I have unsavoury habits in the kitchen – but don’t we all? | Jay Rayner

At home I double dip. And triple dip. And lick the spoon again. I'm sure I'm in good company

I have filthy habits. They're not unusual habits, or even unusually filthy. You probably have them too. But in the right environment, they can look so terribly, terribly wrong. That environment is a TV studio. Recently, for reasons I must for the moment remain coy about, I found myself cooking against the clock before a phalanx of TV cameras. I should have been focused solely on the tasks at hand. Instead, the words banging around inside my head were: whatever you do don't lick your fingers. And don't lick that spoon you're stirring the pot with. And for god's sake wash your hands after handling ingredients.

At home, that voice is never in my head. I break all these rules while cooking, and more. While I know newspaper columnists often mistakenly think they are merely giving voice to something that is a shared experience when it really isn't, on this I'm sure I'm in very good and very extensive company. The fact is, home cooks are not the same as the people who get paid for it, and hooray for that. Professional kitchens have important personal hygiene rules, and 19 different colour-coded plastic chopping boards. In those places it's a new spoon every time. Or, at least, it should be.