Here’s a book to relish, savour and devour. I would say digest, too, but for reasons which will soon become evident, that may be easier said than done. There is a lot – and I mean a lot – of eating and drinking to get through and, for today’s readers at least, the quantities alone, never mind the richness of the dishes consumed, and the gallons of wine, apéritifs and digestifs which accompany them, propel us into territory clearly marked ‘Completely Indigestible’. Happily, that is the very opposite of the book’s prose, which is light, delicious and verging on the addictive.