★英語聽力頻道為大家整理的美食教母百年誕辰（有聲） 欣賞。更多閱讀請查看本站英語聽力頻道。
Like most food writers I've loved Elizabeth David's work. But most of the last generation of food lovers seems to regard her as a saint with an unquestioning, almost cult-like enthusiasm. As a result she's a terrifically dominant presence in our food culture, probably the biggest single influence on the British food scene. But she was clearly a complicated personality and working in an entirely different era. British food and the people who make up our present diverse food scene would be all but unrecognisable to her. Unlike the last generation, my generation needs to question the exact nature of the legacy.
It's Elizabeth David's centenary this week, the woman who in the difficult days of rationing after World War II, started the cookbook boom and according to some, taught us all to cook, mostly food from sunnier lands than ours. I knew how to cook when I went to university. But when a friend made David's oxtails with grapes, a perfect student-budget dish, it opened up a new world. I was late to that revelation because Elizabeth David's books started creating a stir in 1950 when she published Mediterranean Food, swiftly followed by French Country Cooking, Italian Food, Summer Cooking and French Provincial Cooking, all in ten years. The Continent, as people used to say with a capital C, was no longer a mysterious land. Well, that's how I see the story.
Like most food writers I've loved Elizabeth David's work. But most of the last generation of food lovers seems to regard her as a saint with an unquestioning, almost cult-like enthusiasm. As a result she's a terrifically dominant presence in our food culture, probably the biggest single influence on the British food scene. But she was clearly a complicated personality and working in an entirely different era. British food and the people who make up our present diverse food scene would be all but unrecognisable to her. Unlike the last generation, my generation needs to question the exact nature of the legacy.
It's Elizabeth David's centenary this week, the woman who in the difficult days of rationing after World War II, started the cookbook boom and according to some, taught us all to cook, mostly food from sunnier lands than ours. I knew how to cook when I went to university. But when a friend made David's oxtails with grapes, a perfect student-budget dish, it opened up a new world. I was late to that revelation because Elizabeth David's books started creating a stir in 1950 when she published Mediterranean Food, swiftly followed by French Country Cooking, Italian Food, Summer Cooking and French Provincial Cooking, all in ten years. The Continent, as people used to say with a capital C, was no longer a mysterious land. Well, that's how I see the story.