Ahead of the game Edouard de Pomiane was a man ahead of his time. Born in 1875 in Paris, making him almost precisely 100 years the senior to modern chefs like Jamie Oliver, he was a scientist, lecturuer, broadcaster and writer who recognised the underlying simplicity and joy that can be found in cooking and eating. In his day, there was a commonly held belief that life had developed a rushed and frenetic pace, that people no longer had time to sit back and appreciate life. Combined with the perception that French food preparation was some kind of mystical art, one that had to be undertaken by a trained professional, de Pomiane realised that someone needed to break cooking down into easily manageable periods and simplify the processes to suit their modern lifestyles. And so we have this book, which was first published in 1930 under the name ‘La Cuisine …