Order of Service for Elizabeth David with John Minton designed covers 1992

[DAVID, Elizabeth]; John MINTON, [Illus.]
Order of Service for the Memorial of Elizabeth David CBE, 1913-1992
Sheppard Day Associates Ltd., 1992

8vo., card covers featuring the dustwrapper design from one of David’s most popular works, French Country Cooking (1951), designed by John Minton; [iv]; very good, slight toning and creasing to edges of covers; lightly rubbed at extremities; the odd spot and crease, a little darkened.

Created in conjunction with the memorial service which celebrated the life of Elizabeth David. The service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields on Thursday 10th September 1992. During the service, an extract was read from David’s French Provincial Cooking (1960) and Syllabubs & Fruit Fools (1969), and appreciations given by such names as Hugh Johnson (world expert on wine) and Alice Waters (chef, writer, and owner of Chez Panisse in California). It was the late 1940s when Elizabeth David’s publisher John Lehmann sent her ‘grubby typescript’ to John Minton to create the iconic, colourful dustwrapper for which she is perhaps best remembered today. Intended to cheer the British population still suffering the effects of food rationing, the jacket portrayed a well-stocked kitchen, and each chapter was prefaced with a line drawing (two here duplicated to the inside covers). Despite the fact that many ingredients were still unavailable at the time, the book became a landmark in British cookery.

The cookery icon Elizabeth David is credited with revitalising home cookery post-war. Born in Sussex to an upper-class family, she rebelled against societal norms, studying art in Paris and running away with a married man. She escaped the German invasion in Greece in 1941 by traveling to Egypt, where she later ran a library. Inspired by her travels, she returned home, and began writing for food magazines in the late 1940s, publishing her first book in 1950 at the age of 36. A further seven followed over the course of her lifetime, inspiring chefs worldwide including Prue Leith, Jamie Oliver and Rick Stein to name but a few. She died in 1992 aged 78.