Czech Republic

Drop into a Prague hospoda and the first half-litre often lands before you've decided what to eat: this is the country that invented pilsner in the town of Plzeň and drinks more beer per head than anywhere on earth. The glass arrives under a finger of dense foam, the tap marked 10° or 12° — a measure of the malt, not the alcohol — and everything on the menu is built to keep pace with it.

That means food with heart and ballast. Svíčková is the Sunday treasure, beef in a silky root-vegetable cream with a dab of cranberry and a stack of soft bread knedlíky to mop the plate; vepřo-knedlo-zelo lines up roast pork, dumplings and sauerkraut in the classic trinity. To pick at over a pint there's the pub armoury of utopenec, a pickled sausage, and nakládaný hermelín, a soused soft cheese. Down in Moravia the beer gives way to wine, and come Christmas the whole country fries carp.