Charcuterie & French Pork Cookery was Jane Grigson's (1928-1990) first book on food. It was well received and on the strength of it, she gained her position as writer of The Observer's food column, after a recommendation by Elizabeth David. When the first American edition was published in 1968, three of the US's leading cookery writers, Julia Child, James Beard and Michael Field, called it ' the best cook book of the year'. In Britain, Penguin Books published a paperback edition in 1970. The book was out of print for some time but reissued in 2001 and has since remained in print. Translations of the book have been published in Dutch and, unusually for a book on food by a British author, into French.