Elizabeth David's Christmas [Hardcover]

Elizabeth David (Author), compiled by Jill Norman (Author), Jill Norman (Editor), Elvis Swift (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2008

Throughout her distinguished career, Elizabeth David wrote and collected many articles about Christmas food. She put together a file of these articles, recipes, and notes, and even wrote an introduction, intending to publish them as a book. It never appeared, and after her death in 1992, her literary executor Jill Norman found a box with all this material. She put them together as Elizabeth intended, and Godine now has her "Christmas" edited for the American reader, handsomely illustrated and ready to guide us through the festive season with good food and high spirits.

Beautifully written, this new edition contains around 150 recipes together with a selection of David's own articles, plus other writings she found interesting and helpful over the years. Feeding friends and family for Christmas can be stressful, and this book is intended to help busy cooks plan ahead and enjoy Christmas as much as their guests. The classics are all here: turkey (of course), but also goose; stuffings; sauces; mince pies; and Christmas puddings. For the armchair cook, the text also provides information as well as diversion: here are the actual traditions of Christmas's past, as well as description of the yuletide in other countries. In other words, a feast for mind and table.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Every time I reread one of Elizabeth David's books, I discover details to inspire me anew. Her works reach all my senses. The life around the table, the setting, the conversation -- not just the food -- are all part of her inimitable aesthetic. --Alice Waters<br /><br />Every time I reread one of Elizabeth David's books, I discover details to inspire me anew. Her works reach all my senses. The life around the table, the setting, the conversation -- not just the food -- are all part of her inimitable aesthetic. --Alice Waters<br /><br />If we were to bushwack our way back to the true source of modern American food culture, we would find that it is not Julia Child, but Elizabeth David. (Her) recipes are all charm... --The New Yorker<br /><br />Every time I reread one of Elizabeth David's books, I discover details to inspire me anew. Her works reach all my senses. The life around the table, the setting, the conversation -- not just the food -- are all part of her inimitable aesthetic. --Alice Waters

To end with, an English Christmas present: ELIZABETH DAVID S CHRISTMAS (Godine, $25.95), assembled by David s friend and editor, Jill Norman, from articles and papers for a holiday volume the renowned food writer left at her death in 1992. Though David begins by lamenting the season s grisly orgy of spending and cooking and anxiety ( There are times indeed when it s difficult not to regret the failure of the Cromwell regime s bid to suppress the whole thing ), she forges ahead all but encyclopedically, with the mandatory stuffed turkeys and roast geese and Christmas puddings and a great deal of information about age-old and sometimes lost traditions. There are also ideas for meals before and especially after the big day, when revelers are likely to feel a craving for a few vegetables freshly and simply cooked . . . without so much as a sniff of the turkey or ham leftovers. I tried a couple of sweet-and-sour cabbage recipes, one Italian-inspired, the other a slow-cooking dish with smoked sausage; both were delicious. Encouraged by McLagan s and Hopkinson s enthusiasm for suet, I even took the plunge and bought a pound in order to make David s mincemeat. (I won t know how it comes out for a few weeks yet.)

Like all of David s books, this one is even better for daydreaming. The author seems to have viewed it that way herself. As much as she loved thinking about food and sharing it with friends and family, her own idea of a fine holiday was to stay in bed, making myself lunch on a tray. Smoked salmon, home-made bread, butter, lovely cold white Alsace wine. A glorious way to celebrate Christmas. --The New York Times

About the Author

Elizabeth David (1913-1992) changed the way we cook, and how we think and write about food. David's wit and imagination, not to mention her innovative recipes, sparked an international revolution in taste that influenced not only the English cooks of her generation, but many Americans as well.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: David R Godine; First Edition edition (October 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567923615
• ISBN-13: 978-1567923612
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #215,977 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cookbook that offers recipes to be prepared ahead of time - and a good read, July 28, 2009

By 

rural girl (USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Elizabeth David's Christmas (Hardcover)

I like Elizabeth David; she is not fussy, she is friendly and funny; most importantly, Ms. David is really trying to help me find an easier way to entertain during holidays, by offering recipes that I can make ahead of time, so I can spend more time with family, not in the kitchen. She even talks about how long specific food in her recipes can wait around before going bad. I actually read this book like a novel and I may have only skipped over one or two recipes; it is a fun read.

Ms. David ads in wonderful history of many recipes, either personal history or historical. My favorite description was a 1708 description on how to prepare a goose and it included the quote "Take the fairest and fattest goose you can get ... then tye him up in paper and hang him up in chimney where they burn woode or coale, let him hang a fortnight or three weekes in that time he will be readye to boyle ..." - how wonderful! Ms. David has also included a wonderful history on Plum Pudding (Plumm Pottage) from a book published 1751 "The Art of Cooking Made Plain and Easy, 4th Edition" as well as other historical information, the recipe and tips as well as a description from a diary, of a New Year's Day meal, given by a squire in 1707 - how cool is that?

I have tried several recipes and they were interesting and delicious - although they sounded a bit strange when I first read them such as Leeks with Red Wine (page 104), Rice and Cucumber Salad (page 118), Marinated Carrots (page 103).

The most interesting chapters to me are:

Cold Meats: how great! A chapter on cooking meat specifically to enjoy at room temperature!

Sauces, Pickles and Chutneys: Cumberland sauce, Sweet-Sour Cherry Sauce for Cold Tongue, Sweet Sour Pears, Pumpkin and Tomato chutney = to put on your cold meats and bread! And have around to make snacks more interesting.

Winter Salads: Celery and Beetroot Salad, Orange Salad, Fennel Salad = super!

This fall I will try the Apple and Almond cake on page 166, when I have so many apples I won't know what to do with them ...

In the back of the book, before the index, on page 198 is "Notes for American Cooks" where there are translations like Gammon is cured but uncooked ham and Pig's trotters are obviously pig's feet - the language is lovely!

Buy this book and enjoy reading it as a novel and then try eating some of her recipes; you will be satisfied!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideal!, January 21, 2010

By 

K.H.C. "coals2n" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elizabeth David's Christmas (Hardcover)

Elizabeth David is the perfect combination of writer and chef. I can't decide if I want to be her, creating the quintessential British dinner in a manor house somewhere in the heart of England; standing beside her, while she teaches me to make it, too; sitting at her table, feasting on the spoils; or just curled up in an armchair, reading her lovely stories, which are conversational and delightfully described.

Must-have!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars With MFK my favorite food author to read, July 2, 2011

By 

Christopher D. Junker (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Elizabeth David's Christmas (Hardcover)

Elizabeth David is always worth a read. I do not read her so much to get a recipe or instructions but to get her take on things. Her recipes are almost always accompanied with some personal commentary on the food and its place in her life. The Christmas book is a posthumous collection of writings that may have ended up in a book like this, but in this version not particularly cohesive or complete. More of a box of miscellaneous things one might have collected over the years and found valuable. She is the amateur we all want to be.