Good bread is an asset to any table. There is nothing as basic to our diet as a loaf - it can accompany virtually any food, it is filling and versatile. But occasionally a fancy bread can make a welcome change. These breads can be bought increasingly easily, but some are extraordinarily easy to make at home.

Making bread at home satisfies an atavistic urge get back to basics. Somehow a hot loaf from the oven, its smell deeply redolent of times past, elicits images of traditional homesteads and simpler lives. Yet there is no mystery to its production, no cabalistic formulae, no alchemical arcana. The process is as simple and as traditional as the memories it evokes.

My mother taught me to make three savoury breads: tomato, olive and onion. All three are made in the same way, only the flavouring changes.

The recipe for the basic bread is this. For one pound of flour you'll need an ounce of fresh yeast, a teaspoonful of salt, a dessertspoonful of olive oil, a pinch of sugar and roughly ten ounces of tepid water. Pour some of the water into a glass and add the yeast and the pinch of sugar. Stir well until it dissolves and wait till it froths. Put the flour into a mixing bowl, add the salt, the olive oil, the dissolved yeast and most of the tepid water. Mix well, and if necessary add the rest of the water to make a firm, but pliable dough.

For tomato bread, at the mixing stage add a small tin of tomato puree (140 grammes) and a little chopped or dried basil, then proceed as above. For olive bread add 140 grammes of olive puree and optionally some chopped olives; for onion bread add a medium onion previously diced small and sweated in olive oil. A little turmeric improves the colour.

Leave the dough at room temperature overnight. Knock it back in the morning and put it into a baking tin. Let it rise again to fill the tin, and bake at mark 7 in a pre-heated oven for 40-45 minutes. Don't be surprised if the onion bread rises more than the other two; I have no idea why it should, but it does.

Fresh yeast can be got from most bakeries and supermarkets. You can of course use the equivalent amount of dried yeast, but it can give different results.