A Book of Mediterranean Food
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PENGUIN BOOKS
A BOOK OF MEDITERRANEAN FOOD
Elizabeth David discovered her taste for good food and wine when she lived with a French family while studying history and literature at the Sorbonne. A few years after her return to England she made up her mind to learn to cook so that she could reproduce for herself and her friends some of the food that she had come to appreciate in France. Subsequently, Mrs David lived and kept house in France, Italy, Greece, Egypt and India, as well as in England. She found not only the practical side but also the literature of cookery of absorbing interest and studied it throughout her life.
Her first book, Mediterranean Food, appeared in 1950. French Country Cooking followed in 1951, Italian Food, after a year of research in Italy, in 1954, Summer Cooking in 1955 and French Provincial Cooking in 1960. These books and a stream of often provocative articles in magazines and newspapers changed the outlook of English cooks for ever.
In her later works she explored the traditions of English cooking (Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen, 1970) and with English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977) became the champion of a long overdue movement for good bread. An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (1984) is a selection of articles first written for the Spectator, Vogue, Nova and a range of other journals. The posthumously published Harvest of the Cold Months (1994) is a fascinating historical account of aspects of food preservation, the worldwide ice trade and the early days of refrigeration. South Wind Through the Kitchen, an anthology of recipes and articles from Mrs David’s nine books, selected by her family and friends, and by the chefs and writers she inspired, was published in 1997, and acts as a reminder of what made Elizabeth David one of the most influential and loved of English food writers. A final anthology of unpublished recipes, uncollected articles and essays entitled Is There a Nutmeg in the House? is also available in Penguin.
In 1973 her contribution to the gastronomic arts was recognized with the award of the first André Simon Memorial Fund Book Award. An OBE followed in 1976, and in 1977 she was made a chevalier de l’ordre du Mérite Agricole. In the same year English Bread and Yeast Cookery won Elizabeth David the Glenfiddich Writer of the Year Award. The universities of Essex and Bristol conferred honorary doctorates on her in 1979 and 1988 respectively. In 1982 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 1986 was awarded a CBE. Elizabeth David died in 1992.
ELIZABETH DAVID
A Book of Mediterranean Food
SECOND REVISED EDITION
DECORATED BY JOHN MINTON
AND PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published by John Lehmann 1950
This edition revised for Macdonald and Co. by Elizabeth David and first published by them in 1958
First revised edition published in Penguin Books 1955
Second revised edition 1965
Reprinted with a new introduction 1991
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Copyright © Elizabeth David, 1958, 1965, 1988
All rights reserved
An illustrated and revised edition was published by Dorling Kindersley in 1988
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-195649-7
TO
Veronica Nicholson
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Contents
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Introduction
Acknowledgements
Preface to the Penguin Edition
Preface to the Second Revised Penguin Edition
Introduction to the 1988 Edition
Table of Equivalent Gas and Electric Oven Temperatures
Table of Equivalent American Measurements
SOUPS
EGGS AND LUNCHEON DISHES
Snails
FISH
Shell Fish
Sea and Freshwater Fish
Octopus and Cuttlefish
MEAT
Veal
Lamb and Mutton
Beef
Pork
Kid
Boar
SUBSTANTIAL DISHES
POULTRY AND GAME
Hare and Rabbit
VEGETABLES
COLD FOOD AND SALADS
Note on Hors d’OEuvre
A FEW SWEETS
JAMS AND PRESERVES
SAUCES
Index
Introduction
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THE cooking of the Mediterranean shores, endowed with all the natural resources, the colour and flavour of the South, is a blend of tradition and brilliant improvisation. The Latin genius flashes from the kitchen pans.
It is honest cooking, too; none of the sham Grande Cuisine of the International Palace Hotel.
‘It is not really an exaggeration’, wrote Marcel Boulestin, ‘to say that peace and happiness begin, geographically, where garlic is used in cooking.’ From Gibraltar to the Bosphorus, down the Rhone Valley, through the great seaports of Marseilles, Barcelona, and Genoa, across to Tunis and Alexandria, embracing all the Mediterranean islands, Corsica, Sicily, Sardinia, Crete, the Cyclades, Cyprus (where the Byzantine influence begins to be felt), to the mainland of Greece and the much disputed territories of Syria, the Lebanon, Constantinople, and Smyrna, stretches the influence of Mediterranean cooking, conditioned naturally by variations in climate and soil and the relative industry or indolence of the inhabitants.
The ever recurring elements in the food throughout these countries are the oil, the saffron, the garlic, the pungent local wines; the aromatic perfume of rosemary, wild marjoram and basil drying in the kitchens; the brilliance of the market stalls piled high with pimentos, aubergines, tomatoes, olives, melons, figs, and limes; the great heaps of shiny fish, silver, vermilion, or tiger-striped, and those long needle fish whose bones so mysteriously turn out to be green. There are, too, all manner of unfamiliar cheeses made from sheep or goat’s milk; the butchers’ stalls are festooned with every imagineable portion of the inside of every edible animal (anyone who has lived for long in Greece will be familiar with the sound of air gruesomely whistling through sheep’s lungs frying in oil).
There are endless varieties of currants and raisins, figs from. Smyrna on long strings, dates, almonds, pistachios, and pine kernel nuts, dried melon seeds and sheets of apricot paste which is dissolved in water to make a cooling drink.
All these ingredients make rich and colourful dishes. Over-picturesque, perhaps, for every day; but then who wants to eat the same food every day? I have, therefore, varied this collection with some classic dishes and recipes from regions of France other than t
hose bordering the Mediterranean. I have also devoted a special chapter to dishes which constitute a meal in themselves, such as Paëlla, Cassoulet, and Pilaffs, and another chapter to cold food, fine dishes which are particularly suitable to our servantless lives; prepared in advance and either preceded or followed by a spicy, aromatic southern dish, what more could one want?
With this selection (it does not claim to be more) of Mediterranean dishes, I hope to give some idea of the lovely cookery of those regions to people who do not already know them, and to stir the memories of those who have eaten this food on its native shores, and who would like sometimes to bring a flavour of those blessed lands of sun and sea and olive trees into their English kitchens.
London, 1950 E.D.
MIDDLE EASTERN COOKERY.
A handful of the recipes in this book, learned when I lived in Alexandria, Cairo and Greece, demonstrate the cooking of the Near East. To those who would like to know more of this most interesting and beautiful food I cannot do better than recommend a recently published and comprehensive book on the subject: Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (Nelson, 1968).
1969 E.D.
Acknowledgements
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MY thanks are due to the late Norman Douglas and to his publishers Messrs Chapman & Hall and Messrs Secker and Warburg for permission to include the recipe from Birds and Beasts of the Greek Anthology and the extracts from South Wind respectively; also to Messrs Faber & Faber for two extracts from Prospero’s Cell by Lawrence Durrell; to John Lane (The Bodley Head) for a quotation from The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein; to Messrs Hutchinson & Co. for permission to reproduce a passage from Cross Channel by Alan Houghton Brodrick; to Messrs William Heinemann and Mrs Frieda Lawrence for the extract from D. H. Lawrence’s Sea and Sardinia, and also to Messrs Macmillan for the passage from Sir Osbert Sitwell’s Great Morning; to Messrs Cassell & Co. for permission to quote from Sir Compton Mackenzie’s First Athenian Memories; to Messrs Edward Arnold for permission to reproduce a recipe from Colonel Kenney-Herbert’s Fifty Luncheons; to the owner of the copyright of Things that have Interested Me by Arnold Bennett; to Mr Innes Rose of John Farquharson Ltd for his permission to include an extract from Henry James’s A Little Tour in France; to Alfred Knopf Inc. of New York for permission to give the passage from Théophile Gautier’s book Un Voyage en Espagne, translated into English by Catherine Alison Phillips under the title A Romantic in Spain; and to Les Editions Denoel and Messrs Ivor Nicholson & Watson for the passage from The Happy Glutton by Alin Laubreaux.
My acknowledgements are also due to the editor and publishers of Harper’s Bazaar, in which magazine many of the following recipes first appeared.
I should also like to take this opportunity of thanking a number of friends who have most kindly helped me with recipes and with advice, and especially The Hon. Edward Gathorne-Hardy of the British Embassy in Cairo, Mrs Esmat Hammuda of Cairo, and Mr Robin Chancellor for his generous and practical assistance.
Above all I have a debt of gratitude to the late Norman Douglas; whose great knowledge and enchanting talk taught me so much about the Mediterranean.
E.D.
Preface to the Penguin Edition
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THIS book first appeared in 1950, when almost every essential ingredient of good cooking was either rationed or unobtainable. To produce the simplest meal consisting of even two or three genuine dishes required the utmost ingenuity and devotion. But even if people could not very often make the dishes here described, it was stimulating to think about them; to escape from the deadly boredom of queuing and the frustration of buying the weekly rations; to read about real food cooked with wine and olive oil, eggs and butter and cream, and dishes richly flavoured with onions, garlic, herbs, and brightly coloured southern vegetables.
In revising the recipes for the present edition I have had little to alter as far as the ingredients were concerned, but here and there I have increased the number of eggs or added a little more stock or bacon or meat to a recipe; I have taken out one or two dishes which were substitute cooking in that, although no false ingredients were used, a good deal of extra seasoning, in the form of tomato purée or wine and vegetables, was added to make up for lack of flavour which should have been supplied by meat or stock or butter.
Because in those days poor quality and lack of ingredients necessitated the use of devious means to achieve the right results, and also because during the last few years I have had opportunities of learning a good deal more than I knew at the time about different methods of cooking, I have been able to simplify the instructions for making some of the dishes. A few recipes which had nothing to do with Mediterranean cooking and which I included perhaps out of over-enthusiasm, I have replaced with Mediterranean recipes which I have since collected. Some of these are for Eastern Mediterranean dishes, from Greece, Syria, Turkey, and the Middle East, others from Italy, Spain, and Provence.
So startlingly different is the food situation now as compared with only two years ago that I think there is scarcely a single ingredient, however exotic, mentioned in this book which cannot be obtained somewhere in this country, even if it is only in one or two shops. Those who make an occasional marketing expedition to Soho or to the region of Tottenham Court Road can buy Greek cheese and Calamata olives, Tahina paste from the Middle East, little birds preserved in oil from Cyprus, stuffed vine leaves from Turkey, Spanish sausages, Egyptian brown beans, chick peas, Armenian ham, Spanish, Italian, and Cypriot olive oil, Italian salame and rice, even occasionally Neapolitan Mozzarella cheese, and honey from Mount Hymettus. These are the details which complete the flavour of a Mediterranean meal, but the ingredients which make this cookery so essentially different from our own are available to all; they are the olive oil, wine, lemons, garlic, onions, tomatoes, and the aromatic herbs and spices which go to make up what is so often lacking in English cooking: variety of flavour and colour, and the warm, rich, stimulating smells of genuine food.
London, 1955
PREFACE TO THE SECOND REVISED PENGUIN EDITION
IN the lands bordering the Mediterranean, as indeed almost everywhere else, the cooking is constantly evolving; traditional dishes are being adapted to modern techniques and to new ingredients, or to old ones which, as a result of modern methods of cultivation, transport, preservation, and storage, have undergone material modifications or even a basic change.
In view of these circumstances I have now made, for the 1965 edition of this book, such additions and modifications as were compatible with the character of the original and within its scope.
It is my hope that one day I shall find myself in a position to write a second instalment of this briefest of introductions to the cooking of the Mediterranean shores. In those regions there will always be new discoveries to be made; new doors opening, new impressions to communicate.
January 1965. E.D.
Introduction to the 1988 Edition
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WHEN in 1947 I started putting together the recipes which made up this book it was less with any thought of future publication than as a personal antidote to the bleak conditions and acute food shortages of immediate post-war England. Looking back to those days, when meat, butter, cheese, sugar, eggs, bacon, milk, and even biscuits, sweets and chocolate were rationed, when fresh vegetables and fruit were scarce, lemons, oranges and tomatoes as rare as diamonds, commodities such as olive oil, rice, and imported pasta no more than exotic memories, and fresh fish something you stood in a queue for, I see that it was also largely in a spirit of defiance that I wrote down those Mediterranean recipes. I had collected them in Provence, in Corsica, Malta, Athens and the island of Syra in the Cyclades where I had lived for seven months before the Germans overran Greece. Subsequently I had spent a year in Alexandria, where I was employed by the British Admiralty and four or five in Cairo organizing and running a reference librar
y for the British Ministry of Information in the Middle East. Those years, for me good and fruitful, came to an end at Christmas 1945, when I left Egypt to join my husband in New Delhi where he was working on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, General Auchinleck.
After a few brief months in India, my health in a precarious state, I was returned like a badly wrapped parcel, to England. There I found myself without a job, and with precious little to do except cook. Given the difficulty of finding basic ingredients to put into my pots and pans, it is hardly surprising that shopping for food took up much more time and energy than the actual kitchen preparation and cooking. Still, everybody was in the same boat, and somehow we all managed, even if we did have to eat an awful lot of beans and potatoes, and I had one great advantage over my sisters and friends who had spent the war years in England. While their store cupboards were stuffed with things like packet soups, dried egg powder, evaporated milk, and crumbling biscuits, I had no such dismal hoards. So I was free to go out looking for anything fit to eat which might be on offer in the shops where ration books and coupons weren’t required. That meant greengrocers, fishmongers, and game and poultry dealers. Not an extraordinary choice. It should also be remembered that in those days there were few exotic imports such as now crowd the greengrocery displays. Avocado pears and southern vegetables weren’t yet available in England. Aubergines, peppers, courgettes and fennel had hardly been heard of. Even garlic was hard to come by. If you’d mentioned basil or tarragon you’d have been asked who they were.
When in the early autumn of 1946 (I had arrived in England in August) tomatoes reappeared for the first time, things at last seemed to be looking up. I was much mistaken. As autumn turned into winter I shivered in my barely heated top-floor London flat. After living so long in warm climates my wardrobe was absurdly inadequate. Clothes coupons went nowhere. By Christmas real winter had set in. January, February, and March 1947 became memorable as the coldest winter, April as the wettest spring, of the century.