Even though Czech food is traditionally a bit heavy, especially for a climber, I can't resist some dishes: sveckova, for example, is beef in a creamy sauce with celery and dumplings. It's probably fortunate that I don't know how to cook it myself.

As for those grapefruit and buttermilk diets, I'll take roast chicken and dumplings.

Accounts of eating Christmas sweet potatoes baked in ashes and jackrabbit stewed with white flour dumplings are testaments to pioneer resilience and pleasure - and they help inspire my own best scratch cooking.

As for those grapefruit and buttermilk diets I'll take roast chicken and dumplings.