Pike in the Basement

You couldn't travel in more delightful company. Simon Loftus is a man with a sense of adventure and a nose for the good things in life. Here he combines a love of food and travel with beguiling style and takes us on a voyage of discovery round some of the world's lesser-known culinary delights. In his hands, freshly baked unleavened bread in a Teheran bakery at midnight, slightly salty, becomes as mouth-watering as white truffles shaved thinly over pasta in Piedmont. The exertions of travel transform a simple omelette in France into a harvest feast, and give tea and fried eggs in Pakistan a hitherto unobserved exoticism. He understands the importance of the right food in the right place at the right time, and the evocative power of tastes and smells to the traveller.