It all sounds wonderful on paper, but I remain unwilling to alter my idea of fine table fare. Farmed fish is a foregone conclusion, but I don’t think I’ll be trading the Xmas turkey for a Christmas Carp anytime soon.

It’s comforting to know the Little Stinking is the perfect candidate for a carp farm, substituting horse manure for the diatomaceous earth that makes a Chalkstream so protein rich.

Apart from a daily helping of homegrown mealworms, they browse the muddy depths where a carefully managed pond ecology nurtured by cow manure provides for all their needs. “Carp are a bit like chickens,” says Hepburn.

I’m sure some epicure could taste the difference, waxing poetic about, “earthen overtones, with a pleasing ferrous twang” – but I’m nervous about the “couple weeks in fresh water” part, I just don’t see how a lifetime of squalor can be made up with only two weeks of finishing school.

He has also taken steps to improve the taste of the fish, often described as “muddy”, by transferring the fish to natural spring water a few weeks before harvest.

I had the same reaction when Poppa insisted the common garden snail was a heady french import – and a couple weeks of cornmeal and lettuce leaves were enough to counteract the Snail-B-Gone.

Living in California requires a certain culinary cutting edge mentality, it’s part of the appeal, in this instance I may have to go with the burger instead.

At last count there was enough manure in those to earn me a merit badge of some sort.