We might think we have everything we need when starting to bake or cook, but time itself is the invisible ingredient in our most cherished recipes. Playfully structured through different periods of time, this book examines the fast and slow of the process. From the seconds it takes for sugar to caramelize to the centuries it takes for food heritage to be passed down from our ancestors. Jenny Linford dissects each segment of time needed to cook and enjoy simple and intricate cuisine alike. Other units of time considered here include the exactitude of pasta (minutes), smoking and barbecuing meats (hours), maturing cheese (weeks), infusing vanilla extract (months), and perfecting parmigiana and port (years).