The Fat Duck restaurant in Bray and its creator, Heston Blumenthal, became something of an obsession for me last year. I promised myself that upon reaching my goal weight, I would take a trip to the legendary establishment to celebrate my achievement in style.

I never reached my goal weight; the craziness of The Missability Radio Show production schedule allied with moving house and other stresses took its toll on my weight-management and after I impressively losing 3 stone, I fell off the dieting wagon and have since been lost in a mire of chocolate and lethargy. I am rejoining Weight Watchers imminently.

So maybe later this year a trip to The Fat Duck will once again be a distinct possibility. In the meantime I can’t recommend Heston Blumenthal’s book In Search of Perfection highly enough. I was inspired to read it after spotting a friend’s blog-post about perfection and science in cooking and I have found it an excellent read.

First of all, it is difficult not to get caught up in Blumenthal’s obsessive quest. Whether seeking the perfect chocolate, steak or potato, he writes engagingly about produce and flavour, and his travels to meet with chefs, producers and restaurant owners add a journeying element to his culinary explorations. Throughout the book he provides context and history, which broaden the scope of each dish and add cultural dimensions. It is extremely refreshing to read a cookery book that takes British staple foods for its main source. Fish and Chips, Chicken and Potatoes, Bangers and Mash and Black Forest Gateaux – while all having some foreign influences – are revised through Heston Blumenthal’s fastidiousness, science and passion. And he tracks the past of each meal, explaining why it has become a staple, where it came from and so on. It is an interesting juxtaposition of elements; English, childhood memories of food reacreated via state-of-the-art equipment and scientific technique. The humble spud, for instance, is revisited several times throughout the book and scientifically analysed for dry-matter content, water-content etc., depending on whether the potato in question will eventually be used for mash, chips or roast.

Another fantastic aspect of In Search of Perfection is Heston Blumenthal’s remarks about produce and sustainability. Throughout the book he emphasises the importance of using high-quality ingredients, building an impassioned and detailed case for supporting small producers who love and are proud of what they make. He writes with incredible respect and knowledge about the producers from whom he buys, acknowledging constantly his trade’s dependence on what farmers, butchers, chocolatiers and pasta-makers create. He also talks about the importance of raising animals humanely, arguing against the immorality as well as the inferior flavour of intensive farming. This is becoming a more common perspective from chefs, but Blumenthal’s book brings in a new element – at least for me – in that its focus is not on grand dishes with names we’ve never heard of before, but on familiar foods that most of us will have eaten. In this respect I find the book very accessible.

Of course in other respects, it is a ridiculously inaccessible book. For how many of us can afford to travel to France to buy a Bresse chicken, or put the time into brining and roasting it according to his suggested (and lengthy) method? And how many of us can afford to make ice-cream using dry-ice, which can apparently be purchased only in a 10kg despatch and which cannot be stored? And while sustainability is a constant focus for the book, every dish in it appears to have an extortionate number of airmiles on it and an enormous carbon-footprint.

Yet despite these flaws in In Search of Perfection, I am won over in the end by the earnest quality of the book. Descriptions of memories of food and a commitment to excellence at all stages in production make this an utterly worthwhile read. What I loved most of all was how reading the book invested dishes I thought I knew how to cook with new dimensions. History, context and science have been woven into things I’ve eaten all my life, and this makes them richer for me.

I think it would be a fascinating undertaking to assemble all the ingredients for one of the dishes and to cook it down to the letter according to one of the recipes in the book. But like a visit to The Fat Duck, this would be something of a milestone in my own explorations of food, cookery and flavour, and certainly a once-off-treat rather than something to do every day.

In many ways the recipes in the book are reminiscent of some of the knitting patterns in something like Knit Knit; they are cultural possibilities, excellent ideas, imaginative revisions of existing knowledge and I imagine the world to be a poorer place without them. Yet such patterns are rarely the ones in my basket or on the needles. Sometimes you need to make something as basic as a hat from oddments or a casserole from the ends of what is in the fridge. But how much richer and more imaginative life is knowing that one could potentially take something to a much more obsessive, passionate, decadent and imaginative level.

Heston Blumenthal’s book is like that; impractical, decadent, impassioned, celebratory, earnest, searching and exciting. I loved every moment of reading it and I found it a dignifying account of the possibilities for traditional English food.

To close this post on food I will illustrate using my friend Caroline’s incredible knitted vegetable bunting; I think it’s one of the best uses of oddments I’ve seen in a long time and it filled me with glee when I saw it in her new place, hanging from the kitchen ceiling. As with Heston’s book, the bunting takes familiar objects and invests them with new, imaginative dimensions. Only this time, it is a knitted, sculptural celebration rather than a great, culinary feat.