Elizabeth David was the doyenne of English cookery writers. She influenced the generations who came after her, whether they, too, were intending to be culinary experts or merely taking a well-thumbed Elizabeth David Penguin from the kitchen shelf for the next day's dinner party. "Elizabeth David says ..." was the regular way of resolving how much spice—and which spices—should be added to a stew and how much garlic should be put in a dressing. At its best, her prose was as precise as her instructions, unlike that of some of her predecessors who sometimes wrapped up advice on what to do in the kitchen with impenetrable sentences. She was a pleasure to read, a stylist of true distinction. Perhaps only in Britain would she have been classified as a "food writer", too often rather a damning phrase. Elizabeth David combined a scholar's feeling for history with the traveller-aesthete's gift of conveying a sense of place.