At first glance it could be a hard sheep’s cheese or a smoky mozzarella. But the slabs are actually cold, white pork fat – Ukraine’s national dish, known as salo. It is best served covered with garlic, onion and pickles (or something picante), and almost always washed down with a shot of vodka.

Salo is a national obsession
Salo is the ultimate Ukrainian food. The Kiev Post has described the dish as having a cult like status. The LA times spoke to connoisseurs who called it “a narcotic” not a food, and there are not one, but two annual festivals in its honour: the Salo Festival in Poltava which takes place every February and With Love To Salo, held in Lutsk in September.

The world’s biggest salo football measured 6m in diameter and weighed 400kg
The With Love To Salo festival claims that it has four entries in the Ukrainian book of records: for making the world biggest salo sandwich – 76m long; creating the world’s first “pig and salo monument”; overseeing the speediest salo consumption – 1kg in 10 minutes 55 seconds and crafting the world’s biggest salo football, which measured 6m in diameter and weighed 400kg.