Jane Grigson

Jane Grigson (born Heather Mabel Jane McIntire; 13 March 1928 – 12 March 1990) was an English cookery writer.

In the latter part of the 20th century she was the author of the food column for The Observer and wrote numerous books about European cuisines and traditional British dishes.

Her work proved influential in promoting British food.

Born in Gloucestershire, Grigson was raised in Sunderland, North East England, before studying at Newnham College, Cambridge.

Grigson was born Heather Mabel Jane McIntire on 13 March 1928 in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, the daughter of George and Doris McIntire.

George was a solicitor and the deputy town clerk of Gloucester; Doris was an artist.

Grigson later said that home was where she "first learnt about good English food".

After he had been involved in the closure of an abattoir, George gave up eating meat.

When Grigson was four the family moved to Sunderland, North East England.

She picked up a trace of a north-east accent that remained with her, and what the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls a "quietly left-wing" political viewpoint.

During the Second World War, Sunderland was a target of Luftwaffe bombs, so Grigson and her sister Mary were sent to Casterton School, a boarding school in Westmorland.

She then gained a place at Newnham College, Cambridge to read English literature.

After university Grigson travelled around Italy, and lived for three months in Florence.

On her return to the UK she became the assistant to Bryan Robertson, the curator at the Heffer Gallery in Cambridge; an interest in painting, silver and textiles led her to apply for positions at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but she was unsuccessful.

She worked in a junior capacity in an art gallery on Bond Street; she thought the watercolours were old-fashioned, and she later said that "I wished to rip everything off the walls and hang up [works by] Ben Nicholson".

She began writing art reviews for the Sunderland Echo, covering subjects such as fine pottery, the Renaissance and the work of Clarkson Frederick Stanfield.

He was married, and twenty-three years older than she, but they began a relationship and shortly afterwards she moved to the Farmhouse at Broad Town, Wiltshire, which had been his family home since 1945.

He and his wife did not divorce; his estranged wife refused to grant him one.

Instead, in the mid-1950s, McIntire changed her name by deed poll to Jane Grigson.

In 1953 she became an editorial assistant at the publishing company Rainbird, McLean, where she was the research assistant for the poet and writer Geoffrey Grigson.

In 1953 she became an editorial assistant at the publishing company Rainbird, McLean, a position she held for two years, during which time she was the research assistant for the poet and writer Geoffrey Grigson.

In 1959 the Grigsons had a daughter, Sophie, who later became a food writer and television presenter.

Shortly after the birth, the couple purchased a cave-cottage in Trôo, France, and it was there, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, that Grigson developed a conviction that "because cooking is a central part of life it should be as carefully written about as any other art form".

Grigson worked for ten years as a translator from Italian, and in 1959 she wrote a new translation of Carlo Collodi's fairy tale The Adventures of Pinocchio, which she thought was "the only version of Pinocchio to transmit the liveliness and toughness of the original".

In the mid-1960s Grigson was persuaded by her friend, Adey Horton, to co-author a book on pork.

She translated Gian Antonio Cibotto's 1962 work Scano Boa in 1963 and, the same year, also translated Cesare Beccaria's 1764 work Dei delitti e delle pene; the work was published as Of Crimes and Punishments, and it won the 1966 John Florio Prize for Italian translation.

Jane and Geoffrey then worked on a joint project aimed at juveniles that looked at the meaning of 65 artworks in the context of their time and their enduring impact; Shapes and Stories was published in 1964.

The Times and The Guardian both thought it "original and beautiful".

She was awarded the John Florio Prize for Italian translation in 1966, and her food books won three Glenfiddich Food and Drink Awards and two André Simon Memorial Prizes.

Jane worked as a translator of Italian works, and co-wrote books with her husband before writing Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery in 1967.

The book was well received and, on its strength, Grigson gained her position at The Observer after a recommendation by the food writer Elizabeth David.

A follow-up work, Shapes and Adventures, was published in 1967.

Horton dropped out part-way through the project and, in 1967, Grigson published Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery.

The reviewer in The Times commented, "the research is detailed, the recounting lively, the information fascinating, the recipes complete from head to tail."

In a tour d'horizon of cookery books in 1977, Elizabeth David called the book "A valuable work on the salting, curing and cooking of pork ... as practised by French households as well as by professional charcutiers", and commented on its "authentic recipes, practical approach and good writing".

They soon began a relationship which lasted until his death in 1985; they had one daughter, Sophie.

Grigson was active in political lobbying, campaigning against battery farming and for animal welfare, food provenance and smallholders; in 1988 she took John MacGregor, then the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to task after salmonella was found in British eggs.

Her writing put food into its social and historical context with a range of sources that includes poetry, novels and the cookery writers of the Industrial Revolution era, including Hannah Glasse, Elizabeth Raffald, Maria Rundell and Eliza Acton.

Through her writing she changed the eating habits of the British, making many forgotten dishes popular once again.

Grigson continued to write for The Observer until 1990; she also wrote works that focused mainly on British food—such as Good Things (1971), English Food (1974), Food With the Famous (1979) and The Observer Guide to British Cookery (1984)—or on key ingredients—such as Fish Cookery (1973), The Mushroom Feast (1975), Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book (1978), Jane Grigson's Fruit Book (1982) and Exotic Fruits and Vegetables (1986).