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<\/a>Wild Fruits of the Countryside, Hulme, F. Edward. Alan Davidson’s copy.<\/p><\/div>\n
A year ago, while on my never-ending quest for rare books, I stumbled upon a selection that once belonged\u00a0to one great man.
\nUpon his death over a decade ago, his impressive library was split up and sold to the highest bidder. It was a collection of great value, which\u00a0showed how this man did his research, and the thoroughness of\u00a0it.<\/p>\n
Alan Davidson was the owner of these books, and although the lot I bought was small compared to his enormous library, it already shows an insight to his train of thoughts.
\nVarious seemingly unimportant books all decorated with his fish bookplate, on wild fruits, on citrus, on cider making and even books in Dutch and French. It is no surprise to me after spending 2 years researching pudding for my book, that Davidson spent 20 years to write that bible; the Oxford Companion to Food.\u00a0Today that food bible is the first resource I grab when I am in need of an explanation. If it weren’t such a large and heavy tome, it would be my bedside reading. And it is so well respected and loved by many that facts from Davidson’s Oxford companion to food are even used in the program IQ, presented by Stephen Fry.<\/p>\n
Although I never met him, I think I would have liked Alan Davidson\u00a0for his down to earth manner. He loathed food fads\u00a0and said in a radio interview in 1993:<\/p>\n “Haute cuisine, as they call it, is something I avoid, I am far more interested in what ordinary people eat.<\/em> Davidson\u00a0wrote his first\u00a0book on food for his wife when they were living in Tunis – a handbook giving the names of 144 species in 5 languages with some recipes of people he met there. This was upon her request so shopping for food on the market would be slightly easier not speaking the language and not recognising most of the fish on offer. In 1979 Davidson started his own publishing house called ‘Prospect Books’\u00a0and a\u00a0journal of food studies Petits Propos Culinaires or PPC which was taken over by Tom Jayne in 1993. The publishing house has published some of my favourite books on food history and culture and their facsimile editions of old cookery texts have been valuable to me and many others. We can only be thankful that the team behind Prospect Books then and now have saved so many ancient and more recent\u00a0books from being entirely forgotten, and that they managed to give life to new and slightly quirky books on food subjects. Titles range from ‘Noshe Djan’ (1987) a book on Afghan cookery to ‘Persia in Peckham’ (2007) and ‘Cooking & Dining in Tudor & Early Stuart England’ (2015). Prospect also publishes the proceedings of The Oxford Symposium of Food and Leeds Symposium.\u00a0The Oxford Symposium was originally founded and co-chaired by Alan Davidson and Dr Theodore Zeldin. The Oxford Symposium website notes that: ‘The first Symposiasts included Elizabeth David, her editor and publisher Jill Norman, Anne Willan and Mark Cherniavsky of the La Varenne Cookery School in Paris, Paul Levy, Richard Olney and Professor Nicholas Kurti’.<\/p>\n Davidson was also supported and guided by Jane Grigson in his work. It is fair to say that Davidson, his wife Jane, their two daughters, Tom Jaine and people like Elizabeth David and everyone involved in Prospect and the Oxford Symposium are to be celebrated for creating a home\u00a0for food history, a community, where constant research is being constructed and works of great importance for the future created.<\/p>\n We all know that the world is being consumed by a religious battle, but it is in food that we are united. If only the world would be like the Prospect list which shows a clear interest in all cultures of food, and an equal respect for all of them.<\/p>\n It is a privilege to own a selection of Davidson’s books.<\/p>\n For those interested in where Davidson’s books are, these are the ones in my hands apart from The Citrus Cookbook, which I gifted to a special friend.<\/p>\n Delightes for Ladies, <\/strong>Hugh Platt Further reading<\/strong><\/p>\n Read Tom Jaine’s Obituary for Alan Davidson here > The Oxford Symposium ><\/a><\/p>\n Prospect Books ><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n And I am far more interested in producing information about say cookery in latin America, Afrika or South East Asia than adding to the already enormous pile of material about say cookery in France.\u00a0I’m keen to add to the cell of human knowledge rather than just repeat.”<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThe result was ‘Seafish Of Tunisia And The Central Mediterranean’ illustrated\u00a0by art students in Laos which he published himself. Elizabeth David reviewed it in her column for the Spectator and\u00a0passed it on to Penguin who published\u00a0it\u00a0as ‘Mediterranean Seafood’ in 1972. Tom Jayne writes in Davidson’s Obituary that\u00a0Elizabeth David, ever watchful of professional values, had advised the diplomat to avoid self-publication.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThe Citrus Cookbook<\/strong>
\nSpices<\/strong> –\u00a0Volume 1 and 2
\nFood History Comes of Age<\/strong> – Praemium Erasmianum Essay, 2003
\nA Book of Mediterranean Food,\u00a0<\/strong>David, Elizabeth\u00a0<\/strong>
\nThe French Cook,<\/strong> by Francois Pierre La Varenne, translated into English in 1653 by I.D.G. [Alan Davidson’s copy]\u00a020.00 \u00a3
\nReceipts of Pastry and Cookery for the Use of His Scholars<\/strong>,\u00a0Kidder, Edward
\nFruit Recipes – a manual of the food values of fruits and nine hundred different ways of using them<\/strong>,\u00a0Fletcher-Berry, Riley M.
\nThe Receipt Book of Elizabeth Raper, and a portion of her cipher journal, edited by her great-grandson, with a portrait and decorations by Duncan Grant<\/strong>
\nGRANT, Bartle (ed). Elizabeth Raper
\nRecepten Boek van Mevrow Marselis ,<\/strong>\u00a0Marselis
\nDe Honesta Voluptate,\u00a0<\/strong>Platina. Bartolomeo De Sacchi Di Piadena.
\nIn an Eighteenth Century Kitchen<\/strong> – a receipt book of cookery,\u00a0Rhodes, D.(ed); Nichols, Beverley (preface)
\nDiana Astry’s Recipe Book<\/strong>, c.1700,\u00a0Stitt, Bette (ed). (Cirket, A.F.)
\nLady Bountiful’s Legacy to Her Family and Friend<\/strong>s – a book of practical instructions & duties, counsels & experiences, anecdotes hints & recipes, in housekeeping & domestic management, calculated to increase the comforts of home. Timbs, John. (ed).
\nHostess<\/strong>,\u00a0Spry, Constance & Hume, Rosemary
\nThe Household Accounts of Kenninghall Palace in the Year 1525,\u00a0<\/strong>Howlett, Richard
\nDumas on Food<\/strong> – selections from Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine,\u00a0Dumas, Alexandre (translated by Alan and Jane Davidson)
\nWild Fruits of the Countryside,\u00a0<\/strong>Hulme, F. Edward
\nHow to Know Wild Fruits<\/strong> – a guide to plants when not in flower, by means of fruit and leaf.\u00a0Peterson, Maude Gridley
\nAn Essay on Bread.<\/strong> (1758),\u00a0Jackson, H. (chemist)
\nThe Recipe Book, 1659-1672, of Archdale Palmer<\/strong>, Gent, Lord of the Manor of Wanlip in the County of Warwickshire\u00a0Uden, Grant (ed)
\nThe Cook’s Paradise<\/strong>, being William Verrall’s “Complete System of Cookery”, published in 1759, with Thomas Gray’s cookery notes in holograph.\u00a0Verrall, William.
\nFood, Cookery and Dining in Ancient Times<\/strong> – Alexis Soyer’s Pantropheon,\u00a0Soyer, Alexis<\/p>\n
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