s Britain with Kinseys effect on America.