Plan of action

After settling on a list of countries I needed to figure out what I'm actually going to do with them. I considered going through them alphabetically but then you end up with, for example, Slovakia and Slovenia together and I'm guessing the food is going to be similar...and imagine how drunk on rum I'd be if I did all of those Saint countries in the Caribbean together! And anyway, it will keep things interesting if we don't know what's coming so I'm going for a random draw.

Each country is written on a piece of paper and lives in the saucepan (pictured below). I'll announce the first one at the end of this post, the next one after I've cooked the first one and so on. We'll never know what's going to come out of the pan!

I'm largely going to commit to cooking whatever comes out next but if, say, France and Italy happen consecutively I may put that one back in...don't want too many star cuisines too close together! (Will hopefully pad out the foie gras and Parma ham excitement between unleavened bread from Vatican City and sheep testicles from Mongolia.) I will also return countries to the pan if I have plans to visit them in the near future.

There isn't going to be a time frame for completing this, just as and when I feel like it. Some countries may require some unusual ingredients that aren't easy to find in Cardiff (or wherever I am in a decade when I still haven't finished!) so I need to be flexible.

I'm not necessarily going to make the national dish from each place but will certainly research what it is. There will be times when authenticity will be sacrificed in favour of taste and cost...and maybe even for health reasons: beware the walu fish in Fiji!

Now, I know very little about many of the world's cuisines but this is kind of the point of this project: I'm excited to learn what the world eats. Most research is going to be internet searches and I will obviously have no idea if I'm getting it right or not but it's going to be fun giving it a go. I do hope my friends want to try lots of African food...

Can't wait to get started!

**DRUMROLL**

And the first country is...

...North Korea.

Jen xx