Are you hot stuff or just cold leftovers? Find out in our food and travel quizathon

A francesinha (frenchie) is a speciality of Porto, Portugal (pictured), but what is it?

A crisp, almond-flavoured biscuit for dipping in a fortified wine

A meat-free version of a croque monsieur, with grilled cheese and a fried egg

A hot sandwich filled with ham, sausage, cheese and steak

A long loaf of bread, like a sourdough baguette

Eating sushi in its homeland is a highlight of a trip to Japan, but which of these is a vital ingredient in sushi?

Nori seaweed

Vinegared rice

Raw fish

Daikon radish

"Spice bag" – a mix of chips, chicken, red and green peppers, chilli and onions – was voted 2020's favourite takeaway dish in which country?

New Zealand

Kenya

Sri Lanka

Ireland

Warming, spicy goulash is the national dish of Hungary, but which of these ingredients was not in the original medieval recipe?

Potatoes

Tomatoes

Paprika

All of the above

Bobotie, a dish of minced meat, spices and dried fruit with a baked-egg topping, is a national dish of which country?

Albania

South Africa

Portugal

Belgium

Roti canai, flatbreads with spicy dal, originated in India, but which country has particularly taken them to its heart?

Malaysia

Australia

Tanzania

Guyana

Pastilla, the Moroccan filo pastry pie, is traditionally made with which meat?

Goat

Lamb

Chicken liver

Pigeon

It can look a little like carpet underlay, but injera bread is perfect for scooping up spicy stew and vegetables in which country?

Laos

Senegal

Ethiopia

Cuba

Traditional French pot-au-feu is usually made with which meat?

Chicken

Tripe

Wild boar

Beef

It sounds like something to do with car maintenance, but "oil down" – another stew, this time of chicken, breadfruit, dumplings and turmeric – is the national dish of which country, also knows as the Spice Isle?

Madagascar

Grenada

Vanuatu

Barbados

A future pleasure might be strolling around a Greek island harbour devouring a gyro from a stall. What sort of street food is it?

A doner kebab

A hotdog

Fried chicken

A crepe

Now as popular as pizza in Russia and neighbouring states, cheesy khachapuri bread comes from which country?

Georgia

Bulgaria

Estonia

Ukraine

The gloriously named larb is a dish of cold minced meat, but where does it come from?

Austria

Peru

Laos

Luxembourg

The popular British Cornish pasty bears a striking resemblance to the national dish of which country?

Argentina

Philippines

Mozambique

Wales

Which of Italy's popular pasta shapes does not feature in the above photo?

Farfalle

Rigatoni

Penne

Fusilli

Ackee and saltfish is enjoyed all over Jamaica, but what is ackee?

A fruit related to the lychee

A root vegetable, like a starchy turnip

A sour berry grown on the island's high-altitude slopes

A hard grain cooked to a pulp then fried

Fettuccine alla papalina is the national dish of which diminutive nation state?

San Marino

Monaco

Liechtenstein

Vatican City

Smelling so strong it can make the unwary gag, hakarl is months-old fermented shark meat from which country?

Sweden

Finland

Fiji

Iceland

Poutine – chips with cheese curds and gravy – is a trending junk-food option. But where does it come from?

Belgium

Romania

Mauritius

Canada

Which of these ingredients is not regularly used in popular Peruvian dish ceviche?

Tuna

Chilli

Lime

Thinly sliced rare beef

16 and above.

How many holidays have you cancelled this year?

11 and above.

Good show – time to explore a few more exotic takeaways perhaps?

0 and above.

How long have you been in lockdown?

6 and above.

Just a Tesco meal deal for you

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While isolation may protect older people in the coronavirus pandemic, it is exposing them to another, less understood challenge: loneliness

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“Loneliness is not only a grave threat to individual welfare and public health but one of the most under-appreciated risk factors for premature mortality,” says bioethicist and physician Jacob Appel. Along with smoking and obesity, loneliness ranks among what Appel calls the “triad of potentially preventable causes of early death”.

Around the world, the coronavirus has predominantly claimed the lives of those over 60, which is why strict isolation of elders has become a feature of American efforts to contain the pandemic. Although those younger than 55 represent 38% of ICU cases in the US, the elderly make up a vast majority of coronavirus deaths, particularly those over 85 or those with underlying conditions (which applies to about four out of five elders). While physical isolation may protect our seniors from the highly contagious virus ravaging the world, it is exposing them to another, less understood challenge. “Forced isolation in challenging times can be expected to increase distress,” Appel says. “Loneliness also causes depression, anxiety, demoralization and despair. Increasingly we understand that loneliness endangers the body as well.”

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The politics of denial, first honed in the tobacco industry, has serious consequences for a floundering Johnson government

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The worst possible people are in charge at the worst possible time. In the UK, the US and Australia, the politics of the governing parties have been built on the dismissal and denial of risk. Just as these politics have delayed the necessary responses to climate breakdown, ecological collapse, air and water pollution, obesity and consumer debt, so they appear to have delayed the effective containment of Covid-19.

I believe it is no coincidence that these three governments have responded later than comparable nations have, and with measures that seemed woefully unmatched to the scale of the crisis. The UK’s remarkable slowness to mobilise, followed by its potentially catastrophic strategy – fiercely criticised by independent experts and now abandoned – to create herd immunity, and its continued failure to test and track effectively or to provide protective equipment for health workers, could help to cause large numbers of unnecessary deaths. But to have responded promptly and sufficiently would have meant jettisoning an entire structure of political thought developed in these countries over the past half century.

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Estimates suggest one in 20 people will develop the disorder, with a spike in diagnosis linked to obesity.

We are out of step with our planet, so how should we live? A utopian vision that begins with food

“Civilisation is in crisis,” warned the EAT-Lancet international commission of food scientists last year. “We can no longer feed our population a healthy diet while balancing planetary resources. For the first time in 200,000 years of human history, we are severely out of synchronisation with the planet and nature.” We face climate crisis, ecological destruction, record obesity rates and rising hunger: food is threatening our future.

Carolyn Steel recognises these challenges, but she also sees food as “by far the most powerful medium available to us for thinking and acting together to change the world for the better”. By reconfiguring our relationship with food, she argues, we can find new and better ways of living that will arrest the damage we are doing to ourselves and the Earth.

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The actor and national institution delved into changing attitudes to weight, in a show that took in stigma, mental health and other heavy issues besides

The main takeaway and perhaps the only true insight to be gained from Miriam’s Big Fat Adventure, a two-part documentary, in which the actor and Great British Institution Miriam Margolyes set out to anatomise cultural attitudes to fatness and the rise of the body-positivity movement, comes in the opening minutes. “I’m happy with who I am,” says Margolyes. “I’m happy with my face, I’m happy with my life. I am disgusted with my body. I loathe it. If I could migrate the whole of my personality and face on to another body, I’d be delighted.”

It is a better indication than anything that follows of the depths of the tyranny of thinness. If this 78-year-old iconoclast and hogshead of talent squeezed into a pint pot has been unable to avoid internalising the absurd yet absurdly endemic social prejudice harboured against the carrying of excess fat, what chance do any of us have?

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Study shows school meals better for pupils than packed lunches

The provision of free school meals is a useful weapon in the fight against childhood obesity, according to a groundbreaking study, whose findings are likely to be studied closely by health officials and politicians amid mounting concerns about the problem.

A quarter of UK children are overweight or obese when they start school aged four or five, and this rises to a third of children by the time they leave primary school at the age of 11.

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Exclusive: Cases for conditions such as insomnia almost double in England in six years

• Case study: one parent’s fight to get her child to sleep

Thousands of children and teenagers in England are being admitted to hospital for sleep disorders, with admissions for conditions such as insomnia almost doubling in six years.

Experts have described the situation as a hidden public health problem, putting it down to rising obesity levels, excessive use of social media before bedtime and a mental health crisis engulfing young people.

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There are 821 million undernourished people in the world, and 672 million who are obese. The University of Nottingham’s Future Food beacon aims to even out the extremes

The world’s population is expected to reach 9.7 billion by the year 2050, according to the most recent report from the population division of the United Nations (UN) Department of Economic and Social Affairs. That’s an extra two billion mouths to feed, all from the same amount of land and other natural resources.

At present, we have around 821 million undernourished people, and 672 million who are obese, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) 2018 figures. The challenge, then, is not just to fill stomachs, but to even out those extremes and work towards a food system that is equitable, prioritises health, and is sustainable for both people and the planet.

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