Food writers put their stamp on Mexican, Middle Eastern and Brazilian traditions in Mark Diacono’s top cookbook choices this month. Plus: tributes to mushrooms and spices

A BIT ABOUT MARK DIACONO If there’s anyone more obsessed with growing, cooking, eating and writing about food than Mark, we’re yet to find them. His books, such as Sour (2019), have won awards, so he knows a goodie when he sees one. Read his Substack, Mark Diacono’s Garden To Table, or follow him on Instagram @mark_diacono

Recipe taken from Fusão by Ixta Belfrage (Ebury £28) and tested by delicious.

BOOK OF THE MONTH

FUSÃO Having co-authored Flavour with Yotam during her time in the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen team, this is Ixta Belfrage’s second solo book, and it’s even better than her much-celebrated first. Fusão is Portuguese for ‘fusion’, and with a Brazilian mother, family in Mexico, her early years spent in Italy and a deeply inquisitive attitude to food, we are in very safe hands with Belfrage.

The recipes aren’t Brazilian classics as such (the book is subtitled ‘untraditional recipes inspired by Brasil’), but Belfrage’s revisitings, alongside originals inspired by her mother’s homeland. And they’re stupendous. The simple yet staggering coconut and ginger roasted cherry tomatoes set my poached eggs alight and the grilled fish with mango curry butter blew me away.