Introduction

‘This is the kind of food I particularly like - uncomplicated, a simple delivery of true joy to heart of the table.’

My wife is perturbed by this, and by my propensity for discussing future meals while eating the one that’s being served up. But cooking is my job, a love; after all, I’m not a musician, mathematician or architect, and anyway, what to eat next has surely been the first question on humankind’s mind since its first naked, rain-lashed day on this rumbling, lava-streaked Earth. Thousands of years of muddy fingernails and grubbing for roots - or rooting for grubs, for that matter - will always lie deep in our bones. As a child I bit everything in order to understand how the world was put together. I’m distracted by a glimpse of mushrooms on the verge as I drive by, always have a fishing rod in the car and can never resist a market. How else was it going to turn out?