As a child I was lucky. My family roamed Europe during the holidays, spending time in what were then exotic spots: Dubrovnik in the former Yugoslavia, Rapallo in Italy and Salzburg in Austria. My memories are of scorched, rocky shores, pavement cafés, hulking castles and... food. Post-war Britain was still strictly a 'meat-and-two-veg' country, with powdered eggs and stock cubes in every pantry. Like a jangling alarm clock, the Mediterranean flavours of fresh tomatoes and giant watermelons woke up my taste buds. Slurping spaghetti splashed with purple squid sauce and munching a properly prepared schnitzel ensured they would never go back to sleep.

Ever since this awakening, food has been an integral part of any trip, whether it's a day out in the nearby English countryside or weeks in the distant pueblos of Mexico. With my wife, who shares the same enthusiasm, I pore over guidebooks, searching for the elusive tip that might send us to a restaurant where we can eat what the locals regard as traditional dishes. Our aim is to add taste and smell to the other three senses, which are sharpened by being on holiday.

Guided tours

Sadly, many guidebooks concentrate on museums and mosques, shopping and beaches, with food little more than an afterthought. How often is the list of 'best places to eat' merely a roll-call of the poshest French restaurants in town - whether you happen to be in Chicago or the Caribbean, Munich or Manchester? These are lists for business executives, keen to impress clients with the size of their tips and their knowledge of over-priced wines. But how can you say you understand Catalonia if you have not attended a cocotada (an onion barbecue, washed down with the local black wine) in Valls? How can you boast that you 'know' the USA if you have not put on a bib and tucked into a lobster in Maine or made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the hamburger or the pizza?

By eating what we rate as the best rice in the world (in Iran), the best grass-fed beef (in Argentina), the most delicious oysters (straight from the squeaky-clean waters off the coast of Tasmania), my wife and I have rounded off our experience of those countries. We also have had the bonus of meeting the people. Interest in good food overcomes any language or cultural barrier. The fastest way to get into conversation with locals is to ask about their specialities.

Word play

Before I forget, let's be clear about what I mean by that much over- used word: 'gourmet'. Too often, along with 'connoisseur' and 'bon viveur', it screams snob. It also shouts 'expensive'. But in my dictionary a gourmet is 'a judge of good fare', and in my experience, real 'gourmet travellers' don't need a gold credit card. Sure, once in a while, it is fun to splurge, but it is just as educational to seek out local produce that is prepared with care, in which freshness is rated higher than fashion and flavour is more important than fancy frills. That is why our holiday highlights include just as many simple meals as complex creations. The mountain taberna in Spain where we enjoyed thick pork chops, drizzled with lemon juice and grilled quickly over vine roots, is in no guidebook that I know - and never will be. The old lady near Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy who used to open up her house for dinner on two nights a week died several years ago, but we will always remember her holding a vast copper pan and whipping up the most sensual warm zabaglione we have ever eaten. The texture and flavour of a pink-fleshed giant trout, freshly hooked and hot-smoked on the shore of New Zealand's Lake Taupo is forever etched on our gastro-memory.

Star signs

The problem is how to find these honest-to-goodness local dishes. Let's start with France, a country where food is so important that great chefs commit suicide if they lose a Michelin star. The famous red guide, with its mind-boggling array of wingdings, may be the bible of gastronomy, but it lacks the Bible's poetry and description. Back in the 1970s, we added the more outspoken, idiosyncratic Gault Millau guide to our library. Founded by a couple of journalists who focused on new French cooking and dared to praise innovation, this big yellow guide has rarely let us down. Years later, when the trendy wave of nouvelle cuisine and its descendants threatened to eradicate France's traditional regional dishes, Gault Millau introduced its Lauriers du Terroir awards. This laurel wreath symbol signifies restaurants offering dishes that gran'mère would have been proud of, often with portions to match. These have helped us to find unusual sweet wines in the Loire Valley, black radishes in Albi and mouclade (mussels in cream) on the Ile de Ré. Michelin has taken up the challenge, introducing a grinning Michelin man to point out value-for-money restaurants where food rather than formality is the priority.

These renowned guides are reliable in France but less trusty beyond its borders. The Michelin guide for Britain is notorious for praising French chefs and French-style restaurants. This is no Anglophobia; other neighbours suffer from similar chauvinism. When we are asked to choose our gastronomic heaven, we usually sigh and dream of the Engadine Valley in Graubunden, in western Switzerland. Look up five of our memorable hotel-restaurants in the Michelin guide to Switzerland, however, and the symbols tell you that they are pleasant and quiet, have terraces, exceptional views and let in dogs. What they do not and cannot tell you is that this valley is a foodie enclave, with five of our favourite chefs working close to one another, conjuring up some of the best nosh in the universe.

Empire-building

A few years ago, we were in Montreal reporting on Christmas in this most Francophile of cities. Everyone we talked to recommended 'authentic' French restaurants. These turned out to be run by expatriate Frenchmen serving up food that was considered haute cuisine 30 years ago. It was a classic example of the emperor's new clothes. Yet, right in the city, talented young Québecois chefs were, and still are, following the French rules on techniques and use of strictly local ingredients, yet producing totally individual results that we rated ten on the foodies' Richter scale.

It is not fair to expect such a momentous meal every night. We are just as happy with simple, clean flavours and honest dishes. Even that, however, can be difficult to find. Take the Caribbean, where the demands of the American tourist have stifled local ambition in the kitchen and swamped supermarkets with foodstuffs processed in the USA. On some small islands, it is impossible to buy locally caught fish or locally raised fruit and vegetables. Food has been replaced by T-shirts and baskets in the market, and restaurants serve American hamburgers, Italian veal piccata and New Orleans blackened shrimp.

When we were on the relatively unspoiled island of St John in the US Virgin Islands, we searched in vain for true Caribbean cuisine. We even tried having lunch with the taxi drivers and road builders, but heavy stews and gristly pigs' trotters defeated us in the tropical heat. The best meals we had were cooked in a tiny restaurant by an American with a Thai mother. He knew how to wheedle chickens and vegetables from the islanders' own backyards and his use of spices contributed to the sense of place that is important when in another country.

The English disease

Although the 'think local' campaign has won the hearts and minds of many chefs, another food phenomenon has swept through other kitchens. This is the 'United Nations' attitude to cooking, where ingredients from anywhere in the world are combined, with results veering between triumph and disaster. It has taken hold, in the main, in countries where English is the common language. Perhaps that's because, for example, in the USA and Australia, much of the food used to echo Britain's: plain and hearty home cooking that rarely translated successfully on to the restaurant plate.

As in the UK, chefs in these countries are now so eclectic that critics try to wedge them into pigeonholes so that readers have some idea of what to expect: 'Floribbean' for Miami chefs who draw on Florida and the Caribbean for inspiration; 'Pacific Rim' for the mixing and matching of, say, Asian spices with Peruvian purple potatoes and low-cholesterol kangaroo meat. Perhaps these novelties will eventually become classics in their own right. Perhaps not.

In trendy cities such as New York and London, 'new' has come to mean 'good', whilst 'newest' is equated with 'best'. Restaurants open every week but the star chef who stood at the stove when the first diners came through the door may have moved on to another project after a few months, leaving a deputy to maintain his and the restaurant's reputation. What was tantalising yesterday may be tired today.

Tried and tested

Consistency: that is the problem. In countries such as France and Italy, where restaurants are often family enterprises going back decades, the secret of success is to do the same thing well, day after day, year after year. Not so long ago, deep in the countryside of southern France, we ate in the same restaurant that Elizabeth David had immortalised decades before. We ordered the same chicken dish (roasted, with mushrooms stuffed under the skin) that she had enjoyed. The owners saw no reason to change a winning formula, which appealed equally to guests old and new.

Cultural cringe

So how do you find a 'good place to eat'? The restaurants we like least are those that advertise most. We avoid anywhere that sells its charms in an airline magazine or on a card at the airport. To avoid ending up in a culinary ghetto with other foreigners, we rarely take advice at hotels unless the concierge seems particularly in tune with our tastes. Unfortunately, tourism is such a rampant industry that standardisation in hotels and restaurants is not only commonplace, but even embraced by local people as a sign of new-found sophistication.

What Australians refer to so vividly as 'the cultural cringe' is a major handicap when it comes to food. Why should anyone have to imitate European-style restaurants to gain gastronomic credibility? Italian restaurants in Africa, Greek restaurants in South America, pseudo-French bistros in Japan may offer an alternative for the inhabitants but are sheer torture for us.

Heard it on the grapevine

The way we dig out good restaurants is by talking to people in the trade. If we like the look of a bakery or delicatessen, a butcher or fishmonger, we go inside and chat. Wine and cheese makers are usually a good bet, since they supply the better restaurants. Once two agree on their favourite spot, off we go.

We not only keep our eyes and ears open, we keep our noses sniffing. We watch where locals head when offices close. We listen for the happy hum of contented eating. We track down the source of delicious smells. Then, we order the daily special, even though we may have no idea what it is. When, in a suburb of Buenos Aires, the waiter announced that the dish of the day was mondongo, I chose it, only to discover that it was what I hate most: tripe. My sole consolation was that it was cheap and that I had expanded my vocabulary by one word. In Tasmania recently we came across a 'bush restaurant', part of a growing trend to utilise indigenous produce, as opposed to plants and vegetables introduced by the Europeans. Here, bunya nuts, native limes and rosella petals flavoured dishes ranging from crocodile and sweet potato spring rolls to wattle grubs. Although these may not be recipes to replicate at home, they certainly provide the raw ingredients for travellers' tales.

Of course, you don't have to go to such extremes of geography and gastronomy. Europe may seem old hat since we are all part of the EU, but familiarity need not breed contempt. After all, with barely a wave of a passport, we can order mouth-watering meals in 15 different countries, each with dozens of regional cuisines. Travel only broadens the mind when you meet and talk to people. You don't get into discussions of pop music or politics while touring a castle or cathedral. You don't expect to argue about education or the environment while bronzing on a beach. Understanding another culture comes more easily with a glass in one hand and a fork in the other. Years ago, in a bar in Madrid, we ordered some tapas, including pulpo. The Spaniard next to us was incredulous: "Do you really want pulpo? Do you know what it is? Do you like it?" When we answered "Si" to each question, he grinned his approval and quipped, "You cannot be English if you like octopus." It was the beginning of a long and enjoyable evening.