Strange. In Holland, they have this lovely winter dish called Boerenkool which is mash with kale or cabbage or something, like colcannon, with fried onions mixed in and then their German-style sausages.

But I haven't really found mash anywhere else in Europe. You have pomme purée in France which is really smooth, but it's not a common dish.

Had dumplings once in a tourist restaurant in Wenceslas Square in Prague after a Teknival one year. They were quite fun. What's wrong with the Hun ones?

Did our take on salmon chirasi last night. Make a sauce of watery wasabi paste and soy sauce, and mix that through the sushi rice. Add in steamed ede mame beans, avocado, spring onions, cucumber - pickled if poss, and ripped up seaweed sheets. Mix it all together with some sesame seeds.

Then get a side of salmon, cut it into sashimi and put it on a long, rectangular plate with some pickled ginger and wasabi paste. Bowl of miso soup and a glass or two of Chablis. Lush.

I was buying wasabi paste in the supermarket in 30g tubes for two quid, and needed more than one for the sauce. So I bought a kilo of wasabi powder from Amazon for about eight quid.

I only lived in Germany for a month in '95 - on the East Side Gallery traveller site in between the Berlin Wall and the canal that was the middle of no man's land in between the walls. So I wasn't cooking.

I've only had the sausages from a van in Portobello Road. Which ones do you recommend?

They're nice, but not the top quality I was hoping for. Can you get decent ones, like a Toulouse sausage, for example?