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Before the publication of The Top 100 Pasta Sauces back in 1987, the average Brit was mostly oblivious to the culinary crimes that were being committed to Italian food, content to chuck watery bolognese on top of overcooked, unsalted, poor-quality pasta, with maybe a parsley leaf on top for garnish, if you were lucky. Today however, our love affair with Italian cooking has deepened to the point of obsession, with television chefs extolling the virtues of simple, fresh ingredients and rustic home cooking a la Italia from morning to night. Before your Jamie Olivers and Gennaro Contaldos however, there was Diane Seed. An English home cook with a deep passion for the regional flavours of Italy, the release of her book The Top 100 Pasta Sauces was the culmination of years spent immersing herself in the country's rich culinary history, and its vast success represented a turning point in Britain's relationship with the cuisine. For the first time, cooks were confronted with the id

Vegetarians, look away now! It’s National Burger Day, the time when humanity comes together regardless of social, religious, or national divides to commune in the holy house of meat and bun. The humble hamburger has had something of a renaissance of late, and restaurants like Honest Burger, Meat Liquor, Hawksmoor and countless (no, seriously, countless) others have made it their duty to elevate the sandwich to new gastronomic heights. This isn’t just a recent trend; back in the 90s efforts to drag the simple burger up to the culinary big leagues involved inept displays of nouveau riche posturing by even respected chefs, slapping truffle, foie gras, and gold leaf on top of a thoughtlessly put-together patty. In recent years however, the process for making a great burger has been boiled down to the essentials: good bread, good meat, and bad cheese. All other variables are pretty much up for debate: onions or no onions? tomato or no tomato? Just remember the universally applicable g

The rarefied aura that surrounds fragrance dates back to the remotest times of antiquity, when incense and fragrant oils would be offered up to the gods and deities of the ancient world. The Arab world is credited with introducing modern perfumery to the West, having preserved the ancient arts of distillation, evaporation, and filtration that had been lost to Christian society, and in turn heralding great advancements not only in the field of fragrance but of chemistry and science too. In passing this tradition on, Christian monks began to adopt the practice of creating fragrances as an expression of faith, before eventually the art form became available to the wider public, for a price. Today, most perfume is manufactured on a grand commercial scale; a far cry from the artisanal monastic traditions that gave birth to modern fragrance! However, some perfume houses still survive from this bygone age and serve to remind us of our industry’s history while continui