I make no apology for kicking off my books of 2024 round-up with the reissue of a  foodie classic first published in 1950 – a time when we weren’t deluged with cookbooks from every corner of the globe and olive oil and garlic weren’t a staple of our national diet. Alongside it a history of that same English food, whose riches have rarely been given their just recognition…

A Book of Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David (Grub Street, £14.99 reissue) and The English Table by Jill Norman (Reaktion, £17.95)

For nigh on 30 years my most cherished foodie keepsake was a browning programme from Elizabeth David’s memorial service on September 10, 1992. The great and the good of the food world were in attendance inside St Martin-in-the-Fields. Plus me taking a break from the very different world of Robert Maxwell’s Daily Mirror to honour the great cookery writer, credited with introducing grey Post-War Britain to the sun-dowsed delights of Mediterranean and French cuisine.

Still today a standard-bearer for her values, Jeremy Lee was also in attendance, as a young chef. When he came up to Manchester to guest at Bistrotheque in Ducie Street Warehouse the dinner’s theme? Why, Elizabeth David as Muse! Alas, I took that precious memento to show Jeremy and somewhere on the way home I mislaid it.

A hardback version of her debut, A Book of Mediterranean Food, has not been available for decades (my dog-eared Penguin paperback is from 1975), but facsimile specialists Grub Street have remedied that and, with its original John Minton illustrations, this reissue would make a lovely Christmas present for a new generation.

Just a little taster from it, on Greek meze: “Your feet almost in the Aegean as you drink your ouzou; boys with baskets of little clams or kidonia (sea quince) pass up and down the beach and open them for you at your table; or the waiter will bring you large trays of olives, dishes of atherinous (tiny fried fish like our whitebait), small pieces of grilled octopus…”

Remember this was a pre-package holiday era when such travel was generally the preserve of an elite. She feels the need to explain meze as similar to hors d’oeuvre.

At that distant memorial service, Jill Norman, editor of both Ms David and Jane Grigson, gave an oration. She quoted from the author’s anthology, An Omelette and a Glass of Wine: “Came 1846 the year that Mr Alfred Bird brought forth custard powder, and Mr Bird’s brainchild grew and grew until all the land was covered with custard made with custard powder, and the trifle had become custard’s favourite resting place.”

It is proof that in her later years Elizabeth David (wryly) researched our own native food culture and Jill Norman has followed in her footsteps with some distinction. The English Table is her own contribution to British food history. It’s a crowded field, mind, going back to the days of Dorothy Hartley and Florence White and, more recently, Pen Vogler and Diane Purkiss… plus Manchester-based Dr Neil Buttery, who conducted a fascinating recent interview with Jill on his British Food History podcast.

Now 84, she has taken on a big task to compress a couple of millennia’s worth of food-related social history into some 250 pages. She is ferociously well-read but recognises that in earlier times printed recipes were rarely representative of what most folk ate. In her final chapter she briefly addresses contemporary issues of ultra-processed foods and the need for biodiversity (insect-based anyone?).

A swell of local pride for me when she promotes Incredible Edible, the hands-on  community growing movement that started in my home town of Todmorden 15 years ago. Back to basics is a good mantra to have.

Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons by Diana Henry (Octopus, £26) and Dinner by Meera Sodha (Penguin Fig Tree, £27) xx

Another welcome reissue, this time from the 21st century. Diana Henry lacks the high profile of a Nigella or a Jamie but through nine books and a her Daily Telegraph column has been quietly influential. Crazy Water was her 2002 debut, where she acknowledges the influence of Claudia Roden (another Jill Norman signing) in her own incursions into Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavours. She is rightly fascinated by evocative names; ‘crazy water’ is an Italian dish of sea bass poached in  a salty, garlicky broth by the fishermen of the Amalfi coast. Pungent flavours in the recipes are matched by the piquancy of her traveller’s tales. Ms David would surely have approved.

Meerha Sodha is familiar from her own weekly column in The Guardian’s Food supplement – the New Vegan. Her first two award-winning books sprang from her family’s diaspora – they fled from Uganda to less exotic Lincolnshire, where she was born and learned to cook Indian at her mother’s side.

The award-winning Mother India and Fresh India are among the most thumbed through, stained volumes on my kitchen shelves, The fourth, Dinner, continues the plant-based trajectory of follow-up East, offering 120 user-friendly recipes celebrating ‘the most important meal of the day”. That gives a clue to the once hidden, personal calamity at the book’s heart. To quote her chilling Dinner introduction: “A couple of years ago, I lost my love for food. I didn’t want to shop. I didn’t want to cook. I ate for necessity, not pleasure.”

Well, all of us food obsessives have had these days? No, this was true depression,, a can’t het out of bed breakdown – payback time for her over-zealous rise as a food writer. Heart-warming is the way she fought back finally when, realising her husband was himself cracking up after supporting her, she cooked a dinner that brought the family together. This book is a record of how each evening she  rediscovered cooking for pleasure. The pleasure is now ours. This is genuine comfort food to batten down the hatches with against a hostile, demanding world.

The Food of Southern Thailand by Austin Bush (Norton, £35) and The Book of Pintxos by Marti Buckley (Artisan, £30)

Two very different writers who have settled in a distant country and charted its cuisine in minute but vital detail. Both happen to be American – Bush from Oregon, Buckley from Alabama. Bush has contributed hyperactively to Lonely Planet and rival guides to South Eastern Asia, but until this year his magnum opus was The Food of Northern Thailand (2018). Based in that country and a fluent Thai speaker, he has now followed it up with The Food of Southern Thailand, spotlighting  a cuisine more familiar to Western holidaymakers on the surface, but Bush’s expeditions carry him far beyond Phuket resorts’ green curries ands pad thais. It is a visual revelation, too. His photography skills capture the vividness of diverse dishes such as Pork Braised with Soy Sauce, Pepper and Brown Sugar; a Rice Salad with Budu Dressing; a Spicy Dip of Smoked Shrimp; and Simmered Black Sticky Rice with Taro and Jackfruit. Chinese, Malay and Muslim cuisines come together in one cultural melting pot. 

Marti Buckley has been based in Donastia (local name for San Sebastián) for over a decade and I used her debut food volume, Basque Country as a guidebook on a walking tour of that gastronomically rich region. Pintxos dives even deeper via the Basques’ small plate answer to tapas. Rich social history sits on the counter alongside some alluring recipes; I’m taking this one with me on my next trip. Not that I’ll be ordering my pdet phobia, Russian salad. Sorry, Marti.

Between Two Waters by Pam Brunton (Canongate, £20) and Ultra-processed People by Chris van Tulleken Penguin, £10.99pb)

The main image for this article is the view across Loch Fyne from Inver to the ruins of Old Castle Lachlan. It’s lifted from this unique restaurant’s Facebook page. It’s always difficult to illustrate a book review article beyond a parade of covers. On the Inver site alongside a delectable food shot I was struck by this quote from chef patron Pam Brunton:

“The fish and the artichokes grew up a few miles from the restaurant. The sauce –made from the smoked bones of the fish and seaweed from nearby waters – is spiked with exotica from landscapes further away: verbena berries and fragrant bergamot juice, lifting the mellow autumnal umami. The crispy artichoke skins rustle like leaves in cold sunshine. Hardly post anything about food anymore – every time I come on here I’m consumed myself by thoughts of war and political collapse.”

Can’t imagine Nigella Lawson coming out with that, but then she would never have published Between Two Waters. It’s both a memoir of how Pam and her partner created their remote restaurant a decade ago, challenging punters’ expectations and not compromising on their ideals, and a rallying cry, tirade in parts, against how ‘Big Food’ has damaged the way we farm and cook and eat, severed our connection with nature. 

A former philosophy student, she name-checks Descartes and Locke along the way as she lays into salmon farming, the grouse shooting industry and much, much more. She’s proud about buying organic and local, and Inver’s Michelin Green Star for prioritising sustainability. Sounds preachy? No it’s one of the most timely and important food books of recent years, tender and down to earth to when she explores her family roots in Dundee, rhapsodical about the staples of Scottish peasant cuisine. Just don’t get her started on the Highland Clearances.

Medic turned author Chris van Tulleken (above) took his crusade against ultra-processed foods and the damage they do onto BBC 2 the other night. 

“This was explained to me by a scientist who works in the food industry,” reported  Van Tulleken. “I said ‘but if I’m making a chocolate brownie at home, surely it is basically the same as one I buy in the shop?’ And he explained there are two really important differences. Firstly, the shop-bought one will use much more fat, salt and sugar.”

“The second difference is the shop-bought one will use additives which we don’t at home – these are ingredients that aren’t available to us – different fats and sweeteners, emulsifiers, stabilisers, colourings and flavourings.”

Such products are geared to engaging your appetites commercially, while neglecting your health. Not that the the oafish Rod Little, reviewing it in The Sunday Times, was convinced. Conspiracy theories he hinted at. The food industry is obviously keen to downplay what academic research compiled by Dr Chris has indicated. It scared the life out of me. Just buy the book and you may be too.

One Thousand Vines: A New Way to Understand Wine by Pascaline Lepeltier (Mitchell Beazley, £45) and Perry: A Drinker’s Guide by Adam Wells (CAMRA, £17.99pb)

I first encountered Pascaline Lepeltier when she wrote a foreword for (and contributed greatly to) Alice Feiring’s groundbreakingThe Dirty Guide to Wine in 2017, the ultimate terroiriste manifesto. Now Anjou-born, Chenin championing master sommelier Pascal has produced her own erudite overview, challenging pre-conceived ideas. US-based Pascaline also had a background in philosophy and her book ranges across botany, ecology, geology, how perception works in judging wines, the language of wine. It’s a unique work of synthesis, but never dry. Or should that be sec?

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of interviewing Adam Wells about apple cider’s often neglected country cousin. The mission of Perry is to change all that. I described it as “a hugely evocative beacon of hope that manages to be more celebration than elegy. It’s a wonderful, revelatory read.” It has also added to my drinks bill as I’ve striven to fill the gaps in my knowledge. A trip to the orchards of Herefordshire was particularly fruitful. Do read about my adventures and check out the thoughts of Adam. Last word with him: “Great perry takes consummate care and attention. Which is all the more reason to celebrate the remarkable fact that it even exists.”

Vertigo by Harald Jähner (WH Allen, £25) and Borderlines by Lewis Bastion (Hodder Press, £25)

The history of 20th century Europe continues to fascinate me. Aftermath was Harald Jähner’s eye-opening account of ‘Life in the Fall-out from the Second World War’, where he retraced a decade of ruins and restoration in his native Germany. More ambitiously, with Vertigo, he tackles the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic between the debacle of the Great War and the rise of Hitler. It’s more than just Cabaret decadence; a wealth of research reveals a society rich in innovation but wracked by internecine strife. The redrawing of borders after 1918 contributed to major tensions across Europe. In his quirky but sobering travelogue fellow political historian Lewis Bastion journeys to 29 key European borders to question what national/racial identity is all about it. Historical, it couldn’t feel more topical.

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (Canongate, £16.99) and Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Viking £16.99)

Colm Tóibín now ranks among the Irish literary greats and Long Island, his sequel to Brooklyn, was ‘eagerly anticipated’ in this household, but disappointed us both. Neither of us either can see what the fuss is about Sally Rooney, so Intermezzo was never likely to make my stocking. Step forward Sligo’s ever-surprising  Kevin Barry and his wild western tale of lovers on the run in 1890s Montana. Opium-raddled wastrel Tom Rourke and mail order bride with a past Polly Gillespie high-tail it out of a mining town with a saddle pack full of dollars and a price on their head. Plot and language are as leftfield lyrical and inventive as ever. I love the pure Barry blarney of “Tom Rourke salted the eggs unambiguously”.

Since her 1998 debut novel Amy and Isabelle Elizabeth Strout has ploughed a very different literary furrow exploring the separate but eventually interlinking lives of two protagonists, Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton, one a cantankerous schoolmarm, the other a New York based writer, scarred by a poverty-stricken childhood in Illinois. Their parallel lives, and all involved with them, interlock finally in small town Maine. Strout mines a rare richness out of theconnections. Classic.