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Having written about a whole load of tomatoes providing a whole heap of fun, I thought this week’s cook books should be about a single ingredient. And you’d be amazed what’s out there! So, if the foodie you’re shopping for has an ingredient they adore, there’ll probably be a book about it! Here’s a few to set you off.

101 uses of a tomato

1. The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits and History of the World’s Most Beautiful Fruit - one heck of a title, and this takes single ingredient to a bit of an extreme, as it’s not just any tomato, this is a heirloom tomato. There are 56 recipes to work your way through, as well as some great stories and history of the plant. A very unusual cook book, but if they love tomatoes, this could be one for them!

2. Sausage by A D Livingston – 100 different ways to use sausages, although I am not sure it has the recipe for the perfect sausage sandwich (in my view, the only permissible use of cheap white bread, and definitely needs brown sauce). Perfect for the sausage loving meat eater.

3. Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient – this is a really great book, being both an interesting read and having wonderful recipes. It’s a real foodie book and certainly an unusual one, but quite inspiring. It covers all kinds of animal fats, so some sectors of the health police may fall over when they spot it on your bookshelf, but you should get them to read some of the details.

4. The Dolce Vita Diaries – part travel book, part business book and part cook book, all about the story behind Nudo olive oil. A great read, some great simple recipes, which is what you’d expect from a great olive oil company.

5. Best 50 Banana Recipes by David Woods – probably the most common fruit in the average fruitbowl, and the one that’s always going to be heading towards going off. So here are 50 different suggestions of what you could be doing with them, other than mushing them up and making banana bread!

Researching these just showed me that there are books about pretty much any ingredient you care to choose, so even if they have a real foodie passion for something unusual, you’re bound to be able to find a great book to make the perfect gift for them.