Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen
ELIZABETH DAVID Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen *** ENGLISH COOKING ANCIENT AND MODERN VOLUME 1 *** PENGUIN BOOKS (with the small penguin emblem in a 1cm oval border)
FIRST EDITION. 1970. Soft cover - as new. 1pp Small biography of E.D. with the signature of the author Helen Morris. [1] Title page. 1pp Dedication 'For Renee' 5-6 Contents. 7-14 Preface. 15-20 Introduction by E.D. 21-262. 263-264 Acknowledgements. 265-279 Index. [1] In excellent condition; as new. A very scarce book and rare with Morris's signature.
- This copy of E.D's book 'Spices, Salts and Aromatics --' is from the library of Helen Morris. She was the author of 'Portrait of a Chef, the Life of Alexis Soyer, Sometime Chef to the Reform Club' (1938). To several generations of postgraduates and undergraduates of King's College, Cambridge, the English literature scholar and champion of education, Helen Morris was an institution - and a hugely benevolent institution at that. For nearly four decades, the welcoming home of Christopher and Helen Morris at No 5 Merton Street, in the Newnham district of Cambridge, was the scene of innumerable parties, including regular gatherings at 11.30am on Sunday mornings. For the benefit of the young, who they felt should meet the distinguished figures of Cambridge, the Morrises would invite E.M. Forster, a regular visitor, and Noel Annan, the philosopher Richard Braithwaite, the anthropologist Meyer Fortes, the economists Nicholas Kaldor, Richard Kahn, Dick Stone, Harry Johnson and Robin Marris, the classicists Sir Frank Adcock and Patrick Wilkinson; the scientists Kenneth Harrison, T.R.C. Fox and E.S. Shire, and many others. Her husband Christopher Morris, Senior Fellow in History, author of 'Tyndale to Hooker' and many other books, one of the great Cambridge teachers of his generation, doted on Helen - and justifiably set considerable store on her opinion of people and students. Her first book, Portrait of a Chef (1938) was about Alexis Soyer, pioneer of the use of field stoves in the Crimean War and one of the originators of soup kitchens for poor people in the 19th century. Spending the Second World War as a temporary civil servant, partly in the Admiralty where her husband - whom she had married in 1933 - also served, she returned to Cambridge to bring up her family and involve herself in tuition. In 1958 she was given a full-time post at Homerton Teachers Training College, being promoted to Head of the English Department in 1960. Her colleague John Ball, lecturer in psychology and education at Homerton relates stories of her assiduous concern for her students - especially those who came without the Cambridge "ease of manner". Ball told me that he and his colleagues were amazed by the perception, detail and kindliness of the reports which she gave on students at Homerton. Her own contribution to literature re-started with her Elizabethan Literature (1958), which attracted the Home University Library. Critics regarded her interpretation of Marlowe as both accurate and in many ways original. In the early 1960s she published pamphlets on Shakespeare which were invaluable for sixth-formers - Lear in 1965, Richard II in 1966, Antony and Cleopatra in 1968 and Romeo and Juliet in 1970. Her most remarkable book was an anthology called Where's That Poem? (1967). It was really a reference book for teachers as to where they could find in British poetry references to a particular subject. Over a quarter of a century this book was revised in several editions, the last of which was in 1992 when Helen Morris was struggling with enormous courage against a myriad of illnesses and the tragedy of the premature death of their talented son, Charles. Her husband predeceased her by two years --- Helen Soutar (Morris): born Dundee 3 September 1909; married Christopher Morris 1933 - died 1993; one daughter, and one son deceased; died Cambridge 13 August 1995. Unfortunately it is not recorded what, with her perceptive intelligence, she thought of E.D. and her writings.
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Modern category
ref number:
11012