Italian Food
By Elizabeth David
Penguin paperback 1963 (Macdonald hardback 1954)
Cover painting by Renato Guttuso

Elizabeth David’s Italian Food was the pioneering work of the great postwar rediscovery of Mediterranean cuisine. When French sauces still reigned supreme and spaghetti, salami, sugo di carne and the rest were thought of as crude fare, David travelled the Italian regions from Piedmont to Sicily and came back with originally researched recipes based on the most authentic local ingredients.