Hack, meanwhile, hasn’t had a comeback – but that’s because it never went away. If there’s one thing I learned in my brief stint working for a German food publisher, it’s that no issue of any food magazine worth its salt may be printed without its quorum of minced-meat-based recipes. When I asked if this was because sales dropped off when there was no Hack, I got nothing but quizzical glances in return: finally it dawned on me they didn’t know whether sales would fall or not because no one had ever been foolhardy enough to try it. And although an overreliance on minced meat in day-to-day cookery is now seen by many as the hallmark of lazy, tasteless 1980s cookery, it’s a rare German who doesn’t nonetheless occasionally beef up everything from sautéed vegetables to tomato soup with the judicious addition of a couple of kilos of Hack. I’ve even heard of people simply frying minced meat and serving it as a main course. The mind boggles…