Talk:Elizabeth David/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Elizabeth David. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This is described by the listings people as "Country house. Mid C17 farmhouse on site of mediaeval manor house (C14 masonry in north west wing) greatly enlarged by Detmar Blow...", which is not really the same as a "Jacobean manor house" (James I died in 1625). here Johnbod (talk) 16:34, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Seems to be from Artemis Cooper. William Avery (talk) 20:09, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

David was an eloquent and intelligent but difficult woman who inspired both fear and adoration. She had many, many friends but could be a monster. She suffered a stroke that incredibly led to a loss of the sense of taste and affected her libido. This heralded the troubled final years before her 1992 death at her Chelsea home, where she had lived for forty years.

This paragraph sounds awfully POV to me. Are there any sources for it? Perodicticus 09:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The stroke bit checks out: "The little tiny malign blow which wrecked my sense of taste has also put an end (some might think high time too) to any interest I might still have had in sex" - p233, Writing at the Kitchen Table : The Authorized Biography of Elizabeth David by Artemis Cooper. Tearlach 21:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tearlach. I've removed the stuff about her personality until it can be better attested, and phrased the stroke bit more neutrally (it isn't 'incredible' for a stroke to affect the senses; in fact it's pretty common). Perodicticus 09:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Do we know when exactly Elizabeth David had her stroke? FB

Yep:

"A life marked by emotional pain was touched by tragedy of a bleaker sort in 1963 when David suffered a stroke. At 49, she was a heavy drinker, but still young to be so afflicted. Although she recovered, in a cruel twist of fate she was left unable to taste salt. Ill-health would dog her for the rest of her life".

Hot in the kitchen, Sunday Herald, 15 January 2006 (and confirmed by official biography via Amazon.com inside-book search). I've put it into the correct place in the chronology; the biography is also explicit that the stroke was of the cerebral hemorrhage variety and likely to be related to alcohol abuse. Tearlach 12:37, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Have removed speculative sentence on both ED's ancestry and her Uncle, Roland Gwynne. The Gwynne's owned land in Ireland (see the biography of ED by Lisa Cheney), but there is no evidence to suggest that they were necessarily Irish. Gwynne is also a distinctly Welsh name. Roland Gwynne certainly knew Bodkin Adams well (they were good friends), and he was certainly homosexual, but there is no direct evidence to link them as lovers. Cullen merely suggests the possibility, and such a suggestion is too speculative for Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.14.55 (talk) 16:00, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

• The bio of David may say she was of Welsh stock, but that's because it didn't investigate the issue, it just believed what was commonly claimed by the Gwynnes (the Irish were looked down upon in the 19th and early 20th centuries, so it sounded nicer to claim one was Welsh in aristocratic circles). Cullen is quite explicit that the Gwynnes were Irish, and provides evidence. As for "such a suggestion is too speculative for Wikipedia", no it is not. This is not a bio of a living person, so such speculation is ok from reliable sources. Cullen seems reliable. Hence, it is fair to hesitantly say Roland "may have been a lover of suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams" as the article currently does. Note the word may. Malick78 (talk) 16:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Lisa Chaney's and Artemis Cooper's biographies of ED (and also Jessica Douglas-Home's of Violet Gordon Woodhouse) plainly discuss the Dutch, Scottish and, yes, Sumatran ancestry of ED. The Dutch and Sumatran lines came through her paternal grandmother's line, the Scottish through her maternal line. I have referenced Lisa Chaney's biography at the appropriate point, but one could add the other two as well. Further clarification can be found at the Purvis family genealogical website, http://www.purvisfamilytree.com/, which appears to be an excellent resource for elements of this family. The Dutch, Scottish and Sumatran lines are, from a genetic viewpoint, equally or more influential than the Irish ancestry that Cullen writes about, and thus should not be omitted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.14.55 (talk) 17:14, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

• Please give edit summaries for your work, then it's more obvious if you are serious or not. As for refs, they should go in-line - not at the end of a sentence if they do not refer to the whole sentence. Furthermore, the Purvis website would seem to be self-published which isn't a good source (also, you gave the homepage - not a particular page with the info you refer to. Editors can't search the whole site...). Thanks. Malick78 (talk) 17:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

The Purvis website was merely a useful link that I though might be helpful. It does appear to be self-published, but much of the genealogical data on the site relevant to ED can be pulled from the UK Public Records office online. Anyway, this is slightly moot, as plenty of this kind of research was done for the Chaney, Cooper and Douglas-Home books. Citing them is enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.14.55 (talk) 17:29, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

• "The Dutch and Sumatran lines came through her paternal grandmother's line, the Scottish through her maternal line." Well, having checked pages 5-6 of LC's book, it says that David's great-great-great-grandmother was Sumatran. That's 3.125% of her, isn't it? I guess we can say it's not important. As for "maternal line", not as far as I can tell from LC - Stella Ridley was English. The Scottish came from David's paternal great-grandparents (John (actually born in Ireland - see Cullen p623) and Agnes Gwynne) and grandmother (May Purvis, "not pure Scottish"). In future, could you please give page numbers for your refs? Other editors may desire to double check them and it'd be easier... Thank you. Malick78 (talk) 15:40, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

If you do some rudimentary research on Wikipedia, you'll see that ED's maternal grandmother was Mary Georgiana Marjoribanks (1850 – 14 March 1909), who was the son of Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth, which is a Scottish title. The Marjoribanks are also a lowland Scottish clan. So, there are in fact Scottish roots on both sides of ED's family. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.93.14.55 (talk) 17:35, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I thought she wanted to be known as a home economist, not a chef. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:24, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I am sceptical about her having to recommend buying olive oil from the pharmacy. French Country Cooking p 219, in a chapter on store ingredients entitled The Larder, recommends San Remo brand olive oil, which it notes can be bought from Delmonico's in Old Compton Street. The next entry refers to Almond Oil, which it says can be purchased "at chemists'". I wonder if some conflation has occurred here.

Later, in her 1987 introduction to Italian Food David recalled that "The purchase of a supply of olive oil, [...] entailed a bus trip to the Italian provision shops of Soho", not the chemist. William Avery (talk) 11:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

But olive oil (BP - medical grade) was certainly avilable from chemists, and more easily obtainable there for the vast majority of the population, who were not within bussing range of Old Compton St. I'm not sure how old you are, and there is an element of mythology now around David, but I grew up in a house where initially the only olive oil was in a bottle of about 200 ml from a chemists, which I think was used for cooking for a transitional period. The article does not say she recommended buying olive oil from a chemists, merely that that is what her readership had to do, which is true. She was initially known through her columns in papers, & her books came later. Katherine Whitehorn's Cooking in a Bedsitter is (probably early editions only) a period piece which fully brings out the difficulties still experienced in this area in 1961, never mind the 50s. Johnbod (talk) 11:33, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

But the article does say "David had to suggest looking for olive oil in pharmacies". I'm not old enough to remember, so the chapter on where to obtain ingredients in French Country Cooking strikes me as a valuable historical document. She does suggest buying olive oil (and VitBe dried wheatgerm) in Boots in English Bread and Yeast Cookery (1977), but I suspect that by that time these were being stocked as "health foods". I agree that this story could relate to a magazine article, hence my request for a citation. William Avery (talk) 15:43, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

WA: Not everyone lived within a bus ride of Soho and there a recommendation as to where to get even the most purified and bland olive oil woud have been welcome to those fruitlessly searching for ingredients. Elizabeth David was "comfortably financed" and had upper-class connections to supply her with produce from the country. She could likewise afford to buy anything she wished to eat - including numerous experments to get a dish right - and to import for herself stuff like olive oil and wine direct from the continent at a time when this was prohibitively expensive. But she was aware that few had this option and that for the vast majority of her readership (which was predominantly upper-middle-class and youthful), ear-syringing gloop from the chemist was the best you could do.

The food available retail in the UK is taken for granted today. It is a very modern phenomena: up until the 80s the range of food available to your average Brit, urban or rural, was very narrow and it wasn't until most had access to big supermarkets (because of the explosion in out-of-town shopping in the early 80s) that stuff like olive oil became a standard food item rather than an esoteric luxury. Those supermarkets that existed before this were invariably an adaptation of 1 or 2 average-sized grocer's shop and stocked not much more than the usual post-war foods. The large chains were nothing like the size they are now and although they did stock a wider variety of food it was nothing like what is seen today.

I know it seems incredible to those born after the mid 80s but up until then, most urban Brits shopped at the local 'parade' where the butcher, bakers, grocers, (and until the late 60s, dairies) etc provided for most needs. For rural dwellers, there would be a single village shop and shop's vans from the town doing rounds with their meat or fish or greengrocery. This extended to things other than food - the local ironmonger and haberdasher supplied nails an socks although there would probably be an big annual shop in the nearest city or provincial centre, maybe at a department store. For families, this would be usually in late August, to get shoes and school stuff etc.

Anyway, olive oil was - until well into the 80s and probably beyond - considered by many older Brits to be something you used to syringe ears and lubricate bowels with and it was indeed sold by Boots, Timothy White's etc. I know that if you went on holiday to Cornwall in the 70s (where the food shops - and the standard of dining out generally - were then quite possibly the worst in the UK during its worst ever modern culinary period other than immediately post-war) and wanted to buy olive oil to make a dressing for the crabs or mussels you'd picked up from the picturesque but sewage-washed beaches ("Why don't the locals eat this stuff?" my parents would muse), then unless you bought your own, that's where you got it from.

Tl:dr version: We fried Spam in lard (pocked with burnt bits) and boiled spuds to grey lumps and smeared them with marge and considered ourselves well fed. We knew no better. Plutonium27 (talk) 23:48, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah yes! You try to tell today's young people (and some middle-aged ones) and they just don't believe you. Johnbod (talk) 01:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I've added info, refs and images (quadrupling the size of the article), and put it up for peer review. All comments gratefully received. It would be good to get the great and good Mrs D on the front page. Tim riley (talk) 16:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I added some material to the Lead. The first paragraph was just one line long, and this expansion is also an attempt to give a better "flavour" of David's importance. Please revise if this should be refocused. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

This article should not be tagged with "place" projects like London and France. It is not about places. The other tags currently on the article seem reasonably related to the subject. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:02, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Elizabeth David/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Cirt (talk • contribs) 00:42, 19 May 2013 (UTC) I will review this article. — Cirt (talk) 00:42, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

This article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold. During review, some issues were discovered that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of May 27, 2013, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?:

1. NOTE: Please respond, below the entire GA Review, and not interspersed in the GA Review comments themselves. Thank you!
2. Writing quality is quite good, however I'd recommend posting requests for previously uninvolved copyeditors to WP:GOCE and also to talk pages of relevant WikiProjects. A few other recommendations as well:
3. One-sentence-long-paragraph as first paragraph in the lede/intro, please could this perhaps be expanded and/or merged?
4. Also, one-sentence-long-paragraph as last paragraph in intro/lede, maybe this could be merged or expanded upon?
5. Italian, French and other cuisines - overly long blockquote, perhaps this quote could be trimmed down, or even just paraphrased?
6. 1960s - another big blockquote, could this be paraphrased, or at least trimmed?
7. Awards and legacy - subsection ends with long quote, perhaps this could be trimmed, or paraphrased?
8. Books - this section might be more aptly named, Works, even if it's only books, it's more standardized that way.
9. Portals - perhaps {{Portal bar}} could be used, to add relevant portals as a footer template at the bottom of the article?
10. See also sect - missing. Perhaps a See also sect could be added, with relevant links to perhaps between three and five articles of relevance to the reader?
11. Further reading - missing. Maybe a Further reading sect could be added, to suggest to the reader books or scholarly journal articles or the like, if the reader is interested in more info on the topic?

2. Factually accurate?:

1. Duly cited throughout.
2. However, a few cites are missing key info.
3. I'd suggest using WP:CIT templates to help fill in more info. For example, cites 66, 67, 73 and 74 are missing author fields, publisher fields, accessdates, etc.

3. Broad in coverage?: article is indeed thorough and broad in scope.

4. Neutral point of view?: article is written in a neutral tone throughout.

5. Article stability?

1. Stability questionable. See further specific questions below.
2. I'm noting problems in the edit history as of 6 May 2013. Appears to be stable since then, but perhaps these could be please elaborated upon and explained as to what happened?
3. Talk page inspection shows no problems going back a significant amount of time.

6. Images?:

1. Image check of the following images:
2. File:Elizabeth-David.jpg - a free use alternative could be obtained. Would it be possible to attempt to contact copyright holder of relevant images, and try to convince them to release license by a free use license like Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike 3.0?
3. File:Elizabeth Gwynne (David) 1923.jpg - free use licensed, but could this image please be moved to Wikimedia Commons, and have more information fields filled out with the information template?
4. File:Norman Douglas.jpg - image on Wikimedia Commons, image checks out okay.
5. File:David-mediterranean.jpg - fair use rationale asserted, but shouldn't really be used on this article. It's okay as fair use for the article about the book, but not really for the article about the author. The textual descriptions are sufficient here.
6. File:Elizabeth David gravestone.JPG - image on Wikimedia Commons, image checks out alright.

NOTE: Please respond, below, and not interspersed in the GA Review comments, above. Thank you!

Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your work so far. — Cirt (talk) 22:39, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Responses

1

1. Noted, and, as you see, duly acted on.
2. Peer review already carried out, with contributions from, inter alia, User:Brianboulton, who has 69 Featured Articles to his credit, to my mere 19.
3. I find it uncomfortable when sentences of little mutual relevance are forced together to avoid the superstition that single-sentence paragraphs are necessarily a bad thing. Fowler, Gowers and other guides have no truck with the notion.
4. Para is in fact two sentences.
5. Happily, the length of the quote is, by concidence, the same as that of the example given at Template:Quote box; so I think we can take it that it meets WP standards.
6. This is a long quote, though I don't think anyone objected to it at peer review. I have pruned it; it is now shorter than the example at Template:Quote box.
7. I don't think it is possible to cut this without distorting it. I think it makes a ringing peroration to the whole article. Interestingly, it is, in fact, shorter than the earlier block quotation in the "France, Greece and Egypt" section, to which you have not objected.
8. As they are books I prefer the more precise term. "Works" would be misleading, unless I added the many hundreds of articles ED published over her career.
9. I do not know what this means, but if you think it would be helpful please don't hesitate to add it.
10. Nothing leaps to mind. I have, naturally, used the most relevant publications as references, and one doesn't want duplicate mentions of them.
11. I avoid "further reading" lists these days, as they have provoked at FAC the very reasonable question, "If they are worth reading, why haven't you referred to them in your article?"

2.

1. Noted
2. Perhaps you'd be kind enough to identify the examples to which you take exception.
3. I have steered my solo FAs and GAs through without recourse to the citation template. When collaborating I have occasionally had to use them, and I find they don't help accuracy, but just take twice as long as doing the job oneself. Happily, the matter remains one of personal choice – for the present, anyway, though I fear the worst.

3. Noted

4. Noted

5.

1. See below.
2. An inexperienced but good-faith editor adding uncited material. Now amicably sorted out (and cited).
3. Noted.

6

1. See below
2. Having checked with the British Library and the London Library, I am satisfied that no free-use image exists. The one used is a very well-known image of Mrs David – one might almost say the image – and it would indubitably be a waste of time to ask the copyright holder to release the rights.
3. By all means, if anyone has the expertise to do so. The template on the image page would deter me, but I know next to nothing about Commons except that it can be relied on to let you down, as I have repeatedly learned to my cost when image reviews at FAC have revealed that images ought not to have been in Commons at all.
4. Noted
5. I seem to recall this was glanced at at PR. Image removed.
6. Noted.

I think the above covers all the points you raise. Happy to expand, if wanted. Tim riley (talk) 09:40, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

GA Review passed. Thanks very much for such helpful responsiveness to the points raised, above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 16:16, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Can someone rectify this mistake in the article? I'm not sure what it is meant to say - but I am certain that Elizabeth David did not start WWII.

"She started the War having to flee the German occupation."

"Fleeing the German occupation at the beginning of World War II"

89.243.57.167 (talk) 23:42, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

This has already been corrected. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:38, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

ED was a heavy drinker throughout her life and some sources suggest that the last decade of her life was a period of uncontrolled alcoholic decline. There is no mention of this in the article, which comes across as distinctly reverential. ED's gastronomic importance would not be diminished by an honest and open description of her darker side. --Ef80 (talk) 11:40, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Some reliable sources for this asseveration? Not substantiated in the sources cited. Tim riley talk 15:10, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

No, I don't have RS to hand, or I would have edited the article myself. I would simply ask that an editor more familiar with ED's life than I am adds this information. The obits published after her death don't mention the drinking, but they are understandably reticent and respectful - ED was something of an icon, after all. I don't think the heavy drinking is in serious dispute although the chronic alcoholism may be. --Ef80 (talk) 19:27, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

There is nothing in the ODNB or either of the biographies suggesting "uncontrolled alcoholic decline". Tim riley talk 06:41, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

This is described by the listings people as "Country house. Mid C17 farmhouse on site of mediaeval manor house (C14 masonry in north west wing) greatly enlarged by Detmar Blow...", which is not really the same as a "Jacobean manor house" (James I died in 1625). here Johnbod (talk) 16:34, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Seems to be from Artemis Cooper. William Avery (talk) 20:09, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

And the architectural term refers to a style which continued after the eponymous monarch's death, rather than being a strictly chronological term. See Jacobean_architecture#History_and_examples. William Avery (talk) 20:16, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Barely - that's a very poor article I hope to get round to rewriting. It doesn't stretch to "mid-century". Cooper has no claim to be an architectural historian, unlike her dad. Johnbod (talk) 20:21, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that. "Mannerist" is the term used by www.parksandgardens.org. 20:43, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

No sign of a justification for thatin the detailed description. Johnbod (talk) 21:24, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

@Johnbod: This entry by Historic England has some considerable detail on the property. It seems that it was in the ownership of Mary Priccilla Gwynne-Longland, the eldest daughter of Rupert Gwynne and sister of Elizabeth. She died in 2002 according to this. Her eldest daughter, Sabrina Harcourt-Smith (the mother of Ed Harcourt) is the current owner. Karst (talk) 12:52, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

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I've written a bit about the way the bibliography suggests her influence came later than it did in reality. This is because she was on radio and grainy old tv long before the books were published. See the full spiel on talk:Elizabeth David bibliography. Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:13, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

She did next to no television or radio. See her information on the BBC schedules (from 1923 onward) for the few ocassions she was on. - SchroCat (talk) 20:57, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

What's more, she returned to England in June 1946, and published A Book of Mediterranean Food in 1950, and the article already says she was writing articles in Harper's Bazaar in 1949. So there wasn't a huge amount of time available in any event for any activity before then. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:38, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

I've added a gentle note to that effect on the bibliography talk page. Tim riley talk 19:25, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Agree print journalism was much more important than broadcasting. Hardly anyone saw early tv anyway, especially from David's audience. Johnbod (talk) 09:51, 8 January 2018 (UTC)