David Swidler is eating, drinking, and cooking his way through all 32 World Cup countries, much like he does at his site cookingvssports.com.

I’m not going to label Spanish sports fans as racists, especially when you can lump their athletes into that category as well. However, Spain is turning into quite the little sports factory. Pau Gasol bailed out Kobe and the Lakers in Game 7, and Ricky Rubio is apparently the point guard of the future. Their soccer team is the defending Euro Cup champions and are one win away from World Cup glory.

In honor of this, I was planning on a large tapas meal with some Jumilla wine. Then over Fourth of July weekend, a friend produced some quality chorizo, and well, I couldn’t help myself. This Spanish sausage was dry and spicy, much like other tube meats I’ve eaten from warm and sandy locales.

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As far as I know, taking the insides of animals, hair, and dead flies and then putting all of that in a casing made from a different dead animal started in damp Northern Europe. So when it came to German food, I knew that I was getting something juicy.

I went to Prost for an early Germany game, and found that for the low, low price of $25,  I could have an entire boot of beer, and then…keep the boot! These are the sort of things I probably won’t be able to spend money on when I have kids.

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To help process all that pilsner, I ordered the wurst sampler, which was knackwurst, bratwurst, and sauerkraut, paired with a German bread called landbrot and Gewuerzgurken–which are, as the name clearly indicates, tiny sweet pickles.

That was a lot of European sausage to digest, so for Portugal I wanted something different and settled on port, a dessert wine from Northern Portugal. Port is perfect for anyone who loves wine, but wishes it had the sugar content of Cookie Crisp cereal.  Sweet mother of saccharine, if I wanted to get drunk off a melted slurpee, I would have re-enrolled in the fifth grade.

Some dry sausages, some juicy ones, and an upscale wine cooler, not exactly an adventure in international eating, but delicious.