Latvia's national dish: large grey peas slow-cooked with cubes of fatty bacon, sour cream and onion, traditionally eaten with kefir and rye bread alongside.

Grey peas (Pisum sativum var. arvense) have been grown across Latvia since the medieval Hanseatic era and were codified as the national dish during the first independence period 1918 to 1940. The grey-pea variety thrives in Latvia's short, cool summers and sandy soils. The dish anchored peasant winter eating with its high protein content, the bacon adding fat for the long Baltic winters. Today's restaurants serve it both as a Christmas-table staple and a year-round national-identity dish.

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