Pies and Pastries

“How lucky you are to be able to cook,” people often say, rather as if I had discovered the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone. But after all, people have been trying to make food palatable for tens of thousands of years, and it is only one step further to try and make it delicious. There is no real secret, just a series of basic rules that are easy to master and, once learned, they are found to apply to the whole range of cuisine, from the highest to the most simple.

The trouble is that people are put off by the mystique of the great chefs. It is true that the real masters work for years to perfect some exotic sauce, but Yehudi Menuhin and Margot Fonteyn also have to practise every day to keep up their technique, and you do not ignore music or dancing because you cannot reach their level.