Elizabeth David's Christmas

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!

Definitely a good read, and though it was edited posthumously, it still seems true to the author's voice. Christmas customs in England are a bit different than the customs we have here in the U.S., and times have changed since the 20th century; but if you are having parties large or small at your house during the holidays, then you will appreciate the planning advice and menu ideas presented in this book. She certainly knew how to use up a turkey without wasting a bit of it.

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.

This is a very interesting book.

Interesting with some excellent additional alternative Xmas recipes

I purchased this book as a requested gift item for a family member. She was delighted with it. Thank you

There is a volume of this out there with a forward by Alice Waters. That is the volume I was interested in. This is the English version so no Alice.The recipes have historical value, not sure if I will make anything from this book. I have to peruse further.

To really enjoy this book you have to be a fan of Elizabeth David to really appreciate it. It's not a book for everyone - it's not a recipe book perse. Enjoy!

I spent 2 hours Sellotaping badly torn pages before I could start reading them.Otherwise, once sorted it was a good collection of Mrs David's recipes put together after her death.

This had an excellent review and I adore Christmas cookbooks. I was very disappointed. It's flat with recipes that are old and frankly dull. Not for me

...the typical Elizabeth David way.'The celebrated food writer, who died in 1992, apparently always meant to write a book called 'Food for Christmas' and had not only collected recipes and useful quotes but written the introduction, which makes clear her preference for smoked salmon and a glass of champagne without all the commercial fuss...'Compiled by Jill Norman, the preface goes on to explain that the idea of the book was first hatched way back in the seventies...not just a book of recipes, but one which gathered all ED's Christmas material in one neat little volume.Measuring in around 22 cm x 15.5 cm x 1.75 cm, it has dark red board covers with gold lettering to the spine and is simply dressed in a dust-jacket.Inside are 214 matt pages, split over chapters:♦ Celebrating Christmas- Christmas is a family occasion- Untraditional Christmas food- Cooking for a family- Christmas preparations- Life after Christmas- A country Christmas (George Eliot)♦ First courses and cold meats♦ Soups♦ Poultry and Game- What to do with the bird♦ Meat- Traditional Christmas dishes- Christmas in France♦ Vegetables and Salads- The magpie system♦ Sauces, Pickles and Chutneys♦ Desserts, Cakes and Drinks- Plum pottage, porridge, broth and pudding- The pudding- Frumenty or fermity- Christmas drinks- Para Navidadsandwiched between an introduction and a list of other books by Elizabeth David.Jill Norman explains:'I have put it together now in the spirit which Elizabeth intended, with her introduction, the recipes and the articles that still have an interest today...the style of the recipes varies, as Elizabeth's writing changed over the years. The early recipes tend to be quite short, whereas later ones are often accompanied by explanatory notes', e.g.:From, 'Apple purée or sauce', on page 133:'Sometimes if making the purée just for myself, I leave out both sugar and butter. At one time it seems to have been customary to add mustard to apple sauce. One recipe I have, from 'Family Magazine' of 1740, directs that the sauce for a roasted chine of pork be 'made with lemon-peel, apples, sugar, butter and mustard.'This would have been one of those sweet sharp sauces, something like Italian fruit mustards, which for centuries have been associated with rich, fat meat such as pork. A chine was a cut from the back of a pig, rather like a joint of back bacon in the piece. There is a high proportion of fat on a chine, so the apple and mustard sauce was an appropriate one.'Jill continues:'Where necessary I have added metric measures and oven temperatures in Celsius. The recipes for cured meats call for saltpetre, which, unfortunately, chemists are no longer permitted to sell. The best solution is to find a friendly local butcher who pickles his own meat and ask if he will supply some. If you can't get it, you can cure the meat without it, for the purpose of saltpetre is not preservative but cosmetic: it gives the meat its appetising pink colour.'The chapters open with the title on the right hand page, the left page is blank. The recipes have a simple title at the top and, for the main part, the required ingredients are generally scattered through the writing. Recipes most often spill over onto the next page.16 full colour plates (2 sets of 8) of ingredients from Jason Lowe are the only illustrations in the book.A small taste of the other recipes included:* Prawn paste* Egg mayonnaise* Potted spice beef* Terrine of pork and duck* Pumpkin and celery soup* Pasternak and cress cream* Potage Saint Herbert* To make stock from a poultry carcass* Turkey with herb and butter stuffing* Boned turkey, stuffed with tongue and forcemeat* French sausage meat* Giblet gravy* Turkey breasts with Marsala* Salted goose* Oven-poached chicken* Duck baked in cider* Spiced beef for Christmas* Baked fillet of beef with tomato fondue* Rolled and glazed ox-tongue* Leeks with red wine* Brussels sprouts* Carottes rapées* Endive and beetroot salad* Bread sauce* Cumberland sauce* Spiced quinces* Brandy butter* Mincemeat* Atholl brose* A Christmas recipe for an Old Testament cake* Vanilla sugar* Vin chaud a l'orange

This was a present but it arrived in this damaged condition. So poor

I have most of Elizabeth David's book, it was she who interested me in cooking. This is a delightful selection, really enjoyed it.