"Harvest of the Cold Months" (1994) is subtitled "A social history of ice and ices". David had been working on it intermittently for several years before her last illnesses. The book traces the history of ice in the cuisines of Europe from mediaeval times, when it had to be brought from the mountains and kept in ice houses. "The Independent"s reviewer described it as "not a cookery book but an awe-inspiring feat of detective scholarship ... sumptuous and stately". Reviewing the book in "The Times", Nigella Lawson wrote that although it deserved a place on the shelves of anyone who cared about food, it revealed a waning of the author's energies, and "lacks her customary, high-spirited, if fierce, readability".