Ben Tish is a chef I admire immensely; he cooks very tasty food, and I am hooked by what is in his recent book ‘Mediterra’. He ventures around the Mediterranean and shows us dishes from all over that vast area. It is not easy to cover such a huge region in one book, but he does a great job and the dishes look wonderful. It is the sort of tasty summer food we all like to eat—colourful and full of flavour. Think Italian, Croatian, Moroccan and beyond.

There are 140 recipes from the Med. Highlights for me are in the North African section: lamb kofta, grilled prawns, and a cardamom-scented custard with strawberries—absolutely delicious. It’s not easy using spice well, but he does it cleverly here, and of course the food from the eastern Med is so tasty—spicy, sweet, sour, and flavoursome. The simple use of ingredients makes these dishes sing.

It will take me a while to get through this book, but I suggest it as a real encyclopaedia of good food from such a vast region. There is something for everyone—aioli, ratatouille, spicy and heady harissa. Ben takes you on a voyage to places and gets you hooked on food you thought you would never know how to cook—now you can. Ottolenghi describes this book as “simple, seasonal, heartfelt,” and I agree.