This is one of 20 volumes in a new series by Penguin called Great Food. Like the Great Ideas series, they are exquisitely designed and provide an easily digestible introduction to an impressive range of food writers, from Brillat-Savarin to Claudia Roden. You might wonder with the ‘modernist’ revolution that is occurring in food at the moment what relevance these pieces might have, but what is so striking and refreshing about M.F.K. Fisher’s prose is its simplicity and directness. I can think of no better time for simplicity and directness than in the cooking of an egg.

In ‘How Not to Cook an Egg’ I learnt that scrambled eggs should take 30 minutes to cook; that the best way to fry an egg is to turn the heat off as soon as you crack the egg into the pan, and to cover it immediately – this is revolutionary stuff. ‘I was Really Very Hungry’ is a delightful account of a gargantuan lunch in north Burgundy but the essential description is not of the truite au bleu or the Chablis but of the waitress – ‘She’s a funny one.’ While reading ‘Love was the Pearl’ on the tram on my way to my first meeting of the day, I inexplicably found myself heading directly to the market for half a dozen oysters.

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