Elizabeth David - Awards and Legacy

Awards and Legacy

David won the Glenfiddich Writer of the Year award for English Bread and Yeast Cookery. She was also awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Essex and Bristol, and the award of a Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole. However, the honour that most pleased her was being made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1982 in recognition of her skills as a writer. In 1986 she was awarded a CBE.

David has appeared in fictional form at least twice. In 2000 a novel, Lunch with Elizabeth David, by Roger Williams was published by Carroll & Graf, and in 2006, the BBC broadcast Elizabeth David: A Life In Recipes, a film starring Catherine McCormack as Elizabeth David and Greg Wise as Peter Higgins. David's papers are at the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.

In June 2012, to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, Elizabeth David was chosen by BBC Radio 4 as one of the 60 Britons who have been most influential during the 60 years of the Queen's reign. The writer Auberon Waugh wrote that if asked to name the woman who had brought about the greatest improvement in English life in the 20th century, "my vote would go to Elizabeth David." David's biographer Artemis Cooper concludes her Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article thus:

David was the best writer on food and drink this country has ever produced. When she began writing in the 1950s, the British scarcely noticed what was on their plates at all, which was perhaps just as well. Her books and articles persuaded her readers that food was one of life's great pleasures, and that cooking should not be a drudgery but an exciting and creative act. In doing so she inspired a whole generation not only to cook, but to think about food in an entirely different way.