The waiter at Trattoria da Danilo in Modena in Italy’s food valley, Emilia Romagna, was of the assertive variety. We’d already battled him over his insistence we should order tortellini, only narrowly fending him off with excuses of having eaten tortellini for three days running, including cooking it ourselves. But he wasn’t going to budge on the Parmesan.

A friend often makes references to it not being the done thing to drink a cappuccino in Italy after 11:00 (*1). I’ve never really subscribed to rules set in concrete when it comes to culinary matters because, by its very nature, the art of cooking is a constantly evolving beast. It has been ever since the likes of Sir Francis Drake (in reality it was probably the Spanish) introduced the humble spud to Britain and Portugal’s great explorers brought chillies from South America to India. Additionally, even long-established traditional dishes can vary from household to household in most countries.

In most countries, not Italy.

Despite having visited the country on numerous occasions, this was the first time we’d been aware of just how many set-in-concrete rules there were when it came to cooking and dining etiquette. But then, this time we were on a gastronomic odyssey through Emilia Romagna. The objective was to learn about the region’s food, not just to eat it.

The rules of Italian cooking – forget what you think you already know

We fell foul of the rules of Italian cooking in a kitchen tucked away the end of a shadowy courtyard off a nondescript street on the western edge of Bologna’s old centre. We were there to learn how to cook pasta. Virtually the first thing our learned tutor told us about making pasta was that it must be done by hand; pasta machines should be consigned to the bin. This piece of information instantly put paid to any thoughts of trying to impress said teacher by telling her we’d already made fresh pasta at home using the pasta machine we bought less than a year ago. Instead, and wisely I felt, we kept shtum.

As the evening progressed, as well as learning how to make tortellini, ravioli, and tagliatelle, we were taught:

• You should serve Bolognese sauce (ragù alla Bolognese) with tagliatelle, never with spaghetti. We already knew this one thanks to our authentic Italian cookbook.
• That onion and garlic (*2) hate each other and should never be paired in cooking. We recently found this out watching Gordon Ramsay’s Next Level Chef when Italian chef Gino D’Acampo went ballistic after he found one chef frying garlic and onion while making an Italian dish.
• The ‘authentic’ Bolognese sauce in our Italian cookbook at home bore barely a passing resemblance to the real thing. The amount of vegetables used in ragù alla Bolognese can be described as minimalist at best. For four people, the vegetable contribution amounted to half an onion, a small carrot, and a wee bit of celery.

There is no room for manoeuvre, certain dishes are cooked a certain way. That is how it is.

Tagliatelle goes some way to explaining why rules can be so exact, so rigid.

The story about its origins is dodgy. Local chef Zefirano was so captivated by Lucrezia Borgia’s long, golden tresses when he saw them during her visit to Bologna in 1487, he replicated them in fresh pasta form.

While the origins story may be fanciful, the recipe for authentic tagliatelle is not. In fact, a good knowledge of mathematics would come in handy. The official recipe dictates the width of tagliatelle should be 12,270th of the height of the city’s Asinelli Tower when cooked (it works out as 8mm). To achieve this, the uncooked strips must be between 6.5 and 7mm otherwise the pasta is not considered the real deal.

The original recipe which decrees this is kept under lock and key at Bologna’s Chamber of Commerce inside the Palazzo della Mecanzia. And it is not alone. Numerous recipes are registered there, each detailing the one specific way in which the dish or product it refers to can be made if it wants to be considered authentic.

Those are the rules. Gently dictatorial maybe, but the result is arguably the best cuisine in Europe.

Our view is when in Rome, do as the Romans do. However, when not in Rome (or Bologna in this instance) do whatever is easier, especially if the end result is virtually the same. When we returned home from Italy full of Italian culinary knowledge, we set up our pasta machine and made ravioli and tortellini. Was it authentic? Probably not. Was it delicious? We think so.

(*1) – There’s a good reason Italians don’t drink cappuccino after 11:00. They believe consuming milk after a meal plays havoc with the digestive system, so milk is avoided after food is taken. Breakfast doesn’t count as it’s generally only a coffee and a pastry, so cappuccino is okay until lunchtime-ish.

(*2) – If garlic in cooking causes looks of disdain, then how do the Italians explain garlic bread? Because it’s not Italian, is what a food specialist told us. Italian-Americans are responsible for it, and it shouldn’t grace the menu of any authentic Italian restaurant. Their loss on that one if you ask me.

I compared travel websites from three countries – France, Spain, and Italy – to see what others considered were the main British foods to try. Among all three, the suggestions for British dishes to try were virtually identical – fish & chips, roast dinner, full English breakfast, black pudding, Scotch eggs, pies, shepherd’s pie, Cornish pasties, Yorkshire pudding, toad in the hole, chicken tikka masala, and jacket potatoes. There were a few other honourable mentions, things that turned up occasionally, like haggis (described as a popular Christmas dish by a Spanish website) and bubble and squeak.

The first thing that was interesting was how many confused English and British. There was a tendency to write about English food when they clearly meant British. One writer talked about haggis coming from the region of Scotland, then went on to say that made it a typically English dish. Plus, it was disappointing to note that too many travel writers/bloggers never venture further than London. When it came to British cuisine itself, generally there were low expectations. An Italian writer claimed, ‘most Italians are convinced English food is bad.’ Others described it as being ‘simple,’ ‘bland,’ and ‘mundane.’ One article was even called How to Survive English Cuisine. Despite this, most writers ended up thoroughly enjoying most of the dishes they tried.

The reactions to some individual dishes give an insight into gastronomic differences between countries, as well as throwing up a few comedic classics.

What foreigners think about British food

Fish & chips

Most liked fish & chips, which isn’t surprising as many countries have their own take on it. We’ve eaten versions in Portugal (peixe frito), and Spain (churros de pescado). Some claim British fish and chips came from Italy in the first place. One Spanish writer was under the impression it was a summer staple, while an Italian blogger described the fish used as being cod, hake, plaice, or shark (presumably they’d seen reports from a few years ago about some chippies using spiny dogfish as the white fish in their fish & chips.

Full English Breakfast

An object of wonder for many because eating something so heavy at breakfast time is just not done. ‘You may feel nauseous just reading the ingredients’ wrote one Italian blogger. ‘Eating something salty in the morning is strange,’ commented another, while a Spanish writer was shocked at the very idea of eating eggs for breakfast. Quite a few southern European countries prefer light sweet things such as pastries to get them started in the morning. Nearly all admitted loving a good fry up though, which is why whenever you’re in a multinational hotel in Europe that serves eggs, bacon, sausages for breakfast, first in line are often guests from the countries who don’t put a lot of effort into their breakfasts.

Toad in the hole

Unsurprisingly when you think about it, the idea of toad in the hole caused concern for some nationalities. ‘Don’t worry, there is no toad in it,’ reassured one French blogger.

Yorkshire pudding

Yorkshire pudding also bemused French travel writers. One was surprised to find it wasn’t a dessert, describing it as a bread roll made with sage, rosemary, and beef fat. Another was amazed by something they’d seen in York. ‘They sell it like it’s a wrap – this is not a hoax!’ they told their readers.

Welsh rarebit

Things can sometimes get a bit lost in translation. One French travel blogger was shocked to find Welsh rarebit didn’t actually contain any rabbit. ‘It doesn’t contain any meat at all,’ they complained.

Scotch eggs

Despite being our closest neighbours, the French seemed to be most perplexed by British food. ‘A little too weird for me,’ was the conclusion of one writer from the country whose residents nibble at frogs’ legs.

Chicken tikka masala

Of all the curries that could have made it onto culinary lists of British food, the one which crossed borders to appear on French, Spanish, and Italian websites was chicken tikka masala. At first this baffled me, and then I remembered that in Britain, we tend to like food a lot spicier than some of our European neighbours. Spain is particularly notorious for having a national allergy to spicy food. The last curry I had in Spain was in an Asian fusion restaurant in Santiago de Compostela. It was described as being very hot and was about as spicy as a slice of white bread. Tikka masala is simply a safe and mild option.

The dish which had all three nationalities cooing their approval came as a complete surprise.

The jacket potato

The humble baked spud seems to have all nationalities in raptures.

‘The most British of side dishes, with a crisp outside and a soft inside it is very, very tasty.’ – Spain.

I don’t even think of the jacket potato as being a British dish, I’ve seen jacket potato carts at carnival on Tenerife.

‘So good, I dream of it at night.’ – France.

Best of all was the Italian contribution whose ‘beautiful to look at and eat,’ was followed by the advice ‘don’t send it back when it arrives because it is still covered with skin.’

Overall, it was just another example that, underneath it all, we’re all the same. Other nationalities’ knowledge of British cuisine is just as limited as our knowledge of theirs.

There have been times people have made references to us getting free meals at restaurants in exchange for reviews. Whenever that happens, my hackles spring up. Something we would never ever do is ask a restaurant for a meal in exchange for a review.

It isn’t the way things work … not for us.

Assumptions being made about the media are commonplace, and travel writing is no different. I regularly moan to Andy, ‘why don’t people just ask how it works?’

But mostly, they don’t.

So, I’m going to lay out clearly how it works. Transparency is especially important in an age when social media is awash with false news and uninformed opinions presented as facts.

The Truth about Travel writing and restaurant reviews

Do travel writers get free meals in restaurants?

The short answer to that is yes, of course they do otherwise nobody but the very well-off could ever afford to be travel writers. But the way it works is nothing like as crass as selling reviews for free meals. It’s more of an exchange of goods and services. Here are some examples from our experience.

Press & blog trips: Tourist boards want to promote their destinations. Travel writers want fresh material to write about, so it’s a win-win situation. Press trips come in various formats; some involve hosting a group of writers/bloggers, others are more individualistic. These trips invariably include complimentary visits to restaurants the destination wants to promote. Participating restaurants know they’re going to get a mention in travel articles, so it’s worth it to them to be involved. Sometimes all meals are included on these trips, on others it’s only a selection. There’s no obligation to write positive reviews but the truth is, it is difficult to write something negative about an experience that you haven’t paid for. For that reason, among others, we don’t tend to do press trips these days.

Specific commissions: Businesses want to be mentioned in travel articles which are going to be seen by lots of people, so it simply makes good business sense for them to not charge travel writers who are working on a commission. When Andy was reviewing hotels in the Canary Islands on behalf of The Telegraph, complimentary stays were mostly arranged by individual island’s tourist boards, and these included meals in hotel restaurants. Tourist boards, or PR companies acting on their behalf, usually pave the way for visiting travel writers. These are basically straightforward business arrangements like any other.

Do travel writers approach restaurants and ask for a meal in exchange for writing about them?

I don’t know. I have read and heard plenty of reports of some bloggers and amateur reviewers for UGC (user generated content) sites like TripAdvisor doing this, but I’ve never been aware of professional writers doing it. I know for a fact it’s something we have never done. On occasion, restaurant owners have contacted us and asked if we’d like to dine at their restaurants. If it’s a place we would have wanted to eat at anyway, we’ve accepted.

Sometimes we’ve ended up not paying for a meal when we expected to, but it hasn’t been by design. At a Michelin star restaurant on Tenerife, where we know and get on well with the chef, we booked a table without informing him because we specifically wanted to pay. Ironically, it felt deceitful. Our plan didn’t work as he spotted us anyway and refused to take any payment.

We recently returned from a trip to Jersey. We never mentioned anywhere that we were travel writers. Although it was a holiday, we’ll write about our experiences whenever the opportunity arises; in less than two weeks, an article has already been posted on this site, and a couple of restaurant recommendations added to a Slow Travel guide for Jersey.

Paying but not paying

The bottom line is we prefer to dine in restaurants like any other paying customer. In my view, it is the only way to have a truly authentic experience. And it is a completely different vibe. I can’t speak for other travel writers, but I tend to feel slightly beholden to anyone who’s feeding me for no payment (even though there is payment in the form of promotional words). That unease is probably down to my working-class upbringing and an inbuilt desire to ‘pay my own way.’ But it’s not an ideal quality to have in a profession that doesn’t pay a lot yet involves dining in top restaurants and staying in luxurious hotels. Luckily, part of our job means we can have the best of both worlds.

As Slow Travel consultants working with Inntravel, we regularly help put together holidays for them. When we’re ‘in the field’ we have to eat and also find restaurants to recommend in destination guides for their customers. These are work expenses, so we’re reimbursed. Mostly restaurants have no idea why we’re there, so we get treated the same as everyone else, which suits us right down to the ground.

It’s the perfect arrangement.

The rest of the time, which involves eating out a lot because, well, it’s become a way of life, we pay like everyone else.

“Gourmet: a connoisseur of good food; a person with a discerning palate.”

Foodie is an overused term. We use it ourselves because, well, what other term would you use if you have an interest in food, where it comes from, and how it’s produced etc? Gourmet seems self-important and grand, and bon vivant doesn’t cut the mustard. Gastronome isn’t bad, but every time I hear it, I envisage a wee man wearing a red cap and tight blue jacket and who has a long white beard, tucking into a plate of food. Foodie just seems far more informal and not overly showy.

“Bon Vivant: a sociable person who has cultivated and refined tastes especially with respect to food and drink.”

But what is a foodie?

There are many various views on what constitutes being a foodie, but what most people in the food business agree about is what doesn’t.

It doesn’t mean someone who likes food and who likes to eat out a lot. That describes many people now.

Gastronome: a lover of good food, especially one with a serious interest in gastronomy.

A few years ago, chocolate makers Green & Black’s commissioned a study of 2000 Brits, coming up with a list of 50 indicators that determined whether anyone was a foodie or not. In the number 50 spot was ‘owning an apron’ which does immediately tell you about kitchen habits. I’m not going to list the entire 50 as the further down the list, the more specific it gets. But here are the top 10 ways to tell if you really are a foodie or not.

1: You eat in lots of different restaurants
The key word here is ‘different.’ It’s highly unlikely anyone is a foodie if they eat out a lot, but always at the same type of restaurant.

2: You enjoy trying new dishes at a restaurant
We all know people who choose the same dishes every time they eat out. They might enjoy their food, but they’re definitely not foodies.

3: You enjoy shopping for food
Another misconception is that being a foodie means just liking to eat food; it involves an interest in food in general, and that includes shopping for ingredients.

4: You’re willing to try all kinds of food/meals/ingredients.
This is within reason. Having second thoughts about dipping into monkey brains if they were placed in front of you wouldn’t result in you being drummed out of the foodie club. But instantly dismissing food because you haven’t tried it before, or saying things like ‘I don’t like Indian/Mexican/Greek food’, does. The latter because any country’s cuisine consists of innumerable types of dishes with varying textures, ingredients, cooking techniques, and flavours, so dismissing them all is nonsense.

5: You know what wine to pair with which meat or fish
I have mixed feelings about this one. Used generally, it smacks of snobbishness and rigidity, and is a wee bit outdated, like saying red wine should be served at room temperature. While there’s no disputing certain wines compliment the flavours of different dishes, the whole red wine with red meat, white wine with fish and poultry is overly simplistic. The Wine Spectator agrees, saying the rule was “created in an era when the circle of influence for cuisine and wine was smaller.”
On the other hand, anyone who knows wine to such a level they can identify which reds can work well with fish and which whites pair well with red meat is a next-level foodie.

6: You read food magazines
You can add food blogs and websites to that. It simply reveals an interest in food that stretches far beyond just scoffing it.

7: You know which herbs compliment different dishes
Again, this is a bit more specialist. But in a wider sense it reveals an interest in cooking. However, I think it’s unfair to say someone wasn’t a foodie just because they didn’t know samphire went with well fish etc.

8: You experiment instead of always relying on recipes.
Anyone who cooks a wide range of dishes, whether using a recipe or not, seems more likely to be a foodie to me. Experimenting only makes it a certainty.

9: You create your own recipes from scratch
See number 9.

10: You can recognise when something’s missing in a meal/sauce just by tasting it
Maybe veering a bit more toward gourmet than foodie, but I get what it’s saying. The wider the range of foods you try, the more you learn; you start to spot when something is underseasoned, a sauce requires a little zest to perk it up, fish has been overcooked … and so on.

In the end, it’s all opinion. But for me, the first four in the list are the most important ones. Tick those off and it’s fair to call yourself a foodie.

So, which did we think was the better meal?

The answer is the second.

Although the food in pub 1 was tasty, its presentation was basic, the sort of fare we could easily have thrown together ourselves. Additionally, they were overly generous with the vegetables, so there was an imbalance on the plate. It was also just too much of a carb overdose. The second pub edited their food portions so that we didn’t feel cheated, but neither did we feel bloated. We were still able to see off a sticky toffee pudding and a salted caramel cheesecake between us. The food was more professionally presented, which can make a difference – it shows the creator takes pride in their work.

There are many people who judge restaurants on the amount of food piled onto their plates – quantity over quality. It’s not just the Brits who do this. American portions are notoriously ‘generous.’ There are other nationalities for whom volume is important. A common comment on Spanish and Portuguese restaurant reviews involves praising the amount of food related to the price. But that, to me, doesn’t necessarily equate to good food, or an enjoyable meal.

Too much food is a turn off. The art of cooking involves achieving the right balance, in both flavour and the amount of food served. In a rural restaurant in Corsica, we were overwhelmed by the starter alone – hearty cheese beignets. So much so, we didn’t look forward to the main course at all. The rest of the meal was a slog rather than an enjoyable experience. Surely that’s not any restaurant’s objective? In Portugal’s Alentejo, we gave up eating out after a couple of weeks because the size of portions left us feeling almost ill. It was generally good quality food, and great value, but it wasn’t what we want from a dining out experience.

It wasn’t just the amount of food on our plates which put us off, it was also the fact that menus were meat-heavy and dishes were basic. To put it bluntly, the food put in front of us didn’t appeal as much as the food we ate at home.

A huge ‘must’ for us when it comes to eating out is the food should be substantially better than what we can cook ourselves. That doesn’t matter if it’s a burger that cost five quid, or a Michelin star tasting menu at a hundred pounds per person. I don’t want to pay for mediocre food whatever the price. A mediocre meal out means a wasted meal at home I would have enjoyed far more. There’s no point eating out when it’s not as good as what we put on our dining room table. This is why I particularly like tasting menus and Michelin star food. Incidentally, I’ve not had one yet where, at the end of a series of small dishes, I’ve come out feeling as though I haven’t had enough to eat. Good chefs know how to balance portions.

There can be inverse snobbery at play when it comes to Michelin star cuisine. It’s often described and dismissed as fancy or pretentious by people who prefer their food to be conventional. Maybe it is, so what? I’ll happily embrace fancy if it blows my tastebuds away. Bring on the pretentiousness presentation if the food tastes sublime. However, I don’t like pretentiousness and snootiness when it comes to the way the food is served. But that’s only happened once, in France. Usually, it’s a lot of fun – pure theatre, an experience that stays with you long after the adventurous flavours have melted away.

One of the things I’ve noted over the years is that people who dismiss creative food tend to think the people who like it only enjoy ‘fancy’ food. In my experience, the people I’ve met who like, and even create, avant-garde cuisine also equally well enjoy the equivalent of a bacon butty, or fish and chips, because good food is good food irrespective of whether it is traditional fare in an unassuming restaurant, simple street food bought from a roadside stall, or something that looks like a work of art on a plate.

We eat out because we enjoy a diverse range of food and dining experiences. That could be in a shack on the beach, eating something cooked over a charcoaled oil drum, or from a chic, sleek Michelin star restaurant.

When you’re a foodie, you don’t erect barriers where any eating experience is concerned.

A group of lairy foreign tourists roll up to a restaurant wanting to try the tasting menu, demanding dishes are adjusted as various members of the group have food allergies.

Michelin star restaurants normally advise on their websites that diners should consult them in advance if anyone has dietary requirements. Most say they’ll try to accommodate this; some say the tasting menu is the tasting menu, take it or leave it. There’s no mention in the review that any pre-arrangements were attempted. The taster menu is a chef’s showcase, so not really open to being fiddled about with on the night, which is what it sounds as though this group expected.

If I were a waiter, how would I react if people eating their way through a taster menu asked when the main course was going to arrive? The answer is with amused surprise.

“There is no main course, madam, it’s a taster menu. Didn’t you realise that?”

I suspect what the diner really meant was, “when is the big slab of meat going to arrive?”

Meat doesn’t tend to feature highly on taster menus. People unfamiliar with taster menus might not realise that, but a travel blogger who writes about food …

My waiter hackles would be pinging to attention by this time, then I hear these tourists ripping the piss out of the size and appearance of the individual dishes. Haven’t they eaten Michelin star food before, I wonder? Don’t they know taster menu dishes are small, occasionally surreally theatrical (part of the fun), or the experience is likely to last for hours?

By this point I wouldn’t be loving them. I would not be going the extra mile I would with polite and pleasant diners.

Then one of them questions a waiter’s knowledge of the food they’re serving, telling them they must have it wrong when they inform her a dish is called rancid ricotta. Because you can’t have a dish with rancid in its name. Beg to differ oh wise and knowledgeable traveller, yes you can … and others that are even more eugh-inducing.

She gives off the distasteful whiff of know-it-all traveller from a superior land sneering down their nose at quaint old Europe. Earlier she ridiculed a stone carving of a bear for not looking like a bear. Everyone, from medieval stone carvers to the restaurant’s chefs, clearly doesn’t know their jobs as well as this blogger does.

What truly pissed me off though was the casual way she did a complete hatchet job on the restaurant. Was there really not a single dish that wasn’t worthy of a sneer and a joke? It seems highly unusual (in my head I’m thinking unlikely) for a Michelin star restaurant. Was the food so bad, it was deserving of so many cheap jibes? Jibes like “It’s as though someone had read about food and restaurants, but had never experienced either, and this was their attempt to recreate it.”

That’s unnecessarily insulting and rude. But if it gets a laugh then, hey, job done, stuff the casualties.

In aiming for the cheap laugh again and again, the blogger loses sight of the fact they’re putting the boot into a fellow creator. As an author, she should know how damaging it is when people casually rip apart something you’ve created, yet she’s gleefully done it with the chefs at Bros. To suggest chefs who are, by all other accounts, passionate about their craft, know nothing about gastronomy is pushing credibility. Criticise when it’s warranted by all means, but do so constructively; that doesn’t mean the humour has to be dumped.

Not having eaten at Bros, I couldn’t say whether the food is good or not. But neither am I familiar with the blogger who wrote the review, so don’t know if their take on gastronomy is trustworthy. However, it’s easy to read more of their food-related posts to discover if we’re on the same culinary wavelength.

Posts ridiculing pickled eggs and clotted cream along with statements such as ‘…seriously England? Don’t give the Scottish a run for their money in the “cuisine that will make you question the existence of god” department,’ and ‘…it’s why English food has historically sucked’ tell me all I need to know.

The other day on Facebook I mentioned we’d made some Cornish pasties that were delicious, then I also said they were vegetarian ones. A friend, who is into his food, commented that we’d lost him at ‘vegetarian’.

And that one example speaks volumes about the problem with labels. We live in a label-obsessed society. It’s out of control, partly thanks to social media where it’s too easy to slap on labels willy-nilly, and partly due to marketing forces. (Note: rambling old bloke alert) When I was but a lad, the cheapest footwear for sports lesson were baseball boots. I got through loads of them. Now similar-looking boots are called Converse. That label has exploded the price of what were once the go-to shoes when you didn’t have a lot of money.

Labels. It’s all about labels. People who succumb to judging by labels alone are easy prey for the puppeteers yanking those strings. Life is far too complicated to define everything by a simplistic label, and that includes food.

I know a lot of people who balk at the idea of vegetarian food, as if the very mention of might be contagious. Maybe they’re worried the next time they bite into a meaty fillet their taste-buds will have become infected and the flavours will disgust rather than delight? Who knows? But some people (some meat-eaters) become unreasonably defensive when vegetarian nosh is mentioned.

I’m not vegetarian, but I do eat a lot of dishes that don’t feature meat. I do this for one reason and one reason only. Because they are tasty.

When I first tried the vegetarian Cornish pasties referenced earlier, their flavours blew me away. In 1986 I was naïve in culinary terms, a wet-behind-the-ears twenty-something from a small Scottish island. The pasties, plus a few other non-meat dishes prepared by my veggie housemates, changed my life. The scales fell away from my eyes. They weren’t vegetarian. They weren’t non-meat. They were simply bloody marvellous pasties.

And therein lies the key. The term ‘vegetarian’ on a menu may be a helpful signpost for hungry vegetarians, but it can also be like a crucifix to a vampire for those meat-eaters who’ve let labels dictate what they choose from a menu. Far better are menus which just identify which dishes are suitable for non-meat eaters. They don’t arouse quite the same levels of suspicion.

In parts of Portugal, sopa alentejano is a regular on the soup part of menus, so visitors will try it irrespective of their culinary preferences. It doesn’t have to be labelled vegetarian to not have any meat in it.

You might walk into a Bistrot de Pays in Provence and be presented with a starter of figs and goats cheese; be faced with a selection of tapas in Spain that includes pimientos de Padrón, spinach croquettes, grilled cheese drizzled with honey, papas arrugadas and mojos (in the Canary Islands); or tuck into a platter of Greek mezes which includes spanakopita, hummus, tzatziki, and Greek salad. Not a chunk of meat in sight, and yet there are some who turn up their noses at the idea of vegetarian food who would happily tuck into all of these simply because they are examples of very good regional cuisine.

Think about what is arguably the best cuisine in Europe, if not the world – Italian. Even in countries where nearly every restaurant serves traditional food of that country, you will often still find an Italian restaurant, or Italian food of some sort. On our honeymoon in Sri Lanka just about everything was alien to us. But the restaurant outside our hotel in Negombo served pizzas as well as Sri Lankan dishes.
The best risottos don’t include meat, neither do any number of pasta and sauce dishes, nor the most authentic pizzas. But you don’t find many folk saying ‘that’s vegetarian rubbish, I ain’t touching any of that,’ and that’s because in their minds they haven’t slapped on a big label with ‘vegetarian’ scrawled across it.

It’s all about perceptions, and often these can be misguided or misinformed. Labels are barriers, they close doors. When it comes to gastronomy, there’s food which is tasty and there’s food which isn’t. Anyone who makes a decision about something like that before they actually try and taste is going to miss out on an awful lot of good culinary experiences; maybe more than just culinary ones if they apply the same approach to other aspects of life.

There’s an experiment I’d like to try out in a pizza joint. Get a waiter to say to customers “There are two specials tonight – vegetarian pizza and quatro formaggi. Who wants the vegetarian, and who wants the formaggi?” It would be interesting to see how people answered.

As a filling, cheese and ham is as boring as a room with magnolia walls and ceiling. It’s a dull combination, like exposing your taste-buds to the equivalent of the pub bore (2021 update: the social media bore). It’s a snore-inducing filling, especially as the types of cheese and ham generally used in sandwiches have nil personality. When processed ham and cheese turn up in sandwiches at wedding buffets, all the other finger snacks huddle in a corner sniggering at the clueless couple who turn up at a do looking drab.

B-O-R-I-N-G

And they are what you find in nearly every hiker’s pre-made picnic, along with water, a small carton of juice, an apple or orange, and maybe a biscuit if you’re lucky.

We’ve had hiker’s picnics made up for us by small and medium-sized hotels in numerous countries across Europe. Some of these have been boutique hotels which have set us up for the day with breakfast buffets displaying all manner of local artisan cheeses and cured meats – Brie with wild boar chorizo … yum. And then what do we find when we unravel the aluminian foil midway along the trail? A slice of processed cheese and ham, usually enclosed in a baguette-type roll of such crustiness, taking a bite is akin to introducing your gums to a member of a Glasgow razor gang.

I honestly couldn’t count how many ham and cheese baguettes we’ve consumed on the trail. To be fair, by the time we close hungry gobs around one during a decent yomp across pastures new, they’re very welcome despite being over familiar. But, outside of the hiking arena I don’t want to know them. They are not my friends.

It doesn’t have to be ham and cheese

We’ve eaten so many of these we’re like kids at Christmas whenever we open our picnic packs to find something that isn’t ham and cheese. On Gran Canaria, one hotel owner had made us tuna sandwiches which we devoured with relish whilst sitting on a wall overlooking a field of whispering golden grasses and listening to the hypnotic clanging of goat bells. Except we didn’t get to devour all of them as the hotel owner’s dog had decided to tag along and hit us with that ‘I’m going to die if I don’t have some of your sandwich’ look. So she got half.

On Corsica, the Bad Boys of Olmi Capella also made us tuna sandwiches, along with two carrier bags full of other stuff. There was so much food we had to dump half of it in a bin as soon as we were out of sight. The problem with their tuna sandwiches was they’d drenched them in mayo. After four hours of walking in 30C, the sandwiches were a health risk, but we ate then anyway … and brought them back up again half an hour later.

On Santo Antão, one of the Cape Verde islands, our guide Hetty supplied the picnics; the leftovers of whatever she’d prepared the previous night for her dinner. One day we ate cachupa – the country’s unofficial national dish. The next it was a savoury rice and beans mix. These were like the hiking version of a Michelin star picnic compared to poor old cheese and ham.

But these are rarities. In over a decade of walking across Europe, I struggle to remember many pre-made picnics that didn’t include a cheese and ham sandwich.

Sometimes we get to go freestyle; on those occasions when we’re scouting areas and hotels as being potentially suitable for a walking holiday, and hotels aren’t used to providing picnics. At these time we stock up in the nearest supermarket: water, juice, crisps, cereal bars, bread, and … drum roll … ham and cheese.

Well, slices of ham and cheese don’t melt after hours in the rucksack being zapped by a warm sun. And it’s easy to put a sandwich together with them in the field.

If possible, we do replace the processed ham with serrano/presunto/speck/prosciutto, so I’m not a complete hypocrite.