Admit it – Italian food is rubbish

Every year I’m summoned to a gathering which I strive to avoid. My first cousin, who loves a boozy party, assembles the extended clan in an Italian restaurant for a convivial lunch. I fear that my list of excuses – ‘back pain’, ‘gout’, ‘baptism in Scotland’, ‘last-minute undercover journalism assignment’ – is wearing a bit thin and I’ll have to show up this year.

It’s not my relatives that I dislike. It’s the stuff on the plates. No sane human could feel any fondness for a cuisine whose leading dish, pizza, can’t be eaten with a spoon. The most exquisite foodstuffs such as honey, caviar, baked beans and Nutella appeal to our animal instincts because we can scoop them straight from the container into the mouth. Using cutlery is like wearing sunglasses at the Prado.