French Provincial Cooking is Elizabeth David's classic work on French regional cuisine.

Providing simple recipes like omelettes, soufflés, soups and salads, it also offers more complex fare such as pâtés, cassoulets, roasts and puddings.

First published in 1960, it is readable, inspiring and entertainingly informative. French Provincial Cooking by Elizabeth David is the perfect place to go for anyone wanting to bring a little France into their home.

'Britain's most inspirational food writer' Independent

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Recommended by

Sally Vincent

Blogger at Raining Sideways

My old, browned, broken paperback copy of French provincial Cooking is, without doubt, my favourite cookbook of all; my introduction to a new world of cooking and eating. Elisabeth David books were a breath of fresh air after the austerity of rationing and the depressing food of the post war years. In the mid ‘60’s the teenage me cooked at Nick’s Diner in Fulham under the expert eye of Kem Bennet, late of George Perry Smith’s famous Hole in the Wall in Bath. When I wasn’t learning to cook I was reading Elisabeth David. How perfect an introduction to the world of food!

Jill Dupleix

Food writer

I read and re-read this book as if it were a novel, I love the way Elizabeth David writes. It is so particular. This is by way of saying thanks to the author for a single recipe. One she documented in her travels in France, and brought to the wider world. One I have made SO many times over the years, I think I could make it underwater with one hand tied behind my back. Three words, people. Flourless Chocolate Cake. Thank you, Mrs David. For everything.

Tom Herbert

Innovations Director, Hobbs House Bakery

My dad bought a first addition of this book for my wife Anna. Over the course of a year Anna cooked every recipe [except for the one with Thrush in it]. Our 4 kids made out they hated it, the book was retrieved from the bin on numerous occasions, was offered up as kindling twice and thrown out of the car once. They’ll thank us, is what we tell them. Our eating at home has switched up a step and a half. Thank you ED.

Debora Robertson

Food writer and editor

When I was in my early 20s and living in Moscow, my mother sent me a copy of this book. I'm not sure whether it was meant to torture or inspire me, but it did inspire me. I read recipes for bouillabaisse and cassoulet like they were fairy tales, so impossible was it for me to find the ingredients, but I did use it for simple things like oeufs en cocotte, mushrooms in cream and poule au pot.

Allan Jenkins

Editor, Observer Food Monthly,

I have an embarrassing amount of copies of this book in its many editions, though the best loved is the earliest of the Penguin paperbacks. This was the book that changed me, made me (and millions of others) want to know and to cook more. Hers are the only recipes I still won't change and adapt to the Observer Style Guide. She is Elizabeth David, for god's sake. Never been bettered.

Mark Mardell

Journalist

Redolent of a past when olive oil was exotic and French provincial restaurants could be relied on to provide brilliant food, the point, beyond the sparkling prose from another era, is that the recipes always work. The highest praise for any cookbook author - however unlikely the technique or ingredients it works.

Cat Black

Food writer

My mother, a young medical student, living alone in a bedsit in 60s London, taught herself to cook with Elizabeth David's books. My childhood was filled with the fruits of her efforts. My own kitchen could not be without those same loved dishes. I think my own love of pastry began with the quiche lorraine.

Robyn Metcalfe

Founder and Director, Food+City

A dear friend of mine in England introduced me to Elizabeth David and through this book I learned about a classic British food writer, English cuisine and its relationship to French cuisine. And love her warning, “..let’s not treat the food processor as though it were a waste-disposal unit.”

Bill Buford

Author

It was one of my first introductions to French cooking, because I was living in Britain, and because the book is an enduring reference work. David understands the narrative of making a dish of food. She also knows how to wear her enormous knowledge lightly. Eternal.