Mary of One Perfect Bite and some other women food bloggers (including myself) are blogging our way through the 50 Women Game Changers In Food published by Gourmet in May ’11. Some of the women on the list you will know, others you may not, but either way, this will be a great 50 week journey to learn more about these women that inspire the way we think about food today.

Please visit Mary at One Perfect Bite, Val at More Than Burnt Toast, Joanne at Eats Well With Others, Taryn at Have Kitchen Will Feed, Susan at The Spice Garden, Claudia at A Seasonal Cook In Turkey, Heather at Girlichef, Jeanette at Jeanette’s Healthy Living, Katie at Making Michael Poland Proud, Kathleen at Bake Away With Me, Sue at The View From Great Island, Barbara at Moveable Feasts, Amy at Beloved Green, Linda at Chiao Chow Linda, and  Linda at There and Back Again for their tributes to these 50 women.

Number 14 brings us to Elizabeth David. Described as the “Julia Child of England”, the terribly influential British writer didn’t so much teach a nation to cook French as inspire one to think Mediterranean. Born to an upper-class family, David rebelled against social norms of the day. She studied art in Paris, became an actress, and ran off with a married man with whom she sailed in a small boat to Greece. They were nearly trapped by the German invasion of Greece in 1940 but escaped to Egypt where they parted. She then worked for the British government, running a library in Cairo. While there she married, but the marriage was not long lived. Elizabeth had an amazing (albeit controversial) life, but proved also to be an amazing food writer.

I chose to make a side dish to go with Marcella Hazan’s Rosemary and Garlic Ribeye, and Poblano Mac and Cheese. I thought the coriander would pair well with the rest of the meal. I was right. The dish took less than ten minutes to complete and the lemon and coriander flavored the mushrooms very well. This was a fabulously clean side dish that will be added to the future rotation.

In the Spotlight: Elizabeth David

(From Wikipedia) Elizabeth David (born Elizabeth Gwynne, 26 December 1913 – 22 May 1992) was a British cookery writer who, in the mid-20th century, strongly influenced the revitalisation of the art of home cookery with articles and books about European cuisines and traditional British dishes. After the war, David returned to England, and, dismayed by the gloom and bad food, wrote a series of articles about Mediterranean food that caught the public imagination. Books on French and Italian cuisine followed, and within ten years David was a major influence on British cooking. She was deeply hostile to second-rate cooking and to bogus substitutes for classic dishes and ingredients. She introduced a generation of British cooks to Mediterranean food hitherto barely known in Britain, such as pasta, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, salami, aubergines, red and green peppers, and courgettes. David opened a shop selling kitchen equipment in the 1960s. It continued to trade under her name after she left it in 1973, but her reputation rests on her articles and her books, which have been constantly reprinted.