In the Footsteps of Elizabeth David

In 1947, Elizabeth David revolutionised a post war Britain struggling with rationing and stodgy food. With the first of her eight pioneering books, she introduced Britain to the tastes and smells of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cookery. In 1939 she had travelled throughout the Mediterrenean with her lover, fleeing from the war to countries like Greece and Egypt. When she returned to a cold, damp England, she was driven by nostalgia to write of foods then undreamt of: olives and apricots, rice and lemons, oil and almonds. A generation was transfixed. In The Footsteps Of Elizabeth David retraces her steps as EU commissioner Chris Patten visits her favourite haunts, talks to old friends and family and experiences the kind of food she would have enjoyed.