Glazed and Confused
Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.
— Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)
Elizabeth David's Christmas, compiled posthumously by David's longtime friend
Jill Norman, is not so much a cookbook as it is a rambling journal from a bygone era.
With its often crotchety musings on Christmastime feasting, the venerable Ms. David
might have been better served by a different swan song.
British home cooks have cherished Elizabeth David's cooking advice and recipes for
decades. David rose to prominence during World War II, teaching an entire generation
how to cook when most common ingredients were either strictly rationed or totally
unavailable. Up until her death in 1992, David's writing continued to retain this early
ascetic imprint, and her recipes remained exquisitely simple, even elemental. This style
of cooking merits special praise in today's world, where even a basic meal must feature
mango or sun-dried tomato or some sort of exotic herbal infusion.
While her writing never ceases to engage her readers, I'm sad to report that Elizabeth
David's Christmas just doesn't work as a modern cookbook. As David herself
reminds us in the book's introduction, she has been contributing tried-and-true recipes to
magazines and other food publications since the late 1940s. Unfortunately, that's part of
the problem; neither David, nor her editor, has made any apparent effort to update these
supposedly ''classic'' recipes for a twenty-first century audience.
As an American (and a Jewish one, at that), I admit that I'm no expert on traditional
British Christmas fare; mince pies, sticky toffee pudding and potted mackerel are
virtually unknown in the United States. But even I know a moldy recipe when I see one.
Rillettes d'oie, for example, is a labor-intensive dish combining leg of goose and pork
belly, two ingredients the average cook won't necessarily have on hand. Rolled and
Glazed Ox-Tongue is another puzzler. I wouldn't know the first thing about buying an ox-
tongue, let alone rolling or glazing one. And Salted Goose, a supposed specialty of
Scandia, dates back to a recipe from 1588. These recipes are certainly of historical
interest, but I can't imagine that most readers will want to bother with them.
More often than not, David doesn't even bother providing a recipe. Instead, she fills
valuable space with acerbic tangents, forcing the reader to sift through barely relevant
text in order to find instructions she can follow. One diatribe involves the humble
avocado, a fruit not generally associated with Christmastime feasts. Heaven forbid
stuffing them with crab or shrimp, or sprinkling them with a spicy dressing; that's
"detestable" and "just awful." The only David-sanctioned accompaniments? You guessed
it: lemon juice, salt and olive oil. Similarly, David strikes down the very idea of a certain
"desperately sad" American cookbook designed to help a frugal cook make the most of
holiday leftovers. Maybe you can figure out why this is such an embarrassing
concept. I certainly can't.
The further you get into Elizabeth David's Christmas, the stronger the impression
that David's recipes should only be attempted by those with infinite time, infinite
patience and infinite resources. This is unfortunate, since these are things most of her
readership must obviously do without. Her recipes, mostly appearing in dense paragraphs
without separate ingredient lists, are not particularly user friendly. Few of them include
shortcuts, as though David -- who grew up in a manor with a staff preparing the
Christmas meal -- never fully adjusted to writing for a modern world filled with two-
worker households and short attention spans.
Considering this is a Christmas book, it doesn't help that Elizabeth David is not
particularly fond of Christmas. The author confesses a preference for enjoying piles of
smoked salmon and a glass of cold wine in bed on Christmas day, choosing to avoid the
holiday's rampant consumerism, exhausting food preparation, and endless dishwashing
altogether. While her readers may feel the same, it's not an especially helpful attitude.
Most will be looking to David for advice on how to cope with holiday food preparation,
not to sit out the season altogether.
It's a bit of a surprise that the most touching and unique entry in David's book is the final
one, an essay she originally published in 1964. Entitled "Para Navidad" -- for Christmas -
- David describes the Christmas preparations she observed in Spain during a short visit.
Her prose here is evocative, colorful and timeless. But it only makes you wish you were
reading a different book.
With so many cookbooks competing in the holiday market, I can't bring myself to
recommend Elizabeth David's Christmas to the average home cook. With its
long-winded tangents and outmoded recipes, a time-starved novice should pass it by. But
die-hard David fans and culinary purists will enjoy this book, if only as a fond and
engaging tribute to Christmas past.
— 21 January 2004
