Family Life: Birth, Death and the Whole Damn Thing

by Elisabeth Luard

Food - meals eaten together in many different places and circumstances - is the common thread of this book whose underlying idea is that the family at the table is the source of its strength. The book recounts the Luard family's life in a cork-oak forest in southern Spain, a snow-bound farmhouse in Languedoc or a sheep-farm in Northamptonshire. Containing anecdote, humour and curious food-lore, this book is written by the author of "European Festival Food" and "The Barricaded Larder". Elizabeth Luard features in a TV series based upon her book "European Peasant Cookery".

Genres: Memoir, Lifestyle, Food

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Elisabeth Luard is an award-winning food-writer, journalist and broadcaster who often illustrates her own work. Her most recent cookbook, A Cook's Year in a Welsh Kitchen with photography by Clare Richardson, was published by Bloomsbury in 2010. Previous books include European Peasant Cookery (US The Old World Kitchen), Festival Food and Tapas, all of which are in print with Grub Street. Others include Classic Spanish and Soups (Octopus), The Latin American Kitchen, The Food of Spain and Portugal and Food Adventures: Introducing your Child to Flavours around the World (Kyle Cathie) - written with daughter-in-law Frances Boswell, and Truffles (Frances Lincoln). She is currently Trustee Director of The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, contributes a monthly column to Richard Ingrams The Oldie Magazine, and is a member of the team at online culinary magazine Zester Daily. She has published 2 novels, one of which, Emerald, won the WH Smith Thumping Good Read Award. Her work as a journalist appears regularly in The Daily Mail, The Scotsman, Country Living, Cambria Magazine, The Jewish Chronicle and the TLS.

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly amazing account of one family's journey through it all: the travels they take, the people they meet, the adjustments they make and the love they encounter everywhere. What a different world this would be if we all had the childhoods and experiences that this family did. And the food, along with the totally authentic recipes, those alone are well worth discovering!!

[Ria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was introduced to Elisabeth Luard in Melbourne, Australia in the 1990's when the television production of "European Peasant Cookery" was aired. I bought the book and turn to it frequently, but I had no idea that she writes anything other than cookery books, nor that she originally trained as an artist and was married to the British king of satire Nicholas Luard of Private Eye. She has just published a book about her marriage, "My life as a Wife: Love, Liquor and What To Do About the Other Women". Wanting to find out more about the Luards, I decided to start with "Family Life: Birth, Death and the Whole Damn Thing". Aside from the very slight smugness with which Luard writes about child-rearing (and smug perhaps only to me, as I was simply no good in this department), this is a completely wonderful book - a book which entertains and informs and touches the heart. Filled with mentions of famous people, this book is above all a loving portrait of family life. I sometimes feel that I judge a book's merits on whether I laughed or cried and I did both throughout this book but slightly more of the latter. The Luards were able to give their children the kind of childhood I still dream about -a vagabond "My Family and Other Animals" kind of existence in England, Spain and France. My happiness was complete when I reached the description of their sabbatical in the Languedoc. European peasant recipes are interspersed throughout the family and animal tales, some of which I plan to try out this Thanksgiving. Sadly, even those of us who are lucky enough to lead charmed lives are not protected from tragedy, and the Luards were no exception. That "He whom the gods love dies young" can be no consolation for the loss of a beloved. Perhaps if I had not enjoyed this book so much, nor grown to love the Luards quite so much, I would have shed less tears.

[Catie]

Recommendation from @carogrison - 5/17/2017

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit that I’ve never heard of Elisabeth Luard and I certainly wouldn’t have been likely to read this if it hadn’t been put forward as a Bookworms choice - but I’m glad it was.

Elisabeth was married to Nicholas Luard who latterly was a writer and politician, but who was known in society London of the 1960s as the co-founder of a nightclub called The Establishment with Peter Cook.

Elisabeth and Nicholas had four children and they moved around a great deal when the children were young. The book starts out in London but soon they up-sticks and move - first to Andalusia in Spain, and later to the Languedoc region of France, before returning to London.

The book centres on Elisabeth and her children - Nicholas doesn’t feature a great deal - and their travels between 60s until the untimely death of the eldest daughter, Francesca, in 1994. Towards the end of the book, Francesca takes over for one chapter as she tells her story about her illness.

Interspersed with plenty of recipes, it is an amusing, interesting book, and although their lifestyle was not what could be considered ‘normal’ the book is entertaining and the section about Francesca’s death is a story of courage. I think it will give us plenty to talk about!

[Daisy May Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book. Oh, this book.

It's the one I come back to everytime I need comfort and, in a strange way, to cry. This book brings it all.

Elisabeth Luard writes about her family. And food. And her children. And life, really, it's all about life.

They live in Spain, France, and have the bohemian lifestyle most of us can only dream about. Luard is gifted, so very gifted, in writing evocatively. The food here is to die for and it's written with such love and passion that you can practically taste it off the page. A big part of my love for this book is the way it's interleaved with recipes and how the recipes reflect what's going on in the family at that point in time. So, when we read about the children's birthdays, and their favourite cakes, we get the recipes on the side.

There is pain, in this book, a bluntly real and quietly heartbreaking sense of pain. And it's one that breaks me to read it each and every time.

I cry. I laugh. I smile. I taste the meals they make underneath the Spanish skies.

Perfection.

[Sherry Mackay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read. Wow what a mother she was. And what a fascinating person. To lug 4 children around Europe mostly on her own, and without a lot of cash seems amazing and perhaps even foolhardy. But her children seemed to have thrived, as did she. The book ends abruptly with the death of her eldest daughter - as an adult with AIDS-which is a sudden and heartbreaking end to this somewhat Swallows and Amazons type adventure. I am looking forward to reading her next book - my life as a wife.

[Lianne Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been curious about this book for a long time as an admirer of Elisabeth Luard’s articles in Country Living. I knew there was some tragedy in the family but was surprised to discover Fran’s story at the end of such a jolly memoir. I came to it wanting respite from a historical novel, followed by a thriller, followed by a historical thriller ( all good, just feeling a bit over faced). This was a great antidote, with a feel of the swinging sixties with kids that I enjoyed in Barbara Trapido’s ‘ Brother of the more famous Jack’ but with more adventure, insight into living in rural Spain and the countryside of Southern France. Great recipes throughout which was a plus. I did wonder at her skill as a mother of a large brood with a mostly absent father and such amenable kids. Just a hint of smugness which is why only the four stars.

[Vivien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting account of bringing up four children while living in Spain and then France. A bit too much about the food but the author is a food writer.

[Jane Wilson-Howarth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Odd odd mish-mash of a book. I found the domestic stuff rather dull, but then there was the poignant writing about the loss of a daughter. Those latter chapters, which I skipped to, are powerful....

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tragic but uplifting memoir of a somewhat exceptional family.
Her chance meeting at 19 with the older Nicholas Luard, co founder of Private Eye magazine with Willie Rushton and Peter Cook, led her to tell him on first date that they'd better off being together for life than without.
She worked for a time at Private Eye and it could be fairly said that the people they knew were the movers and shakers of the time.
Academics and actors, film stars and rock bands, they knew everyone and everybody that mattered.
There were a number of tragedies in their lives, culminating in the big one. She had problems with bringing babies to term, then her eldest daughter was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Other reviewers have done a good job of describing other content so I won't repeat it.
As a man I confess that at the end I had something in my eyes that wasn't dust.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating from start to finish! I absolutely loved the stories of her children's births and their early life in Spain! The author had tremendous confidence in her own abilities whether it was being a mum or making meals from unusual ingredients! The family moved around so much but it was more to help with their schooling and it seemed to work! I found the end of the book very moving with Francesca's description of her illness and how she believed she had caught the virus. It is so easily forgotten about nowadays. Even though the end was sad, the feeling of hope and life after death is still there.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this memoir. Luard is a cooking writer who raised four children in the 1950's-1980's. They are an English family who moved to a small town in Spain for four years then to France for a year before returning to England. She is kind of a Bohemian mother and it is enjoyable to hear of the antics of her as she raises her kids in unusual ways and places. I enjoyed her style of writing too. Warming though: you do find early on that one of her children dies as a young adult before the end of the memoir. A bit of a tearjerker in that portion.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

very inspiring with a retro feel on raising kids in the 70's and 80's. the author traveled through england, spain and france while raising 4 children. her parenting style was refreshingly funny at times but also heartbreaking. clever witty fresh writing style.

[Kelly Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book when I read it many years ago....get it out again every now and then......

[Katherine Precht · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sobbed and sobbed at Francesca's death. Perhaps the most affecting death scene ever.

[Katherine Precht · Rating 3 out of 5]

sobbed and sobbed at Francesca's death. Very affecting death scene.

[Rhode PVD · Rating 4 out of 5]

So warm, slightly eccentric, and ultimately loving

[Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! I thought it would be too dense for me, but the writing style is so easy and fluent, and the content natural and beautifully descriptive, that I really enjoyed it.

[Chiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heartwarming.