When people talk about who they'd want to meet if they could ever go back in time, most of the names that come up are the great leaders and thinkers of their times.
The ones who wrote the classics of literature, or invented something that's now ubiquitous in modern life, or were just so notorious that they've lived in infamy.
Hearing those scandalous stories from Lord Byron himself over dinner, or talking about the future of programming with his daughter, Ada Lovelace over tea.
Both would be fantastic, but there's someone else I'd also like to meet.
It's not like salt-curing or smoking of meat is uncommon or special. Our modern supermarkets have hundreds of options from all over the world.
But somewhere in history, someone looked at a modest slab of pork belly, with its well-proportioned stripes of meat and fat and thought, "I can make this even better."
So to whoever than man or woman was, I salute you, and if time travel is ever commercially available, I'll skip the line-up for the Lord Byron meet-and-greet and come visit you.
And eat all of your bacon.
