But there are two, more distant figures in food who are my real culinary heroes. One is Thomas Coryat, an Englishman who, in 1611, published the news that, during his travels through Italy, he had noticed Italian gentlemen “doe always at their meales use a little forke when they cut their meat”. The forks, he commented, were made of iron or steel, and some were silver; they were employed because “the Italian cannot by any means indure to have his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men’s fingers are not alike cleane”. Coryat’s Crudities, the book in which he describes his fork encounter, also records that he made his discovery while suffering a monumental hangover. “I would advise all Englishmen that intend to travel to Italy,” he writes painfully, “to mingle their wine with water as soon as they come into the country, for feare of ensuing consequences.” We’ve been foolishly ignoring his advice ever since.