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I spent many of my school holidays with a kind great-aunt, a deeply religious maiden, most of whose friends were nuns. Beside my bed, as well as Lives of the Saints there was always her favourite book, Jottings from a Gentlewoman’s Garden. Not ideal reading for a nine-year-old, but how glad I am now that I did occasionally dip into it before getting down to reading Bunty under the bedclothes. Otherwise I would not have appreciated the gentle pre-war style that Simon Courtauld seeks to reproduce in Food for Thought: A Culinary Tour of the English Garden. In this collection of his columns from The Spectator Courtauld chooses three vegetables or fruits for each month of the year, supplies some historical anecdotes and some cooking suggestions as well as clever tips for the kitchen gardener: keep whitefly from a pot of basil by putting a clove of garlic in the pot and plant apple mint among raspberry canes to keep raspberry beetle away.
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