What happened when one of today's best-loved food writers had a change of appetite? Here are the dishes that Diana Henry created when she started to crave a different kind of diet - less meat and heavy food, more vegetable-, fish- and grain-based dishes - often inspired by the food of the Middle East and Far East, but also drawing on cuisines from Georgia to Scandinavia.

Curious about what 'healthy eating' really means, and increasingly bombarded by both readers and friends for recipes that are 'good for you', Diana disocovered a lighter, fresher way of eating. From a Cambodian salad of prawns, grapefruit, toasted coconut and mint or North African mackerel with cumin to blood orange and cardamom sorbet, the magical dishes in this book are bursting with flavour, goodness and colour. Peppering the recipes is Diana's inimitable writing on everything from the miracle of broth to the great carbohydrate debate. Above all, this is about opening up our palates to new possibilities. There is no austerity here, simply fabulous food which nourishes body and soul.

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Recommended by

Kate Young

Blogger and cookbook author

I love Diana Henry’s prose, and have dutifully collected all of her brilliant books. A Change of Appetite is my favourite. Released while the ‘clean eating’ trend was at its height, it is a book full of food that is ‘accidentally healthy’ – light, full of flavour, and completely delicious. One of the rare books that has a post-it note on almost every page; I have tried countless recipes from it, and all are perfect.

Bee Wilson

Food writer and historian

This life-enhancing book is one of the very few cookbooks that has ever tried to square the circle of pleasure and nutrition. When you cook from it, you feel the opposite of deprived. The recipes, rich with saffron and herbs, are not about 'clean eating' but what Henry describes as 'accidentally healthy' food.

Sophie Tyrrell

Head chef, 69 Highbury Hill

I'm cooking my way through this at the moment and it's fantastic. There hasn't been a duff recipe so far. Try lamb scottadito, Japanese ginger and garlic chicken with smashed cucumber, pink rhubarb with star anise, grapefruit and mint sorbet. A complete hit and I'll be using it for years to come.

Jenny Chandler

Food writer

So difficult to chose which of Diana's books I love the most but this collection of "accidentally healthy" recipes is perhaps my favourite. A million miles away from all the "clean" eating trends, this is fabulously tasty food that we guzzle as a family with no sense of deprivation.

A Change of Appetite

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