The Spanish can cook, the Germans drive well and the Polish are good looking: ask Europeans how they think their countries excel and revealing trends emerge. The Guardian's poll of European countries carried out by ICM suggests most nations think they are good at something – apart from the ever modest British. We feel we are pretty mediocre at everything.

The poll, carried out online among 5,000 people – 1,000 from each of the five countries involved in the Guardian's New Europe series – exposes a mix of classic national stereotypes and unexpected self-confidence. Germany may be famed abroad as a land of lederhosen and strong beer but the Polish outdo everyone else as a nation that feels it can knock its drink back and stay sober. In total, 61% of Poles think their compatriots can hold their schnapps and vodka, in contrast to just 14% of Spaniards who say the same about their compatriots' capacity for San Miguel beer.

The British are not in denial about their own capacity for drunken behaviour. Only 15% of Britons think we can hold our drink, against 85% who rate ourselves at the middle or lower of the scale. Other nations judge themselves little different, apart from the Poles.

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In an imaginary Eurovision contest of national talents, the Spanish and the French think they would be way ahead of everyone else as the best place to eat. Among the Gallic citizens of the land of haute cuisine, 80% give themselves at least eight out of 10 points for their cooking. In Spain, where Ferdinand Adrià's modernist El Bulli restaurant reinvented modern cooking, perhaps to its detriment, 87% do the same.

By contrast, a generation reared on Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver in Britain still don't rate themselves highly: only 23% of people in this country believe the UK is renowned for its cooking, against 77% who put it in the middle or below.

Perhaps fortunately the poll doesn't reveal what other Europeans think of our food. Ever confident, the Poles shrug off jibes about dumplings and beetroot soup to chase France for third place as the nation with good cuisine: 70% score their nation highly against just 2% who put their country way down the scale. Germany is next, followed by Britain in last place of the five countries surveyed.

So it is official that we think we have the worst cooking in Europe. But at least we believe ourselves to be more friendly than the French and the Germans, if not quite up there with Spain and Poland. Overall, 32% of Europeans questioned thought people were very friendly in their country, against 56% who put the answer somewhere in the middle and 12% at the bottom.

In Britain, 23% score themselves highly against 77% who do not. In Poland, more cheerful perhaps, 35% score highly and 65% not.

The French appear to think they are part of a nation of grumps: 70% put themselves only in the middle for national friendliness and 17% right at the bottom, ahead of everyone else. Experience Paris on a weekend in August and you might be tempted to agree.

Unsurprisingly, Germans – from the home of the unrestricted autobahn, BMW and Porsche – believe themselves to be the best drivers in Europe. The French – from the land of Renault and Citroen – think they are the worst.

In Germany, 34% score their country well for its driving, against just 11% in France and 17% in Poland. The British and the Spanish are somewhere in the middle: 29% of people here think their country drives well against 23% in Spain.

By contrast, 20% of French people put their driving skills in the bottom categories, scoring just one to three points out of 10. In Britain, 15% say the same and in Germany it is just 13%.

About a quarter of Europeans think people in their country are good drivers: about two-thirds, sensibly, put themselves in the middle.Even vanity is trumped by modesty in Europe, according to the poll. While about a third of people surveyed rated people in their country notably good looking, two thirds put the answer in the middle and a few even lower down. Men are marginally more positive about national looks than women.

The Poles scored themselves most highly – 57% rated their nation at eight out of 10 or above for looks, against just 14% in Britain, officially the most modest country among those polled, if not the ugliest. Here, 73% ranked national appearance in the middle and 13% at the bottom.

According to the survey, 41% of Spaniards say their compatriots are good looking, against 22% in France, with Germany narrowly behind.