Lateral Cooking: Foreword by Yotam Ottolenghi

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Lateral Cooking is, in a sense, the ‘method’ companion to its bestselling predecessor, The Flavour Thesaurus – and is just as useful, ingeniously organised and enjoyable to read. Much as she enjoys haute cuisine, she’s not likely to reproduce it at home, preferring to experiment with recipes from domestic kitchens abroad.

If you don’t own a copy of Larousse Gastronomique, Le guide culinaire by Escoffier or La Repertoire de la Cuisine and are a novice cook who wants to take a more serious approach to learning the craft, then Lateral Cooking will fit the bill. The book is divided into twelve chapters covering subjects such as ‘Bread’, ‘Sauces’ or ‘Custard’, and the recipes in each chapter are arranged on a continuum, with the transition from one to the next incorporating only a tweak or two in the method or ingredients. It’s a great book for reading about food and Segnit does a great job of taking cooks through a basic approach to a food and showing how other foods relate to it. The three spot colours used throughout function like a key, and a clear visual hierarchy helps differentiate between Segnit’s prose, recipe instructions, helpful postscripts and flavour suggestions.But as she tested the combinations that informed The Flavor Thesaurus , she detected the basic rubrics that underpinned most recipes. Lateral Cooking is a comprehensive work and notable academic achievement, taking a fresh perspective on a well worn subject that will have you thinking about cooking in a new way. It will give you the confidence to experiment with flavour, and adapt with the seasons or the contents of your fridge.

Ultimately, Signet wants her readers to develop their own recipes based on the starting points and flavouring options, so your imagination is your only limit to what you include in a recipe, which means you might have trouble finding ingredients if your ideas are really out there.So, for example, in the potato gnocchi entry Segnit tells you about the flour potato weight and add flour in patient increments but there is no explicit recipe. Lateral Cooking is organised into 77 'starting-point' recipes, reducing the phenomenal variety of world cuisine down to its bare essentials – and then building it back up again. Our bold but simple approach to the design evolved out of the unique structure and extensive content of Lateral Cooking, making it enjoyable and accessible for the reader. On BBC Radio 4, she has contributed to The Food Programme, Woman's Hour and Word of Mouth, and her columns, features and reviews have appeared in the Guardian, Observer, The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times and Prospect magazine.

Each chapter opens with an illustrated double page spread which introduces the reader to that chapter’s recipes.Once you've got the hang of flatbreads, for instance, then its neighboring dishes (crackers, soda bread, scones) will involve the easiest and most intuitive adjustments.

Please Note: By their very nature, all signed books will have been handled several times before they get to you.This book close to fundamentally changed my way of cooking and is still one of the books I regularly use.