Seconds - the immediacy of taste, the crafting of chocolate, the brevity of blanching.
Minutes -the exactitude of eggs, a fishy on a dishy, the wasabi window.
Hours - the beauty of the bain-marie, taking stock, the slowness of sourdough.
Days - the smoking habit, use-by date, fasting and feasting.
Weeks - in defence of hanging, crafting beer, the maturing of cheese.
Months - a taste of honey, keeping fat, freezing.
Years - perfecting Parmigiano-Reggiano, jam n jam n, the pleasures of port.

The Missing Ingredient is about what makes good food, and the first book to consider the intrinsic yet often forgotten role of time in creating flavour. Written through a series of encounters with ingredients, producers, cooks, shopkeepers and chefs, exploring everything from the brief period in which sugar caramelises, the days required in the crucial process of fermentation in so many foods we love, to the months of slow ripening and close attention that make a great cheddar, or the years needed for certain wines to reach their peak, Jenny Linford shows how, time and again, time itself is the invisible ingredient. Linford shows how paying attention to time in the kitchen and elsewhere improves our food, from the patient browning of meat to the long investment of many food producers in fields and storehouses around the world. The result is a joyful account of the vital role of time in our culinary lives, and a book to savour.