Germany

Beyond beer halls, Germany is a land of serious regional home cooking, Swabian spätzle, Bavarian roasts, northern fish, and an unmatched bread and sausage culture. Hearty, seasonal, and built for cold winters, it prizes pork, potatoes, cabbage, and cured meats.

The German bread register lists more than three thousand two hundred distinct varieties, which is less a boast than a consequence of rye, spelt and mixed grains being taken as seriously as wheat and of every region having kept its own. The country's bread culture is recognised as national intangible heritage in its own right.

Sauerbraten is a category rather than a recipe, and the regional versions really do differ: the Rhineland one is thickened with crumbled Lebkuchen and sweetened with raisins and beet syrup, the Swabian with flour, the Franconian with soured cream. The Bavarian brewing rule of 1516 is likewise narrower than its reputation, being Bavarian, not the first of its kind, and named Reinheitsgebot only in the twentieth century.

Fresh crusty rolls with butter, jam, cold cuts, cheese, and a soft-boiled egg, the German spread.