One of the most irritating things about returning home after an exotic holiday - apart from having to return home after an exotic holiday, obviously - is having to leave behind all those delightful taste sensations which you quickly learn to take for granted while travelling but which nobody has ever heard of back in your own country. Of course, this sort of thing is far less of an issue these days, in a world where Google is but a click away and can provide the recipe for anything we care to ask for, but even the internet struggles to cope when all we know is that we had a delicious spongey thing in Mexico but can't actually remember what it was called. I still maintain that there is a place in the world for a specialised search engine which gives you the answer even if you don't really know what the question is. You would type in: "what was that nice purple drink I had in a cafe down the road from Bob's diner in New York? Can't remember the name of the place but it had a yellow door.", and out would pop the answer. I grant you, such an engine would probably have to be powered by magic, but it would still be nice. I've written to Dragon's Den several times now, but for some reason all I ever seem to get back are restraining orders.

But I digress. I've decided - partly out of the goodness of my heart but mainly because I feel a detailed description of all the roadworks and hold-ups on the bus ride from Mostar to Split may put you into a coma - that today's entry is going to be the first in an occasional series of guides to the cuisine of the world. Ok, that's not entirely true - what I'm actually going to be doing is telling you about all the sweet sickly things I've experienced on my travels which will undoubtedly make your teeth fall out, so if you haven't got a sweet tooth then I'd seriously consider giving these entries a miss if I were you. My thinking behind this is simple: anybody can go to their local bookstore at any time and pick up a book on the cuisine of a particular region, instantly having at their disposal the recipes for a whole range of exotic delights - but what such a book won't tell you is how to make those particular specialities you can only get from a certain vendor or chain of restaurants. Unless you've been to America and tasted a Cinnabon in one of the gazillions of outlets they have on every street corner and in every mall, for example, how would you ever know to look for the recipe - and you certainly won't find it in any recipe book, that's for certain.

So, let's get started with a simple recipe for rose lemonade, something you will find people drinking all over eastern Europe and the Middle East as though it's going out of fashion. Elsewhere, nobody seems to have ever heard of it - the idea, in fact, of making a drink out of rose petals will fill many people with revulsion - but if made just right, what you end up with is something which tastes very much like liquid turkish delight. There, I thought that might get your attention. I should warn you, however, that this is a recipe that it is very easy to get wrong - you may need to make it more than once in order to find just the right quantities for you. If you overdo the rose flavouring, for example, you'll almost certainly end up with something completely disgusting, whereas if you don't use enough then you'll just get home made lemonade. If there was ever any recipe which has to be just right, this is it - but the end result is more than worth it. I've given the recipe twice - once for those fortunate enough to be able to make it the traditional way using actual rose petals, and again for those who would rather use shop bought ingredients such as rose water. Obviously, the flavour will differ depending on your method, and some roses will impart more flavour than others, but I do have one warning for you if you do decide to go down the traditional route. In theory, all rose petals are edible - however, pesticides are not. If you go down to your local florist and buy up all their roses for use in your lemonade, you are probably far more likely to end up with pesticide lemonade and quite possibly a spell in hospital. This is not what you want. So unless you grow your own roses and can guarantee them free of pesticides or any other artificial nasties that might not get on so well with your digestive system, I would seriously suggest going down the rose water route.

Feel free to combine the two recipes as required if, for example, you prefer supermarket lemon juice to squeezing your own lemons!

Rose Lemonade - Traditional Recipe (Serves 6)

Ingredients

16 Roses

1 1/4 litres boiling water

1 1/4 cups lemon juice (about 6 lemons)

1 cup granulated sugar

Method

1) Carefully remove and wash the petals from 16 roses and place them in a bowl. Boil 1 1/4 litres of water and pour on top. Cover the bowl and leave for an hour and a half or until the water has taken on sufficient flavour.

2) Sieve the water into a jug and add the sugar and lemon juice. If you wish, at this stage, you can add a few drops of yellow food colouring to give the lemonade a more traditional colour.

3) Stir well, place in the fridge and wait until chilled before serving. If the rose flavour is not strong enough, you can add a few drops of rose water - but don't overdo it, as it is very easy to ruin everything at this stage by adding too much rose flavour.

Rose Lemonade - Supermarket method (Serves 6)

Ingredients

1 1/4 litres water

1 cup granulated sugar

16 teaspoons concentrated bottled lemon juice

3 tablespoons rose water

Method

1) Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool.

2) Pour the water into a jug and add the lemon juice and rose water. You can add more or less rose water at this stage to vary the flavour to taste. If you wish, you may also like to add a few drops of yellow food colouring to give the lemonade a more traditional colour.

3) Stir well, place in the fridge and wait until chilled before serving.

And that's it - a simple recipe but one very popular in this part of the world. Next time, I'll be back to traditional blogging from Trogir in Croatia. So, as they say on the telly even though it's clearly a complete lie, I'll see you then.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.