GRAY, Patience & Primrose BOYD; David GENTLEMAN [Illus.] ~ Plats du Jour or Foreign Food. A Penguin Handbook.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Penguin Books, London: 1957.

Small 8vo., decorative card wraps in pink, blue and black featuring a large group of people seated at the dining table; with decorative frontis as well as numerous vignettes and full page illustrations by Gentleman; THE BOOK with pages lightly toned, as ever, spine sunned and just beginning to pull, internally. A very good + copy. The book is protected in a removable mylar cover. FIRST UK EDITION. "This is not intended as an armchair cookery book" states the introduction. "It is designed for action in the kitchen". A wonderful compendium of recipes from Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd, the cooks who have been credited, by many including such names as Jane Grigson and Alan Davidson, as being the first to introduce English cooks to French cookery, years before Elizabeth David's 'French Provincial Cooking' would grace the shelves. 'Plats du Jour' went on to became one of the bestselling cookbooks of the 1950s, with dishes such as 'Filets de sole a la Normande' and 'Soupe a l'oignon' gracing tables all across the UK. Gray had met Boyd in 1947, when she was appointed as research assistant to FHK Henrion, one of the designers of the Festival of Britain. The pair became firm friends, and Plats du Jours, published here, as a Penguin paperback with its famous cover by David Gentleman, was a huge success, selling 100,000 copies before the decade was out – it ultimately helped Gray to land her next job, as the editor of the Observer’s new woman’s page. Scarce in this condition.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good +