Introduction

Many of my earliest memories are about food. I remember making pancakes with Mémée, my great-grandmother, in her house in Vitré when I was three years old. I remember making jam with my grandfather in Barnsley, and picking blackberries to make wine. I remember my Yorkshire grandmothers rhubarb and apple pie, and my French grandmother’s green fig jam. I remember long childhood holidays on the island of Noirmoutier, going round the markets in the early morning or cooking sardines on a charcoal brazier on the sand, and I remember poule au pot in Gascony with my grandfather’s old friends the Douazans. So many memories are associated with the tastes and smells of cooking; so many places, so many people can be brought to life using nothing more than a handful of herbs or an old recipe.