Elizabeth David CBE (1913-1992) is a pre-eminent British cookery writer of the mid 20th century.

David is considered responsible for bringing French and Italian cooking into the British home (along with olive oil and the courgette), in a Britain worn down by post-war rationing and dull food. She celebrated the regional and rural dishes of the Mediterranean rather than the fussier food of the gourmands and aristocrats. David's style is characterised by terse descriptions of the recipes themselves, accompanied by detailed description of their context. She was often scathing of bad food, including the food of England that she and her readers had grown up with.

Born Elizabeth Gwynne, she came from a rather grand background, growing up in the 17th century Sussex manor house, Wootton Manor with three sisters. Her parents were Rupert Gwynne , Conservative MP for Eastbourne, and the Hon. Stella Ridley who came from a distinguished Northumberland family. She studied at the Sorbonne, living with a French family for two years, which led to a love of France and of food. At the age of 19, she had been given her first cookery book, The Gentle Art of Cookery by Hilda Leyel , who wrote of her love with the food of the East. "If I had been given a standard Mrs Beeton instead of Mrs Leyel's wonderful recipes," she said, "I would probably never have learned to cook."

Gwynne had an adventurous early life, leaving home to become an actress. She left England in 1939, when she was twenty-five, and bought a boat with her married lover Charles Gibson-Cowan intending to travel around the Mediterranean. She started the War having to flee the German occupation. They left Antibes without the boat, which the Germans impounded, and arrived in the Greek islands, living for a period in Syros where she learnt about Greek food. They spent time with high bohemians such as Lawrence Durrell. When the Germans invaded, they fled to Egypt where Gwynne split from Gibson-Cowan and started work for the Ministry of Information and took on a marriage of convenience in Cairo, to Lieutenant-Colonel Tony David who she did not respect, that gave her some respectability but soon ended after eight months posted in India. She had many lovers in ensuing years.

On her return to London in 1946, David began to write cooking articles and in 1949 the publisher John Lehmann offered her a hundred-pound advance for Mediterranean Food, the start of a dazzling writing career. David spent eight months researching Italian food in Venice, Tuscany and Capri. Many of the ingredients were unknown when the books were first published, and David had to suggest looking for oil in pharmacies where it was sold for rubbing on feet. Within a decade, ingredients such as aubergines, saffron and pasta began to appear in shops, thanks in no small part to David's books. David gained fame, respect and high status and advised many chefs and companies. She even started her own shop. She wrote articles for Vogue magazine, one of the first in the genre of food-travel.

David won the Glenfiddich Writer of the Year award for English Bread and Yeast Cookery. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex and the award of a Chevalier de l'Ordre du Merite Agricole. However, the honour that most pleased her was being made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1982 in recognition of her skills as a writer. In 1986 she was awarded a CBE.

David was a eloquent, intelligent but difficult woman and inspired fear and adoration. She had many, many friends but could be a monster. She suffered a stroke that incredibly led to a loss of the sense of taste and affected her libido. This heralded troubled final years before her 1992 death at her Chelsea home, where she had lived for forty years.

David's most evident food-literary heir is the late Jane Grigson. She also had a key influence on cooks in California.

Books

• Mediterranean Food (1950)
• French Country Cooking (1951)
• Italian Food (1954)
• Summer Cooking (1955)
• French Provincial Cooking (1960)
• Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen (1970)
• An Omelette and a Glass of Wine (1984)
• Is There a Nutmeg in the House?
• English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977)
• Harvest of the Cold Months (1994)
• South Wind Through the Kitchen: The Best of Elizabeth David (1998) (Editor Jill Norman), posthumous anthology
• Elizabeth David's Christmas (2003) (Editor Jill Norman), posthumously produced from David's notes

• Writing at the Kitchen Table: The Authorized Biography of Elizabeth David by Artemis Cooper
• A Charming Monster. Elizabeth David: A Biography by Lisa Chaney