Jane Grigson wrote of Italian Food `Basil was no more than the name of bachelor uncles, courgette was printed in italics as an alien word, and few of us knew how to eat spaghetti or pick a globe artichoke to pieces. ... Then came Elizabeth David like sunshine, writing with brief elegance about good food, that is, about food well contrived, well cooked. She made us understand that we could do better with what we had.' Published in 1954 the importance of this book, which required a full year's research in Italy, can only be appreciated when you realise that she was working in a post-rationing England which regarded Italian cuisine as nothing more than variations on pasta and veal. What she discovered was an enormous wealth of regional diversity in ingredients, methods, and even language, where the same pasta shape can be called three or four names in different parts of the country. She understood that all Italian cooking is regional; there is no 'national' cuisine and so there are eight recipes for aubergines, fourteen for artichokes, five for fennel and seven for lentils, all from different regions. But if such descriptions seem to today's reader overly thorough it is because many of her 1950's audience would have never heard of risotto, gorgonzola, prosciutto or even olive oil, let alone been able to purchase them. This is a critical and analytical look at Italian food - her personality and point of view come out on almost every page - organised by type of dish rather than by region and is full of details of kitchens and cooking by painters from the 14th, 15th and 18th centuries. The book is filled with asides and quotes from Italian writers and thinkers and as confirmation that this is more a work of scholarship than a simple book on cookery, there are appendices of bibliographies and notes on wine. If you want to explore the authentic regional roots of the Italian kitchen, Elizabeth David's masterpiece is the place to start. And the joy and relevance of this book today is that recipes that could only be read 60 years ago can now be cooked and savoured. Elizabeth David's acclaimed writings are often cited as an inspiration by many of today's leading chefs, as well as home cooks, and are essential to any serious cookery book collection.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 406

Dimensions: 129 x 198 mm

Publication Date: 31-05-2019

elBulli was undoubtedly the most controversial and experimental 3-star Michelin restaurant in the world and Ferran Adria - the chef who earned elBulli it's worldwide fame - has been acclaimed as the best chef in the world. Ferran and his team at elBulli were the first to employ an industrial designer as part of their creative team. Luki Huber was that industrial designer and he spent from 2002 until 2005 at elBulli working exclusively hand-in-hand with Ferran charged with inventing new `artifacts' used either to prepare, cook, serve or perform Adria's unique culinary techniques. Luki kept all his drawings, sketches and beautiful photographs from this collaboration and they are brought together for the first time in this amazing notebook, with all the explanations of the purpose and stories behind every object. The book has a Prologue and Introduction from Ferran Adria, and is a must for all devotees of this extraordinary chef and his restaurant. Swiss-born Huber was trained at the Lucerne School of Art and Design and at the Escola Massana in Barcelona. He has been living in Spain since 1994, and has collaborated on a regular basis with a range of innovative clients working from the product design studio he created in 1999. The results of his work with elBulli combining the rigors of gourmet cuisine and the innovations of industrial design have been exhibited in the Pompidou Centre in Paris, in the D.Day, le design d'aujourd'hui.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 320

Dimensions: 155 x 215 mm

Publication Date: 31-05-2019

TASTE! is a refreshed and expanded new edition of Glynn's REAL FLAVOURS the handbook of gourmet & deli ingredients, voted World's Best Food Guide and described by Nigel Slater as 'one of the only ten books you need'. The book features unique new NEED TO KNOW panels for each category, fast-to-use lists telling you what's important, whether buying, cooking or eating. Each is a guide to how to spot the good, the bad or ugly, and the ideal ways to enjoy the world's best deli ingredients. TASTE! is an all-embracing, comprehensive handbook of speciality food information, from salt, pepper, sugar and salt to Portuguese Egg Tarts, sourdough, olive oil, caviar, wondrous British charcuterie, cheese and cheesecakes. Included are chapters on Beans, Peas and Pulses, Bread and Baking, Charcuterie, Chocolate, Chutneys, Ferments and Pickles, Coffee, Dairy including Cheese, Fish, Fish Eggs and Seafood, Fruit, Vegetables, Nuts, Dried Mushrooms and Sea Vegetables, Grains including Pasta, Herbs, Spices and Natural Flavourings, Oils, Olives, Sauces, Sugars, Syrups and Honey, Tea and Herbal Teas, and Vinegars. You'll end up reading TASTE! like a challenging novel, because it also presents controversial opinions about chillies, synthetic flavourings, palm oils and more. Glynn says: 'the book answers the questions you didn't know you should have asked, and is an ingredient handbook that makes every cookbook work.' AUTHOR: Best known in Britain as a pioneering and innovative BBC-TV and radio chef, New Zealand born Glynn Christian is also an acclaimed food journalist, lecturer, public speaker and the author of over 25 books mainly about food and cookery. His UK journalistic career includes writing weekly for The Sunday Telegraph for four years for which he was nominated for Glenfiddich Food Writer of the Year, Elle (5 years) and magazines such as OK, House and Gardens, and Gardens Illustrated. He co-founded iconic Mr Christian's Provisions on Portobello Rd, helped found the UK Guild of Food Writers, named the Great Taste Awards and is the holder of a prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Guild of Good Food. He lives and works in Battersea, London.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 304

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 30-09-2021

In 1965 Elizabeth David opened a shop in Pimlico, London, where she sold Le Creuset pans and other hard-to-get-hold-of kitchen utensils. The store, with its marvellous window displays, was as influential as her books would eventually be, pioneering a new generation of shops devoted exclusively to kitchenware. Rosi Hanson, who worked in David’s shop for two years says, ‘She was good fun, and the shop was magical. She rather loved being a shopkeeper, perhaps because it gave her a rest from writing. If someone wanted some very specific piece of equipment, I often heard her say: ;If you could come back, I think I may have one at home. On evenings when we stayed late to do the windows, she would make a picnic for us all to eat: terrine, things in jelly.’ While she was still involved with the shop which bore her name, Elizabeth David Ltd, she produced a series of four little booklets: The Baking of an English Loaf, Dried Herbs, Aromatics and Condiments, English Potted Meats and Fish Pastes and Syllabubs and Fruit Fools which were sold exclusively in the shop. They were simple black and white productions which have now become rare, highly sought-after and very expensive collector’s items. So Grub Street is delighted to have acquired the rights to these booklets from the David Estate and we are redesigning them as four hardback books in a slip case with specially commissioned beautiful artwork making them the perfect gift item. So for the first time in over 50 years these charming works will be available once again. Individual Titles: The Baking of an English Loaf Dried Herbs, Aromatics and Condiments English Potted Meats and Fish Pastes Syllabubs and Fruit Fools Elizabeth David’s books are all still in print today and they keep selling in quantities to each new generation of cooks who discover her and fall under her spell. And you can see her influence in the cooking of chefs such as Jeremy Lee, Shaun Hill and Rowley Leigh.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 144

Dimensions: 120 x 150 mm

Publication Date: 20-09-2023

In September 1946, the London Gazette published a despatch from Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh C T Dowding that was titled simply: The Battle of Britain. Written and submitted to the Air Ministry in 1941, this document became the very framework for the accepted Battle of Britain narrative which has been established across the following eighty years. Set out by the leader of the 'Few' himself, its authoritative tone could surely be considered a definitive outline of the battle, how it was fought and the eventual outcome. It even retrospectively set the dates for the commencement and conclusion of the campaign. In this work, Andy Saunders takes a critical look at Dowding's despatch and analyses the facts and details contained in that important document. He also puts 'flesh on the bones' of the matters that the former commander-in-chief of RAF Fighter Command outlines, adding intriguing historical detail and perspective to the 1946 publication. Additionally, Andy looks at the behind-the-scenes machinations at the highest levels of government and Air Ministry before the despatch finally saw the light of day. As a historical document, Dowding's London Gazette despatch is worthy of the critical analysis and factual expansion which the author provides in what is a uniquely different look at the Battle of Britain, with illustrations throughout.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 192

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 09-09-2021

After Carol Bowen Ball underwent bariatric surgery she found there was very little practical information for weight-loss surgery patients and as a result she wrote the first (and to date only) UK bariatric advice and cookery book – Return to Slender. At the same time she launched BariatricCookery.com a website to support the same patients. A year later she wrote a sequel Return 2 Slender… Second Helpings. Both books have been widely praised by the professional bariatric community as well as pre-op and post-op patients. The recipes in The Bariatric Bible are designed and developed to help at every stage after weight-loss surgery. They are colour-coded to suit the 3 main stages afterwards. These are: the Red or 1st Fluids Stage, the Amber or 2nd Soft/Puréed Stage, the Green or 3rd Eating for Life Stage. They will have a nutritional analysis breakdown. This includes measured calories, protein, carbohydrate and fat levels. Recipes are also further coded for suitability for freezing and for vegetarian eating. A new bariatric lifestyle however isn’t just about food – it is also about exercise, changes in behaviour and relationships, adhering to essential medications; coping with unsettling situations that can de-rail the best of intentions, dealing with social situations like eating out; finding new ideas for a changing body through fashion and beauty advice; and making new healthier habits to replace old destructive ones. As a result the book will be the most comprehensive book of any currently on the market. The book will cover the types of surgery on offer for those who want to know more so that they (along with their bariatric team) can make the best choice from the selection available. It will also look at and advise on the many pre-op diets that are required prior to surgery – sometimes to lose weight as part of the qualification process and also as the liver-reducing diet prior to surgery itself for safe intervention. However, it will mainly focus on advice and recipes for after surgery to help the post-op patient maximise their best chance of long-term success with weight-loss and better health.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 20-07-2018

Over and Above was first published in 1919 soon after John Everard Gurdon, aged just twenty, had been invalided out of the RAF following a brief but incident-filled stint as a flyer on the Western Front. Piloting the Bristol F.2b with 22 Squadron, his first victory was on 2 April 1918 and by 13 August he had bagged his twenty-eighth. In between those dates Gurdon flew with gusto and élan, his exploits attracting the attention of such eminent fighter aces as James McCudden. Over and Above is Gurdon’s first and best book, repeatedly reprinted for two decades, variously titled Winged Warriors or Wings of Death. Billed as a novel, it is not so much that as a fictionalised account of his own service flying career, with names changed, incidents rearranged. True, it tells of ‘exciting raids over enemy lines and towns, desperate fights against fearful odds, chivalry shown to an unchivalrous foe…’ but the narrative turns darker as men become wearier, new comrades arrive and are killed, and those who remain try to hold onto meaning in increasingly unintelligible circumstances, a mirror to Gurdon’s own experiences. Written in the style of the era and by and for a class which put great store in maintaining a slangy, backslapping cheerfulness, no matter how grim things were, with chums wishing each other ‘beaucoup Huns’ before embarking on a ‘show’ in ‘beastly’ weather, this book is a classic to rank with Winged Victory by V M Yeates, and which should never have been out of print. This new edition retains exactly the original script but has been updated with an introduction by John Gurdon’s granddaughter Camilla Jane Gurdon Blakeley and an extended illustrated appendix by renowned historian Norman Franks.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 135 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 29-06-2018

Ton-up Lancs is a welcome reassessment of a study which first appeared under the 'Claims to Fame' series. Since that publication years ago, information and photographs continued to be sent to and researched and collected by the author, so much so that a complete revision was necessary, with a new 100-sortie aircraft added to the list, and with many more photographs of the aircraft and men who flew in these very special Avro Lancs. Each aircraft's history is recorded, supported by stories from aircrew that flew them, along with what happened to them once - or if - they survived. The most famous is 'Queenie' (W5868), the only one still in existence and which can be seen in the Bomber Command Hall at the RAF Museum, Hendon. She, as with some others, has some controversial accounting regarding the actual number of operations flown, which the book covers in full. Such controversies can also be explained by the detailed listing of each raid flown by each pilot and crew during 1942-1945, on sorties all over Hitler's Third Reich, Northern Italy, during support missions before and after D-Day, as well as in attacking V1 rocket launcher sites in Northern France. There are also first-hand accounts of the experience of flying on ops, supported by over 200 photographs reproduced throughout the book, many from personal albums which have not been published before.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 194 x 252 mm

Publication Date: 20-04-2015

Twelve years since TheDaily Telegraph Airmen’s Obituaries Book Two was published, Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork, has compiled ninety-one obituaries of outstanding aviators. With afocus on personnel from a range of air forces, including the RAF, USAF, RCAF, RNZAF and SAAF, there are a number of fascinating and distinguishable lives to read about. Those featured include MRAF Sir Michael Beetham, the longest-serving Chief of Air Staff in the RAF (apart from its founder Lord Trenchard); Brigadier General Paul Tibbets who commanded the USAAF bomber Enola Gay, which dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and Wing Commander ‘Dal’ Russel, a highly decorated wartime Canadian fighter pilot, whose logbook recorded kills in the Battle of Britain and the Normandy invasion. There is also Lettice Curtis, the first woman qualified to fly a four-engine bomber and who by the end of the Second World War had flown over 400 heavy bombers, 150 Mosquitos and hundreds of Hurricanes and Spitfires as part of her role in the Air Transport Auxiliary.Civilian tales include the story of courageous Captain Jim Futcher whose VC-10 was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists in November 1974. As seen in previous editions, Book Three commemorates the lives of an exceptional group of individuals and reminds the reader of the talent and experience we have lost from the world of aviation.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 416

Dimensions: 138 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 29-05-2020

Rick Peacock-Edwards has led different lives at different times, but through it all has used a bonus in life nowadays often overlooked: he has consistently enjoyed himself. One of three brothers of outstanding South African Battle of Britain pilot F/O S R ‘Teddy’ Peacock-Edwards, his subtle and compassionate regard for a generation of wartime aircrew is clear: “As the proud son of one of the ‘Few’, their selfless daring has inspired me throughout my life. Importantly, they influenced my decision to become an airman in the Royal Air Force, to become a fighter pilot like my father, and to live life with spirit as they had lived their lives. It is essential that their experiences live on.” Rate of Climb, his original and continually entertaining biography, drawing on previously unpublished family and archival material, shows Rick in complete command of his primary subject: flying. A leading ex-RAF fighter pilot to his fingertips, he flew the Lightning, Phantom, Tornado F2/3 and other high-performance aircraft, and served in senior-ranking positions in the UK, Germany and the US. During a varied and distinguished career, he was closely associated with the Eurofighter Typhoon programme and was appointed as the Royal Air Force Inspector of Flight Safety. He ably demonstrated his uncommon skill and determined leadership during the Cold War era, first Gulf War and elsewhere. A past master of The Honourable Company of Air Pilots, he is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and the immediate past vice chairman of the Royal Air Force Club in London. He is equally as engaged in his post-RAF career as he was when a serving officer. This is an action-packed account of a foremost flyer’s life with endless good stories, and a colourful cast of characters to match. Rick’s compelling recollections in Rate of Climb reveal a life of considerable achievement, in a very personal book capturing the ties of airmanship that the author has been privileged to share. A must for all lovers of derring-do in the air.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 256

Dimensions: 156 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 29-05-2020