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.