Table Of ContentTHE OXFORD COMPANION TO
The Oxford Companion to
Alan Davidson
Third edition edited
by Tom Jaine
Illustrations by
Soun Vannithone
1
1
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© the Estate of Alan Davidson 1999, 2006, 2014
© in the Editor’s contribution to the second and third editions, Oxford University Press 2006, 2014
Illustrations (except those indicated in Picture Acknowledgements) © Soun Vannithone
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First edition published 1999
Second edition published 2006
Third edition published 2014
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013957569
ISBN 978–0–19–967733–7
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Contents
Alan Davidson: A Tribute vii
Preface to the Third Edition ix
Preface to the Second Edition xi
Acknowledgements for the Second Edition xiii
Introduction xv
Contributors xix
Subject Index xxiii
Notes on Using this Book xxix
THE OXFORD COMPANION TO FOOD A–Z 1
Bibliography 893
Picture Acknowledgements 922
Alan Davidson:
A Tribute
Readers of this revised edition of The Oxford Companion to Food life allowed full rein to the composition of graceful, if formal,
may know little of the author of the vast majority of its entries, memoranda and reports. During his stay as Head of Chancery to
Alan Davidson. Alan died in 2003; not before making plans of the British Mission in Tunis in 1961, however, his wife Jane
his own for improvements and alterations to his book but, sadly, found herself understandably muddled by the various names
with little time to implement them. proffered for one sort of fish or another in the local markets and
Alan was born in 1924, the son of an inspector of taxes and he promised to compile a list. Even an Oxford man cannot
proud of his Scottish forebears. He was educated at Leeds summon such knowledge out of the ether and he was fortunate
Grammar School and Queen’s College, Oxford, where he took a in the arrival of the Italian Professor Georgio Bini, the world’s
double first in classics. His time at university was interrupted by greatest living authority on seafish in the Mediterranean, as part
military service in the Royal Navy RNVR, first as an ordinary of an official delegation to discuss the irrepressible dynamiting
seaman, later a lieutenant, in the Pacific, the North Atlantic, and of their catch by Sicilian fishermen in the Gulf of Tunis: a
the Mediterranean. He somewhat shamefacedly recalled slicing a method more rapid than discerning. As the negotiations were
whale in two when officer of the watch aboard the aircraft car- long and largely political, Bini (no politician) was able to
rier Formidable. ‘Left-hand down a bit,’ doesn’t work with large instruct Alan in elementary ichthyology. Out of these lessons,
boats at full bore. Perhaps his fish books were a penance for this Seafish of Tunisia and the Central Mediterranean was born.
accident. Published by Alan himself in 1963, it was shortly followed by
A man of his qualifications was a perfect match for the For- Snakes and Scorpions Found in the Land of Tunisia. At that stage,
eign Office which he joined once down from Oxford in 1948. his passion seemed to be for taxonomy, not fish dinners.
His career path took in Washington, The Hague, Cairo, Tunis, A colleague who had known the food writer Elizabeth David
Brussels (where he was Head of Chancery of the British Delega- when she was working in wartime Cairo sent her a copy of the
tion to NATO), and, finally, Laos, to which he was Ambassador fish book which she reviewed in her column for the weekly
1973–5. magazine the Spectator. From this first contact flowed the
From the outset of adult life, Alan had written for pleasure process of its conversion from pamphlet to the full-blown work
and very occasional profit. His earliest squibs were humorous, Mediterranean Seafood published by Penguin Books in 1972.
some published in Punch magazine, and of course his diplomatic This quite brilliant book combined the accurate physical
Alan Davidson: A Tribute viii
description of fish and shellfish with notes of their various names to papers given at St Antony’s and articles contributed to Petits
in countries and localities all round the Mediterranean and re- Propos Culinaires.
cipes drawn from friends, family, diplomatic contacts, and well- When the Companion saw the light of day on both sides of the
reputed cookery books (often locally published and unknown to Atlantic, it was welcomed with unreserved enthusiasm. People
a British readership). The most important ingredients in this recognized it as unique: a book of reference, indeed often of re-
heady mix were a light touch, an impish humour, and a perfectly cord, which managed to speak with a human voice, in tones so
balanced, yet formal style of writing. It has remained in print singular that none could replicate them. It drew together many
ever since first appearing. disciplines: the organic sciences, history, ethnology, literary stud-
Alan’s first book was followed by two more in the same vein: ies. It allowed equal status to all nations, all styles of cooking, all
Seafood of South East Asia in 1976 and North Atlantic Seafood in foods, and both genders of the human race. It neither devalued
1979. Meanwhile, his posting to Laos had permitted him to write the simple task of washing-up, nor larded the esoterica of gas-
Fish and Fish Dishes of Laos in 1975 and to begin work on Trad- tronomy with more respect than they merited. Alan wrote as he
itional Recipes of Laos, published in 1981. was: which is to say that the well-educated Briton of a certain era
The success of Mediterranean Seafood and a growing impa- is on show in many of the entries he composed. But, simultan-
tience with the formalities of diplomacy caused Alan to retire eously, they also expose a Briton of remarkable sensibility, infin-
early from the Foreign Office in 1976 and turn to full-time writ- ite tact, and profound good will. Reasons, perhaps, why a casual
ing with a particular interest in food. It was at this juncture that glance at the Companion often turns into a marathon of
he approached the Oxford University Press with the scheme for browsing.
this volume. Once contracts had been exchanged, the work Towards the end of his life, Alan received many honours from
would occupy him for the next twenty years. He recorded its his peers and admirers both here and abroad. Not least was the
completion in a gesture typical of his sense of fun: ‘Alan and Jane award in 2003 of the Erasmus Prize—Holland’s most prestigious
Davidson announce with great pleasure the safe delivery of The intellectual recognition—for his role in encouraging the study of
Oxford Companion to Food to the Oxford University Press at food history. The charm of the man, his radical attraction, was
1055 on Tuesday 21 July 1998. . . . Days overdue: 5674. Weight on his innocent delight in the honour, combined with an inability to
delivery: 3 oz [it was, of course, a computer disc].’ presume any claim upon it.
Reasons for the long gestation of the book were many. It was The judges in Amsterdam had perceived correctly that Alan’s
more ambitious than most such works, for it not only took in the contribution was wider than merely British concerns. He was
description of a multiplicity of foodstuffs, but tackled the history equally at home among scientists and chefs at their periodic
of food and eating habits in many countries as well as surveying conferences exploring the furthest boundaries of culinary
cookery literature and discussing in some detail aspects of food chemistry at Erice on Sicily, as seated round a table with French
and dietary science. All the while, Alan was pursuing other intellectuals of the deepest hue speculating on the dietary pref-
strands of his career. He was writing books and articles and, erences of seventeenth-century Europe. His interest in food
more importantly perhaps, he was publishing them under his matters coincided with a burgeoning enthusiasm elsewhere and
own imprint of Prospect Books. He founded the company, in his deprecation of exclusivity and intellectual boundaries meant
partnership with his wife, to allow the publication of a food stud- he was willing to engage with a tremendous variety of scholars.
ies journal Petits Propos Culinaires as well as to reprint important Amateurs, too, and the occasional light infantry of culinary
early English cookery books and issue new titles about unfamil- investigation such as diplomats or soldiers in post, or neighbours
iar foodways. and fellow residents of Chelsea, were liable to be recruited to
Serious work on food, food history, and cookery had little sta- the task in hand, whether providing information on current
tus and a small following in both the world of learning and the practice or searching out a local variation to a recipe or kitchen
world at large in the 1970s. This is not to diminish the achieve- custom.
ments of scholars, cooks, and writers of earlier decades, merely I, like so many others, found his rigorous curiosity (he was a
to acknowledge that they occupied an intellectual no man’s land. stickler for exactitude) infectious. I first met Alan after sending
In terms of Great Britain, Alan’s enthusiasm for the subject him a pamphlet on fish cookery of my own composition in 1980.
proved galvanic. His own books, his initiatives at Prospect (for He was an obvious complementary candidate because we had
instance the series of historical bibliographies of English cookery tested his own books almost to destruction in our restaurant
and domestic literature), and especially his organizing (with the kitchen on the quayside at Dartmouth in Devon. Thereafter, his
historian Theodore Zeldin) of the annual Symposia on Food and work and his approach have been my models, though sensing
Food History at St Antony’s College, Oxford, from 1981, attracted keenly that I may aspire to, but perhaps may never reach their
many new recruits, encouraged those already at work, and af- rarefied heights.
forded a platform for discussion and international co-operation. Tom Jaine
Some of the fruits of his labours are harvested in this present
volume; see for instance the many references in the bibliography December 2005
Preface
to the Third Edition
The aims and intentions of this further revision to Alan Davidson’s or to correct (very infrequent) factual error, and I have added
Companion have not altered since the first slight alterations 43 new entries. Space has necessarily been limited so I do not
introduced into the second edition of 2005. The original Com- pretend that many of these new articles do more than alert the
panion was sui generis, a book treasured by its readers for its in- curious reader to the existence of a large subject worthy of consid-
formation and its inimitable style. Whatever changes made were eration. The topics covered include such blockbusters as anthropol-
undertaken conservatively, so that Alan’s mode of expression, his ogy, sociology, photography, terroir, convenience foods, genetics,
humour, his enthusiasms, and his take on food and its place in medicine, foraging, and obesity. This list merely serves to underline
human experience were not edited away. Nonetheless, in the how quickly the terms of engagement have altered since 1999.
fourteen or fifteen years since the completion of the first draft so Jane Davidson, Alan’s widow, who was instrumental in the
much has changed in the worlds of food, nutrition, agriculture compilation of the second edition, sadly died in 2011, but I am
and economy, food politics, food studies, and our understanding grateful for the renewed help and advice of Andrew Dalby,
of food history. These changes have been radical and they have Helen Galizia, Vicky Hayward, Philip and Mary Hyman, Philip
been fast-moving. It could be argued that they have been radical Iddison, Sri and Roger Owen, Bruce Palling, Gillian Riley, and
enough to warrant a new Companion altogether, but that may be Helen Saberi.
another discussion. In the event, I have altered approximately 250
of the current entries, either to take account of new developments Tom Jaine
