It was a scenario to strike fear into a food writer's heart. Standing at a wedding reception, tucking into the canapes, a tipsy argument broke out over the nature of the meat on those cute little sticks. As the professional, I was called upon to adjudicate. The sauce was spicy, I'd had three glasses of prosecco and no lunch. "Beef," I said, confidently. Everyone accepted my verdict happily, and when I later discovered they were lamb, I kept my trap shut. Fortunately no qualifications are required for this job – I've seen chefs swooning over meltingly tender beef steak which turned out to be rare pork – even those of us who cook and taste for a living can be shockingly bad at identifying what we're putting in our mouths.

Unfortunately, as the nation discovered during last year's horsemeat scandal, you can't always trust the label either – and now a new survey from Which? reveals that, even if you've never bought a frozen lasagne in your life, you may still have been the victim of food fraud. The consumer organisation tested 60 takeaway lamb curries purchased in London and Birmingham – only to find the meat in 24 of the samples was adulterated, with seven containing no lamb whatsoever. Instead, cheaper chicken and beef had been substituted. Perhaps more worryingly, five contained meat that could not be identified full stop. It's a serious business; as Which? observes: "Regardless of whether or not they can taste the difference, some people – for religious or other reasons – will have chosen not to eat these meats and don't expect them to be secretly hidden in their dinner."

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