In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, when Ben Gunn is found by Jim Hawkins, sunburnt and wide-eyed after three years of being marooned on the island, the first thing he asks Hawkins for is cheese: ‘Many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese – toasted mostly.’ As a greedy person prone to daydreaming, I’ve often wondered what my ‘cheese – toasted mostly’ would be. A dozen oysters? A cold negroni in a fluted tumbler? A perfect quivering soufflé?

I think it’s gravy. That’s my desert island dream, the idea I can’t shake, the touchstone I’d return to. I’d take gravy in any form: thick and rich, made from meat scraps, a thin, boozy jus whisked up from pan scrapings, even the ‘from granules’ stuff, stirred in a plastic jug moments before serving. I like school dinner gravy poured over sausages almost as much as I love my granny’s red wine-heavy accompaniment to a Sunday roast, or the fanciest mirror-finish stuff of formal restaurants. When I was little, we........

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