We did most of our oenological research at the places where we bought wine for the evening meal Tip three: take a Peppercorn David Peppercorn, to be precise. His books on Bordeaux have long been my guides, and the one we had was Wines of Bordeaux (Mitchell Beazley, pounds 8.99), part of the publisher’s Pocket Guides series. I’d planned to carry it on shopping trips, but plans have a way of slipping out of memory when you’re on holiday I chose mostly by guessing, and sometimes came up trumps. Having spent two weeks of it within wine-spitting distance of both St-Emilion and Bergerac, I can tell you that children do not like vineyards much, especially in the scorching heat. Three tips for would-be explorers in the vineyards of Bordeaux: one, leave your children at home; two, don’t go in August.

Eating it, you can’t help but feel that you are merely restoring to your body what life, the universe, the traffic and doing your tax return have taken out. It is truly restorative.Dung Po’s “In Praise of Pork” is the most poetic recipe ever written about fat: ” … Firewood smouldering, the fire dimly gleams/Hurry it not, let it slowly simmer/ When cooked long enough it will be beautiful.”There is only one poem more moving, but if you don’t mind, it is one I would rather not discuss It still hurts too much.. Dong Po Pork from the mystical West Lake city of Hangzhou, named after the Sung dynasty reformer and poet Su Dong Po, is simply fatty belly pork cooked for four hours with the local shao hsing rice wine, ginger, sugar and soy sauce until it is shimmeringly translucent. Stuffed with sweetbreads, chicken farce and morels, each delicate trotter wallows in a lipsticky sauce that is three-star fat on a plate.There is even time in China, between eating healthy dishes of lightly cooked vegetables and steamed fish, to create ways of cooking fat that amaze and delight.

The height of fat chic is to eat cubes of polenta at Verona’s Antica Bottega del Vino, each draped with a butterfly-thin layer of cured fat that clings like damp gossamer to the golden sides as it melts over the charcoal grill. So much of great cooking is merely the transformation of fat. What Pierre Koffman and then Marco Pierre White have done with the pig’s foot goes way beyond the bar-room expectations of George Melley. After salting the meat and gently simmering it in its own rendered fat, it tastes juicy, bright and strong. Without confit, cassoulet is merely a bean stew.In much the same way, the Italians use fat to preserve and prolong their enjoyment of pork. They squeeze it into the spicy salame of the south, the elegant cotechino sausages of the north, and those delicate logs of mortadella from Bologna. I can choose the quality of my fat, in the same way that I choose the quality of my fruit, vegetables and wine.