If there is anything as lofty as a philosophy coursing through this book, it's this - eat meat, but eat less and eat better. That's not to say we should stint on great hunks of beef, cut paper-thin and served with glistening gravy, charred steaks, or golden deep-fried chicken. Nor should we forgo slow-cooked lamb, roast Chinese duck, Keralan pork curry or rich jambalayas, cassoulets and daubes. There are recipes for all these in Let's Eat Meat. They are dishes to be devoured by family and friends over a long langorous weekend lunch or dinner. But elsewhere in the book things get a little less carniverous. In a chapter entitled Less Meat, meat shares the limelight, for example in a Neopolitan ragu, a Tuscan bean stew and a fragrant Thai chicken curry. In Meat as Seasoning, scraps of beef, lamb and pork are eked out, giving depth to staple dishes such as risotto primavera with a chicken stock base or Sichuan green beans with a scattering of pork mince.

It's hardly a revolutionary concept - the vast majority of the world still sees meat as a huge luxury, and using meat as seasoning is not so much a choice as a way of life. There are 120 recipes, for everything from roast beef to game stock, including rich Iberian stews perked up with chunks of chorizo and Roman broad beans cooked with a scattering of pig's cheek. Never mean, the flavours still zip across the tongue, but the meat is happy to take a back seat. Let's Eat Meat helps us enjoy meat, whether as a prime cut or as a scrap of meat used in a way that is thrifty but never mean. With an eye on welfare, it encourages us to spend money on eating less but better meat. But this is no revolution; these are recipes rooted in cultures and so delicious you will return to cook them again and again.