Introducing Italian Cuisine to British Readers
DAVID, Elizabeth; Renato GUTTUSO (illustrator). Italian Food. London: Macdonald and Co. 1965.
8vo. Publisher’s blue cloth lettered in gilt to spine, illustrated dust-jacket with printed price of 30s to front flap; pp. 362, [2 (blank)]; frontispiece and a further 8 full-page illustrations (in pagination) by Renato Guttuoso; short closed tear to front cover of jacket at head (c. 10 mm), slight wear to edges with a few small chips to spine, slight fading and wear to spine ends; very minor spotting to edges of textblock; a very good copy.
Second edition, revised, of David’s celebrated introduction to Italian cuisine for home cooks, instrumental in transforming the post-war British palate, strikingly illustrated by the anti-fascist politician and Italian Expressionist painter Guttuoso.
First published in 1954, this edition contains numerous revisions, largely in the form of footnotes. ‘Because so many recipes in this book have over the years become familiars in my own kitchen they have in the course of time evolved, as recipes do, into something rather different from the originals’ (preface). David also includes a list of wholesalers of Italian produce and, both in the original text and the new footnotes, the addresses of London retailers of Italian goods.
Italian Food ‘is no mere collection of “tourist dishes”, but a genuine exploration of Italian cuisine […] When Italian Food first appeared, Evelyn Waugh named it in the Sunday Times as one of the two books which had given him the most pleasure that year’ (blurb).
SKU: 2123951