I once knew a man whose entire culinary output each year consisted of just three barbecues and a New Year’s Day fry-up. The rest of the time, he would only set foot in the kitchen to make a cup of tea or to grab a beer from the fridge. Cooking, he explained, was women’s work.

Of course, that was before Jamie, Hugh, Gordon and co, whose mix of blokeishness, butchery and bad language has persuaded a whole generation of men that cooking doesn’t have to compromise your manhood. Almost 4,000 boys took GCSE home economics this year — a rise of nearly 20% on the year before. I doubt they were motivated by the prospect of making someone a good wife — not most of them, anyway. They have simply realised what professional chefs have long known: cooking is the perfect vehicle for a chap’s show-off tendencies.

Even the kind of blokes who think aprons are for wusses generally have at least one “speciality” with which they are immeasurably pleased. It’s what I call the “bloody good” phenomenon: when you ask what they cook, the answer is “a bloody good roast” or “a bloody good shepherd’s pie”. The recipes here are intended to form part of that repertoire — not ground-breakingly original, perhaps, but the kind of grub of which a bloke can be justifiably proud.

Some of the dishes (the crumble, notably) have the advantage of being bloody easy as well as bloody good. Others take a bit more time and may require you to use more than one pan. Still, for most blokes I know, that comes naturally — provided they aren’t expected to wash up afterwards.

A good reason to be greedy

How do foodies do their bit for charity? Action Against Hunger, of course. Throughout October, the charity runs its Fight Hunger, Eat Out campaign, where more than 500 top chefs, from Giorgio Locatelli to Tom Aikens, put on fundraising menus and events. Action Against Hunger provides food for people in need, and the tools, seeds and support to help them build a sustainable future. Visit aahuk.org for more details

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