This barley, beetroot and beef pie—easily turned vegan or vegetarian—comes from the most easterly region of Germany near the Czech border. Steeped in the delicious flavours of celery, mushrooms, spinach, curly leaf parsley and caraway seeds, it's notable for having both a summer style and a winter one. Either is delicious. Furthermore, it freezes very well if you make a number of pies with these quantities.

This dish of pasta with celery and basil sauce, served here with broad beans, is an amalgam of a fondly remembered dish from childhood via what happens when you start nosing around in the British Library. Highfalutin bibliographic japes aside, it's also easy to cook.

Lombard chicken with pumpkin, fennel and asparagus; adaptation an 18th-century recipe