'There is no love sincerer than the love of food' George Bernard Shaw.

Every country has it's cycling fuel. This section documents the nourishment that's sustained us, the regional delicacies we taste and the delicious dishes we'd go back for.

Turkey

Lahmajun - delicious pizza style bread topped with meat, served with lemon, parsley and onion.

Kokorech - sandwich filled with spicy lamb intestine, much better than it sounds.

Yogurtlu kebap - kebab with pitta bread and yoghurt.

Dolma - cabbage or vineleaves stuffed with rice and pine nuts.

Ayran - salted yoghurt drink, very refreshing.

Baklava - pastry filled with pistachio nuts and syrop.

Helva - sweet tahini rich in sesames and walnut.

In every town, there is a 'Pasta' cafe, smokier than a London pub, offering an array of fresh cakes and chocolate puddings, washed down with black tea served in tulip shaped glasses. For breakfast, white cheese, bread, olives and local honey made the perfect start to the day… Fresh figs and peaches in season, dried fruit and nuts in the markets.

Iran

Chelo kebab - Iranian staple - rice and various types of skwered meat.

Dizi - meat, potatos and lentils, ground down with a mortar and pestle.

Lavash - wads of unlevened bread.

Nan - various regional breads, served piping hot straight from the oven, easily spotted by huddles around the bakers (Tabriz' trellised variety is particularly delicious).

Fruit juices - carrot and banana juices (sometimes laced with ice cream and ground pistachios) sold everywhere, as well as kiwi, watermelon and strawberry juices in Tabriz.

Bastane - cheap and moorish icecream, sold in a bowl, in a cone, or as a wafer sandwich, egg based and stringy, simply delicious.

Sandvich - ubiquitous sandwich shops selling fillings of macaroni, sausage, falafel and the classic sheep's brain, very cheap.

Peste - Iran is abundant in cheap pistachios.

Zamzam - coke or fanta flavoured soft drink, almost obligatory with every meal.

Generally, road food in Iran is pretty bland and repetitive. The best banquets are cooked up by the women in family homes. Iranian rice is the business, cooked with egg and butter to give it a distinctive, crunchy base, often flavoured with saffron and dried currants. Fresh, sticky dates sold in boxes from Bam and the Eastern provinces. In Western Iran, there's a cultural similarity with Turkey, a shared love of olives, honey and white cheese for breakfast. Gallons of tea are drunk with ghand - lump sugar - held between the teeth like a dentist' s nightmare. The covered bazaars are filled with spices and teas - flower and citrus - but since we were inundated with dinner invitations, we didn't get much chance to cook.

Central Asia

Shashlyk - skewers of kebab meat chequered with lumps of grisly fat - fat/meat ratio variable.

Plov/pilau - buttery rice served with chopped carrot, sultanas and chunks of mutton, soaked in the fat of the sheep's tail.

Samsa - a samosa style pastry filled with meat, offel, onions and tomatoes if you're lucky.

Manti - steamed meat dumplings.

Chorba - meat and potato soup.

Lagman - fresh fat noodles in a meat and vegetable soup.

Kaurma lagman - fried fat noodles served with meat, vegetables and a fried egg, sunny side up.

Marojine - a variety of ice cream sold on every street corner, to suit every taste and budget.

Gazli su - carbonated local water, sweetened with shots of syrop to mask the rusty taste.

Camel milk - powerful and pungeant drink for strength and virility!

Green tea - gallons of tea served with every meal.

Vodka - forced invitations are plentiful for celabratory shots of vodka and toasts to friendship.

Central Asian food is high in meat and fat content, alleviated by plentiful salads of tomato, onion, cucumber and carrot. A serious amnount of green tea is required to clear out the arteries... Bazaars sell an abundance of pastries, including spinach and herb fillings, Korean salads, white cheese and fresh fruit in profusion at the right season - watermelon, plums, apricots, cherries, figs, the lot! Buiscuits, such as the tasty chocolate filled waifers, are sold by weight and make excellent cycling snacks.