Uganda

Uganda's everyday genius is the Rolex — no watch, but a fried egg-and-vegetable omelette rolled up inside a hot chapati, griddled at a roadside stall and handed over folded in paper. It's the country's beloved street snack, cheap and hot and endlessly satisfying, and the name (a slur on 'rolled eggs') is half the charm.

Sit down for a proper meal and the staple shifts by region: mashed steamed green bananas (matoke) in the south, millet in the north, potatoes in the west, all crowding one plate. The dish worth seeking is luwombo, chicken, beef or groundnut sauce tied up in banana leaves and steamed until silky — royal Buganda cooking. Nutty binyebwa peanut sauce goes over almost anything, whole tilapia comes fried with chips, and it's chased by waragi, the local banana gin, or a cold Nile Special. Warm, filling, generous food from a genuinely green country.