View source for Alan Davidson (food writer)

{{Short description|British diplomat and food scholar}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2020}}
[[File:2003 Davidson prijsuitreiking 1.tif|300px|thumb|upright=1.5|alt=elderly, clean-shaven white man with full head of longish hair|Alan Davidson ([[Erasmus Prize]] 2003)]]
'''Alan Eaton Davidson''' [[Order of St Michael and St George|CMG]] (30 March 1924 – 2 December 2003) was a British diplomat and writer best known for his writing and editing on food and [[gastronomy]].

After leaving [[Queen's College, Oxford]], in 1948, Davidson joined the British diplomatic service, rising through the ranks to conclude his career as ambassador to Laos, from 1973 to 1975. He retired early and devoted himself to full-time writing about food, encouraged by [[Elizabeth David]] and others. He published more than a dozen books between his retirement and 2002, but his ''[[magnum opus]]'' was ''[[The Oxford Companion to Food]]'', a work of more than a million words, which took twenty years to complete and was published to international acclaim in 1999.

==Life and career==
===Early years===
Davidson was born in [[Derry]], [[Northern Ireland]], the son of William John Davidson (1899–1959), inspector of taxes, and his wife, Constance, ''née'' Eaton (1889–1974).<ref name=odnb>Levy, Paul. [https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-92995 "Davidson, Alan Eaton (1924–2003), diplomatist and food historian"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2007. Retrieved 16 June 2020  {{ODNBsub}}</ref> He was brought up in [[Leeds]] in the north-east of England, where he attended [[Leeds Grammar School]]. His higher education was interrupted by the [[Second World War]], during which he joined the [[Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve]] as an ordinary seaman and saw wartime and post-war service in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific, ending the war as a commissioned officer. In 1946 he returned to England to complete his interrupted education at [[Queen's College, Oxford]], where he took a [[British undergraduate degree classification#Variations of first-class honours|double first]]{{Broken anchor|date=2025-08-01|bot=User:Cewbot/log/20201008/configuration|target_link=British undergraduate degree classification#Variations of first-class honours|reason= The anchor (Variations of first-class honours) [[Special:Diff/1168183653|has been deleted]].|diff_id=1168183653}} in [[Honour Moderations|classical moderations and Greats]] in 1948.<ref name=times/>

===Foreign Office===
From Oxford, Davidson joined the [[British Foreign Office|Foreign Office]] and between 1948 and 1973 he served in diplomatic posts in Washington, The Hague, Cairo and Tunis, headed two Foreign Office departments in London, and served as [[Who's Who (UK)|head of chancery]] in the British delegation to [[NATO]] in Brussels. In 1951 he married Jane Macatee. There were three daughters of the marriage.<ref name=odnb/>

Davidson concluded his Foreign Office career as British ambassador to Laos, 1973–1975. A colleague later said of this posting:
{{blockindent|Laos, in those dangerous years, was far more than a small, landlocked country on the edge of a vicious war: it was the "listening post" for both sides in the Cold War, and even a bridge between them. … Alan was at the heart of this, digging delicately beneath the surface, known and respected by all".<ref>Springate, M. D. M. "Lives Remembered: Alan Davidson", ''The Times'', 9 January 2004, p. 48</ref>|}}
Davidson took early retirement from the diplomatic service at the age of 51 in 1975.<ref name=times/>

===Food writer===
While the Davidsons were living in Tunis, Jane asked her husband to look for a cookery book on fish because she did not recognise any of the local varieties and was unsure how they should be cooked.<ref name=odnb/> Not being able to find one he wrote one himself: ''Seafish of Tunisia and the Central Mediterranean'' "a handbook giving the names of 144 species in 5 languages, with a list of molluscs, crustaceans, and other marine creatures, and notes on cooking".<ref>WorldCat {{oclc|44835703}}</ref> It was a 126-page tract produced on a [[mimeograph|stencil duplicator]] and published in 1963. The British cooking guru [[Elizabeth David]] gave it a good review in ''[[The Spectator]]'' and introduced Davidson to [[Jill Norman]], her editor at [[Penguin Books]]; in 1972 Penguin published his ''Mediterranean Seafood'', described by his biographer [[Paul Levy (journalist)|Paul Levy]] as "a revolutionary combination of scientific taxonomy along with the vernacular names of the fish, visual illustrations of them, and recipes for cooking them". Within four years the book had become "a classic", according to ''[[The Times]]'': "a masterly combination of reference book and cook book with a beautifully illustrated and annotated catalogue of fish, plus a collection of remarkable recipes".<ref>Baker, Roger. "Food", ''The Times'', 6 May 1976, p. 10</ref> Further books on the same lines followed, much of the information in them supplied by Davidson's diplomatic contacts: ''Fish and Fish Dishes of Laos'' (1975), ''Seafood of South-East Asia'' (1976), and ''North Atlantic Seafood'' (1979), all of which went through several editions.<ref name=odnb/>

In 1978 Davidson contracted with [[Oxford University Press]] to write what Levy calls his "''[[magnum opus]]''", ''[[The Oxford Companion to Food]]'': "the house became a research centre, with the two basement rooms stacked floor-to-ceiling with cookery books and reference works in all of the several languages he, Jane, or their daughters could read".<ref name=odnb/> The same year the Davidsons  edited and translated a 320-page selection from ''Le grand dictionnaire de cuisine'' by [[Alexandre Dumas]], published as ''Dumas on Food''.<ref name=odnb/>

In 1979 Davidson and his wife set up a publishing company, Prospect Books, to reprint rare cookery books.<ref name=times>"Alan Davidson", ''The Times'', 4 December 2003, p. 40</ref> They also started a magazine, ''[[Petits Propos Culinaires]]'' "the first serious periodical dealing with food history" (Levy).<ref name=odnb/> In the same year Davidson was Alistair Horne Research Fellow at [[St Antony's College, Oxford]]. He convened a symposium on food history, in partnership with [[Theodore Zeldin]], which grew into an annual event known since 1981 as the [[Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery]].<ref name=times/>

The Oxford Companion took Davidson twenty years to complete. It ran to a million words on 892 pages.<ref name=odnb/><ref>Davidson, p. 892</ref> There were contributions from more than fifty writers,<ref>Davidson, "Contributors", unnumbered introductory page</ref> but most of the book was written by Davidson.<ref name=odnb/> Elizabeth David, like the Davidsons, lived in [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]], and she made her extensive library available to him. Through her he met her favoured specialist booksellers in London and New York who helped him add to his knowledge.<ref>Davidson, "Introduction", unnumbered introductory page</ref> When the Companion was published in 1999 ''[[The New York Times]]'' called it "The publishing event of the year, if not the decade", and ''[[New Statesman|The New Statesman]]'' said, "… the best food reference work ever to appear in the English language … read it and be dazzled."<ref>''Quoted'' on the dust jacket of the Companion</ref>

Davidson died on 2 December 2003 at the [[Chelsea and Westminster Hospital]], London, of heart failure, aged 79;  he was survived by his wife and their three daughters.<ref name=odnb/><ref name=times/>

==Recognition==
Davidson accepted the award of the [[Order of St Michael and St George|CMG]] on his retirement, but later regretted it, deleted mention of it from his ''[[Who's Who (UK)|Who's Who]]'' entry and refused further offers of official government recognition.<ref name=odnb/> In 2003 he received the [[Erasmus Prize]] from [[Queen Beatrix]] in Amsterdam in recognition of his establishing the Oxford symposium on food and cookery and writing the Oxford Companion.<ref name=odnb/>

In March 2010 [[BBC Four]] broadcast a television [[documentary]] called ''The Man Who Ate Everything'', a portrait of Alan Davidson by [[Andrew Graham-Dixon]].<ref>"Television and radio", ''The Times'', 17 March 2010, p. 56</ref>

==Publications==
* ''Seafish of Tunisia and the Central Mediterranean'', 1963 {{oclc|44835703}}
* ''Mediterranean Seafood'', 1972 {{isbn|0140461744}}
* ''Seafood of South-east Asia'', 1976,  revised edition 2003, {{ISBN|1-903018-23-4}}
* ''Fish and Fish Dishes of Laos'', 1975, {{ISBN|0-907325-95-5}}
* ''North Atlantic Seafood'', 1980, {{ISBN|978-1-58008-450-5}}
* ''Oxford Symposium on National and Regional Styles of Cookery'', editor, 1981
* [[Phia Sing]]: ''Traditional Recipes of Laos'', editor, 1981, {{ISBN|0-907325-02-5}}
* ''Food in Motion: the migration of foodstuffs and cookery techniques: proceedings'', editor, 1983
* ''On Fasting and Feasting: a personal collection of favourite writings on food and eating'', 1988, {{ISBN|978-0-356-15637-8}}
* ''Seafood: a connoisseur's guide and cookbook'', 1989, {{ISBN|0-85533-752-4}}
* ''A Kipper with my Tea: selected food essays'', 1990, {{ISBN|978-0-333-47408-2}}
* ''The Cook's Room: a celebration of the heart of the home'', 1991, {{ISBN|978-0-86824-456-3}}
* ''Fruit: a connoisseur's guide and cookbook'', 1991, {{ISBN|0-85533-903-9}}
* ''Something Quite Big'', 1993, {{ISBN|0-907325-51-3}}. (+ private copies printed in Bangkok, 1972)
* ''[[Oxford Companion to Food]]'', 1999, {{ISBN|0-19-211579-0}}. 2nd edition 2006 {{ISBN|0-19-280681-5}}
* ''Trifle'', 2001, with Helen Saberi, {{ISBN|1-903018-19-6}}
* ''The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy: twenty years of the best food writing from the journal "Petits Propos Culinaires" '', editor,' with Helen Saberi, 2002, {{ISBN|1-58008-417-6}}
* ''The Penguin Companion to Food'', 2000, {{ISBN|0-14-200163-5}}

==References and sources==
===References===
{{Reflist}}
===Sources===
* {{cite book | last=Davidson | first=Alan | title=The Oxford Companion to Food | year=1999 | location=Oxford | publisher=Oxford University Press | isbn=0-19211579-0 }}

==External links==
*[https://www.theguardian.com/obituaries/story/0,3604,1099229,00.html Obituary] (in ''[[The Guardian]]'')
*[http://members.tripod.com/rdeh/ Alan Davidson website]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20061018093359/http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/lane/kal69/shop/pages/ppc.htm ''Petits Propos Culinaires'' website]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davidson, Alan}}
[[Category:1924 births]]
[[Category:2003 deaths]]
[[Category:Royal Navy officers of World War II]]
[[Category:British food writers|Davidson, Alan Eaton]]
[[Category:Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George]]
[[Category:People educated at Leeds Grammar School]]
[[Category:Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Laos]]
[[Category:Cultural historians]]
[[Category:Writers from Derry (city)]]
[[Category:Irish people of Scottish descent]]
[[Category:Food historians]]
[[Category:James Beard Foundation Award winners]]