French Provincial Cooking

After the success of her first book, the 1950 A Book of Mediterranean Food, based on her stays in Antibes and elsewhere during the Second World War,^[11] David wrote four others on Mediterranean cuisines, namely the 1951 French Country Cooking, the 1954 Italian Food, the 1955 Summer Cooking, and finally in 1960 French Provincial Cooking.^[12] David states that French Provincial Cooking incorporated numerous articles she had written for Vogue and The Sunday Times in the 1950s.^[13] It has been described as "her most influential book", offering in Joe Moran's words a "stylish but straightforward cuisine [which] fitted in with a new type of casual urban entertaining", suitable for having "a few friends round for a meal" as opposed to an old-fashioned dinner party.^[14]

In 1953, the American Cordon Bleu cook Julia Child visited Marseille and was like David impressed by the freshness of the produce from vegetables to fish, so unlike America's chilled and wrapped supermarket goods. This led to her 1961 book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The culinary historian Rosemary Lancaster writes that while Child's book describes how to prepare the food plainly and directly, without David's discourses on the ambience of the cuisine, both women "seduced their readers", changing cooking habits in their home countries.^[11]

In 1972, J. A. E. Loubère recommended the book to Americans for its combination of the pleasures of "armchair traveling" and "armchair cookery", noting that the provinces covered extend beyond the familiar ones, and that where some cuts of meat would not be readily available in the US, the recipes can easily be adjusted.^[15] The book had success in Australia, too. The Australian novelist Marion Halligan wrote that David "gave meaning to the food"^[16] at newly-fashionable post-war dinner parties that offered French food.^[17]

• Chaney, Lisa (1998). Elizabeth David. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-65930-4.
• David, Elizabeth (1960). French Provincial Cooking. London: Michael Joseph. OCLC 1087212421.
• David, Elizabeth (2008) [1960]. French Provincial Cooking (4th ed.). London: Folio Society. OCLC 809349711.