Bread

The flavour of bread depends entirely on the grain and the fermentation. It ranges from neutral and milky in a white loaf to nutty, earthy, and distinctly tangy in a long-fermented sourdough.

The crust provides the bitter, toasted notes that balance the soft, sweet interior.

Wholemeal loaves give you fibre to keep things moving. B vitamins help your body turn food into usable energy, and iron moves oxygen around. Get the darker, denser stuff for the most nutritional horsepower.

Ignore the marketing on the front and look at the label on the back. A good sourdough or artisanal loaf should only have flour, water, salt, and maybe some seeds.

If the ingredient list looks like a chemistry experiment, you're buying a highly processed product designed for shelf-life, not flavour or digestion.

Never put your bread in the fridge. It accelerates the staling process by making those starch crystals form faster.

Keep it in a cool, dry place in a paper bag or a bread box. If you aren't going to eat it within two days, slice it and freeze it. It toasts perfectly straight from the freezer.

Fresh bread is for sandwiches and tearing into soups. Stale bread is where the real cooking happens.

Turn old crusts into croutons, whizz them into breadcrumbs, or soak them in milk for a classic panade to keep your meatballs moist. Toasted bread is also the best vehicle for almost any savoury topping known to man.