The traveller must open his mind and mouth to all things. I've had ants and stir-fried seahorse and scorpions washed down with deer penis wine in Singapore.
I've eaten rattlesnake in Oklahoma, wildebeest in South Africa, reindeer in Finland, seal in Greenland, piranha in Brazil, horse in Verona, kangaroo in Australia, lutefisk in Norway and the potentially lethal blowfish in Japan. One "fugu" contains 270 times more poison than cyanide. It's an excellent choice if you don't intend to pay for your dinner.
But I've only once had violet ice-cream. And that was in Portugal!
David Serus is the chef de cuisine at the Assamasse Restaurant at the five-star Penha Longa Hotel and Resort near Sintra. Having studied in Brittany, he went to work in the south of France and Belgium before moving to the US where he ran restaurants in Florida.
"In the States I learnt to create a close relationship with the locals in order to get the best local products. The same happens in Portugal.
"I try to teach my staff that a kitchen is a playground for people who get excited by being around food. I've tried to add my bit to traditional Portuguese cooking. It's not quite fusion, but nearly! But the ice-cream goes down well."
Serus is typical of a new generation of chefs who are making Portugal a foodie heaven. L'art de table is a new concept for Portugal. The brochures rave about sausages and chitterlings and the freshness of Portugal's seafood although the staple cod, or bacalhau, originally came from Newfoundland and now comes from Norway.
Portugal's reputation for "haute" cuisine has traditionally rested on a rather unappetising albeit inexpensive plate of three jaundiced potatoes and limp lettuce combined with a flaccid rissole or lonely grey swordfish, a tired chop or a trio of elderly sardines.
When I think about eating out in Portugal I think of watery cabbage soup, or caldo verde. For some reason its smell always reminds me of a British post office. Which is rather off-putting. And not at all evocative of the country of its birth.
The state-owned Pousadas de Portugal - recently re-vamped by the Pestana Group - is doing its bit to turn things around by offering special menus featuring regional dishes that use regional produce.
Portugal's pousadas have their origins in the 1940s when the first were built or opened by the state.
In the 1950s more historic buildings were acquired and converted into hotels. The first to be restored was Obidos Castle. Now you can stay in the castle at Alcacer do Sal in the former monastery at Palmela; the 15th century Castelo de Alvito; the former Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria do Bouro and spend the night in the luxuriously appointed former monk cells of Evora. You can even stay in royal palaces like the one at Estremoz built by King Diniz for his wife or at Queluz where the royal family summered in the 18th century.
All the pousadas have excellent restaurants. They have recently launched a "Gastronomic Passport" which can be bought for €128 (about R1 500) and entitles the user to four meals in any of the chain's restaurants. You can follow the fish and seafood route or the rice and long live wine routes. Each meal includes horse d'oeuvres, a starter, main, dessert, wine and coffee.
In the pousada at Geres-Canicada overlooking the Penneda-Geres National Park wine waiter Manuel Vasconcelos and chef Augusto serve dishes like pork chunks with chestnuts and turnip tops; stewed rabbit kid and rice (arroz de cabrito), and minced meat with bread porridge and cumin as well as the compulsory regional sausage alheira de caca. In Portugal it is rude to turn down a sausage.
The Cozinha Velha restaurant over the road from the Pousada de Quelez is the flagship for the new wave of Portuguese cooking. The chef is Jose Armenia Martins and his sommelier Antonio Silvestre has worked in the restaurant for nearly 40 years. When he speaks your gastric juices pay attention.
He recommended the fish soup followed by grouper and shellfish stew served in a copper pan. He suggested a white port as an aperitif followed by the wines of Morgado de Santa Catarina from Bucelas, north of Lisbon. For dessert a 20-year-old Mocatel de Setubal.
The best way of touring Portugal and sampling its pousadas is by train. The first Porto to Lisbon train line - the caminho do ferro or "iron way" - opened in 1852. Santa Appolonia station in Lisbon opened in 1865. Rosso in 1890.
Porto's Sao Bento station at Rua de Almeida Garrett was built in 1916. It was once a church and its walls are covered with blue azuleos- tile paintings depicting significant moments in the country's history.
The Rapido Inter Cidades heads west out of Oporto along the Douro river valley and must be one of the finest rail journeys in the world. After 90 minutes of staring into the back of people's kitchens, into the front of their lounges or up into their flats the washing lines of surburbia are replaced by countryside. Concrete gives way to water. The train stops at little wisteria-hung stations on the river's edge.
Overlooking a bend in the river I had one of the best meals of my life at the Solar de Rede pousada at Medio Frio, an 18th century manor house.
Looking down at the river through its rose garden and orange groves and over its terraced vineyard, I couldn't resist the roast veal and the regional pudding trolley as well as local cheese and jam. I couldn't have fitted in any more. Not even violet ice-cream. Not even one petal.