I was lucky in that I cam from a family with a food intensive background. My father is a master sausage maker master butcher with his trade master degrees in the fields from Germany, so I had a delicious upbringing working in his store surrounded by wonderful meat. Unfortunately, it also has made me a snob and I can't stand to consume meat that isn't of the same quality standard - even other butcher shops sometimes can't match my expectations and too much of the food industry is often caught in some pseudo-scientific "healthisms" and various green-movement nonsense. Thus, I am often consigned to the fringes near, but not quite to, the culinary evil that is vegetarianism.
Regardless, it should be excusable if I'm somewhat biased to German food, however, having lived in around the world, my list won't be entirely dominated by German food. Just mostly. I love German food, but I think it doesn't have the recognition it deserves.
First, Schinkenspeck: beautiful. It is a dry-cured pork that, generally, has been smoked (meaning it is raw) having been seasoned with juniper berries. Don't believe the propaganda, if it lean with little fat, it is tough tasteless garbage. Schinkenspeck needs fat for flavour, and my father is still resentful having to make it so lean for the North American market as he thinks it is essentially ruined. Thus, for many of you, finding nice good quality schinkenspeck, should you try to find it, will be extremely difficult. Also, one can try raw smoked beef, its flavour is quite potent and sometimes overwhelming. Still, the best foods are those that are so flavourful as to be painful to eat.
Rouladen: I will simply describe how to make it. Thinly sliced outside round of beef, mix mustard (Löwensenf is a good standard mustard) with paprika and some cayenne pepper to give heat, and spread the mixture on one side of the meat slice. Next, after seasoning with salt and pepper, lay down some bacon on top and lay on the bacon sliced sour gurkin, but not the sweet crap, it must be sour (Hengstengberg is a good example, or Lisc), and red onion. Wrap, pierce with something to hold to together like a toothpick, brown in a pot, remove and add some water to begin a gravy base, return and finish cooking. Finally, complete the gravy and eat with some red cabbage or mashed potatoes.
Pork hoc: boil in water or beer, or saurkraut too, remove when done and enjoy. This is amongst my favourite meals. The meat is flavourful and succulent.
Nuernberger bratwurst: don't ask me about it, go find and eat some!
Ox tail: The key to good ox tail is simplicity. Boil it in water, and add salt, but don't do anything else and forget about side-dishes. This is a delight to eat by itself without distractions. The gooey melting fat and tender soft beef is something perhaps even hedonismbot would find overly excessive.
Roast Striploin: while delicious as a steak, frankly, if one was to have a roast, then one can really do no better than a striploin roast. It has all the benefits of the steak being of suitable tenderness and relatively high fat content in marble. But please, don't cut the fat of before roasting, do it after if you must.
Hainanese chicken rice: I grew up eating this, so its a personal favourite of mine. Basically, boil a chicken. Then cook some rice using the broth from the boiled chicken. Add sesame seed oil over the chicken, add to rice. Eat with chili and soy sauce.
The next two selections are somewhat harder to find: sri lankan soft-shelled crab and fish curry head. This is more of Indian and Chinese fusion, so I'm less familiar with it, but if you are ever in Singapore, you should try these two especially.
When I was in Colombia, I had some great soups in the Andean regions. Of particular note is changua, which I hated and think is an abomination. It's complete and wonderful opposite is ajiaco con pollo from Bogota (I think it's best with the chicken). It is a soup with chicken, cut corn on the cob, with little potatoes which break apart when cooked and thicken the soup, and a herb called guasca. It may be hard to replicate it closely unless one finds the appropriate potatoes, and guasca. It is usually served with cream and capers, though I myself prefer it plain and hate capers.
Sashimi: A friend of my father is a sushi chef, and used to spend several weeks in the summer time with him. If you can, find a Pacific coho salmon for sashimi, this is typically the best fish one can find for this purpose.
A desert: crepes with chocolate ice-cream filling (not the tub crap), chocolate sauce drizzling, powdered sugar with cinnamon, flambe in grand-marnier. Good traditional rice pudding with cinnamon-sugar is also great. As well, frozen-cheese cake is great, not every cheese cake has to be New York style.
Drink: Coca-Cola. It is the best drink, as objectively proven by Science! (Yes, I'm being facetious, but I do think it is a great drink and pairs excellently with everything I listed).
To try: many have yet to learn of white asparagus. Go now! Also, french fries, when made properly, can be amazing. It should be crisp, thin, but light and somewhat airy, and I think it goes better with mayonnaise than ketchup, but this is probably me exposing some of my culinary imperialism to the world (colonialism is good! It was what allowed me to eat Asian food with a fork!). Try roast beef that's pink inside, not everything needs to be cooked until flavourless. And try collecting some nice wild berries to eat if you have the opportunity. Bring a shotgun though, bears usually are not friendly. Those of you who tramp around in the wild without a gun are nuts (or live in an area that wiped out the predator population).
Finally, go out to your local friendly and professionally educated sausage fabricator and buy his delicious sausages. Don't buy that crap with nitrates that make everything taste oily, milk powder which makes the sausage brown faster but ruins its flavour, and is half filled with bread crumbs and water pumped for cost savings and added weight. Insist on real sausage! Make sure your local sausage maker has his Meisterpruefung before buying!
Also, of considerable importance: good company and good conversation. Eating is not merely some base hedonism, it is a cultural expression that is best shared with stimulating intellectual arguments. Great food and great conversation makes for a much better experience overall.
