Editing Elizabeth David (section)

===1960s===
[[Image:Cholmondeley Oudry White Duck.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=painting of a plucked duck hanging in a kitchen|[[Jean-Baptiste Oudry]]'s ''The White Duck'' was used as the cover for the 1970 Penguin edition of ''French Provincial Cooking''.]]

In 1960 David stopped writing for ''The Sunday Times'', as she was unhappy about editorial interference with her copy; soon afterwards she also left ''Vogue'' as the change in direction of the magazine did not suit the style of her column.<ref>Cooper, pp. 204–205 and 215–216</ref> She joined the weekly publications ''[[The Spectator]]'', ''[[Sunday Dispatch]]'' and ''[[The Sunday Telegraph]]''.<ref>David (1986), p. 10; and Chaney, p. 352</ref> Her books were now reaching a wide public, having been reprinted in paperback by the mass-market publisher [[Penguin Books]], where they sold more than a million copies between 1955 and 1985.<ref name=child>[[Julia Child|Child, Julia]]. "[http://www.penguin.com/ajax/books/excerpt/9781101573846 Foreword (of ''Italian Food'')] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201025170109/https://www.penguin.com/ajax/books/excerpt/9781101573846 |date=25 October 2020 }}". Penguin. Retrieved 29 October 2017.</ref> Her work also had an impact on British food culture: the historian [[Peter Clarke (historian)|Peter Clarke]] considers that "The seminal influence of Elizabeth David's ''French Provincial Cooking'' (1960), with its enormous sales as a Penguin paperback, deserves historical recognition."<ref>Clarke, p. 346</ref><ref name=cooke/>{{#tag:ref|By 1964 David's first five books were all available in paperback, and reaching a new generation of readers.<ref>"[https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/elizabeth-david Elizabeth David]". Penguin Books (Australia). Retrieved 24 October 2017.</ref>|group=n}} Cooper considers that David's "professional career was at its height. She was hailed not only as Britain's foremost writer on food and cookery, but as the woman who had transformed the eating habits of middle-class England."<ref name=dnb/>

David's private life was less felicitous. In April 1963 her affair with Higgins came to an end when he remarried. For a period she drank too much brandy and resorted too often to sleeping pills.<ref>Cooper, pp. 224–225</ref> Probably as a result of these factors and overwork, in 1963, when she was 49, David suffered a [[cerebral haemorrhage]].<ref name=dnb/> She kept the news of the event within her close circle of friends—none of the editors of the publications she worked for were aware of the collapse—as she did not want her reputation as a hard worker to be damaged. She recovered, but her confidence was badly shaken and her sense of taste was temporarily affected; for a period she could not taste salt, or the effect salt had on what she was cooking, but her sense of the smell of frying onions was so enhanced as to be unpleasant for her.<ref>Cooper, pp. 225–234</ref>

In November 1965, together with four business partners, David opened Elizabeth David Ltd, a shop selling kitchen equipment, at 46 Bourne Street, [[Pimlico]]. The partners were spurred on by the closure of a professional kitchenware shop in Soho on the retirement of its owner, and the recent success of [[Terence Conran]]'s [[Habitat (retailer)|Habitat]] shops, which sold among much else imported kitchen equipment for which there was evidently a market.<ref>Cooper, pp. 238–239</ref><ref name=cooks>Standring, Heather. "Cook's Tour", ''The Observer'', 19 June 1966, p. 28</ref> Among her customers were [[Albert Roux|Albert]] and [[Michel Roux]], who shopped there for equipment that they would otherwise have had to buy in France.<ref>David (1997), p. xi</ref>

David, who selected the stock, was uncompromising in her choice of merchandise; despite its large range of kitchen implements, the shop did not stock either wall-mounted [[knife sharpener]]s or [[garlic press]]es. David wrote an article called "Garlic Presses are Utterly Useless", refused to sell them, and advised customers who demanded them to go elsewhere.<ref name=dnb/><ref>Cooper, p. 244</ref>{{#tag:ref|David maintained that the crushing action of garlic presses caused only the juice of the garlic to be extracted, which then tasted acrid. She recommended crushing a peeled garlic clove with the flat blade of a heavy knife and adding a little salt.<ref>David (2001), pp. 51–53 and 205</ref>|group=n}} Not available elsewhere, by contrast, were booklets by David printed specially for the shop. Some of them were later incorporated into the collections of her essays and articles, ''An Omelette and a Glass of Wine'' and ''Is There a Nutmeg in the House?''<ref>David (2001), p. x</ref>{{#tag:ref|These were: ''Dried Herbs, Aromatics and Condiments'' (1967); ''English Potted Meats and Fish Pastes'' (1968); ''The Baking of an English Loaf'' (1969); ''Syllabubs and Fruit Fools'' (1969); and ''Green Pepper Berries: A New Taste'' (1972).<ref>Williams, M., p. 63</ref>|group=n}} The shop was described in ''The Observer'' as:

<blockquote>...&nbsp;starkly simple. Pyramids of French coffee cups and English pot-bellied iron pans stand in the window.&nbsp;... Iron shelves hold tin moulds and cutters of every description, glazed and unglazed earthenware pots, bowls and dishes in traditional colours, plain pots and pans in thick aluminium, cast-iron, vitreous enamel and fireproof porcelain, unadorned crockery in classic shapes and neat rows of cooks' knives, spoons and forks.<ref name=cooks /></blockquote>

David reduced her writing commitments to concentrate on running the shop, but contributed some articles to magazines, and began to focus more on English cuisine. She still included many recipes but increasingly wrote about places—markets, ''[[wikt:auberge|auberges]]'', farms—and people, including profiles of famous chefs and gourmets such as [[Marcel Boulestin]] and [[Édouard de Pomiane]].<ref>David (1986), pp. 53–63, 94–98, 120–124, 162–174 and 175–185; and Cooper, pp. 261</ref> In her later articles, she expressed strongly held views on a wide range of subjects; she abominated the word "crispy", demanding to know what it conveyed that "crisp" did not;{{#tag:ref|Later cooks including [[Nigella Lawson]]<ref>[http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/crispy-squid-with-garlic-mayonnaise.html "Crispy squid with garlic mayonnaise"], Food Network. Retrieved 28 March 2011</ref> and [[Simon Hopkinson]]<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/15/top-10-best-cookbooks "The 50 best cookbooks"], ''The Observer'', 15 August 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2011</ref> remained keenly aware of David's disapproval of the word.|group=n}} she confessed to an inability to refill anybody's wineglass until it was empty;{{refn|This was a legacy of Norman Douglas's tutelage: {{"'}}I wish you would listen when I tell you that if you fill my glass before it's empty I shan't know how much I've drunk.' To this day I cannot bring myself to refill someone else's glass until it is empty."<ref>David (1986), p. 129</ref>|group=n}} she insisted on the traditional form "[[Welsh rarebit|Welsh rabbit]]" rather than the modern invention "Welsh rarebit"; she poured scorn on the ''[[Michelin Guide|Guide Michelin's]]'' standards; she deplored "fussy garnish&nbsp;... distract[ing] from the main flavours"; she inveighed against the ''ersatz'': "anyone depraved enough to invent a dish consisting of a wedge of steam-heated bread spread with tomato paste and a piece of synthetic Cheddar can call it a pizza."<ref>David (1986), pp. 129, 159, 81, 58 and 25</ref>

While running the shop, David wrote another full-length book, ''[[Elizabeth David bibliography#Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen (1970)|Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen]]'' (1970). It was her first book in a decade and the first of a projected series on English cookery to be called "English Cooking, Ancient and Modern".<ref>David (1970), p. 14; and (2001), p. 227</ref> She had decided to concentrate on the subject while recuperating from her cerebral haemorrhage in 1963. The book was a departure from her earlier works and contained more [[food history]] about what she called "the English preoccupation with the spices and the scents, the fruit, the flavourings, the sources and the condiments of the [[orient]], [[Middle East|near]] and [[Far East|far]]".<ref>David (1970), p. 20</ref>