"Other than our pre-Colombian heritage, food is our greatest source of national pride and identity," says Ericka La Madrid, who runs Delectable Peru (+51 987 375867, delectableperu.com), which offers gastronomic tours of Lima from £40 a head.
In the modern vernacular there's "food porn," which describes gastronomic perfection so delicious, it's practically obscene.
To taste the most authentic dishes (and avoid the tourist traps) hop on a four-hour tour with Eat Mexico, which offers gastronomic trips around Mexico City.
He is the founder of Cooking for Life and SAKIV, organizations which host gastronomic events around the world in support of various relief efforts and awareness issues.
Crazy Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer must have felt the same way when he completed this three-part short film entitled Food, which tells gastronomic allegories of "Breakfast," "Lunch," and "Dinner" in his trademark surrealist style.
Best of all is the Decadent Cookbook, which includes a "gastronomic mausoleum" and a chapter on "Blood, the Vital Ingredient".
For this is one of the defining characteristics of the true British food snob: a conviction that our high street food culture is vulgar and awful, that it's a slurry pit of overwhelming choice underpinned by little in the way of values or conviction or tradition, which only encourages gastronomic deviants like the Christopher Pooles of this world.
In real life, the main restaurant Ixi'im is actually overseen by Vallejo's protégé, Luis Ronzon (who previously worked at Noma so his expertise is not to be sniffed at) and offers Mexican dishes with a modern twist and which will push gastronomic boundaries.
If you're in the city Jan . 24-26 check out Madrid Fusion, which brings global gastronomic delights to the streets, with food stands, gourmet taste demonstrations and cooking contests.
Carle's classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which follows the gastronomic adventures of a somewhat clumsy critter and his metamorphosis into a beautiful butterfly, has been translated into 62 languages and sold millions of copies around the world.
