The Hungry Cyclist: Pedalling The Americas In Search Of The Perfect Meal

THE

HUNGRY

CYCLIST

PEDALLING THE AMERICAS IN

SEARCH OF THE PERFECT MEAL

TOM KEVILL-DAVIES

Collins

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1 All the Gear and No Idea

Chapter 2 Rodeo Ga Ga

Chapter 3 A Rocky Road

Chapter 4 California Dreaming

Chapter 5 Cycling the Baja

Chapter 6 ¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Aribba! ¡Aribba!

Chapter 7 Central America

Chapter 8 Cartagena to Quito

Chapter 9 The Amazon

Chapter 10 Brazil

Glossary

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

For my parents with love and thanks.

‘Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys…’

Prologue

It seems only right that the seed of what was to become the Hungry Cyclist would be planted at the end of a fateful cycling holiday in France, a country the natives would argue, justifiably, is the centre of the gastronomic universe, and also the birthplace of the bicycle. But at the start of that journey, waiting in the darkness while the impatient growls of a hundred cars and trucks echoed off the metal walls of a cross-Channel ferry, I had no idea what lay ahead.

The air filled with the choking smell of diesel and combustion, and men in orange jumpsuits hurried to disconnect heavy chains. The jaws of the boat fell open, daylight cut through the darkness as if the stone had been rolled back on an ancient tomb, and our cycling holiday had begun. Squeezed into our finest Lycra, like a pair of badly stuffed sausages, we rolled our bicycles out of the fume-filled hulk of the ferry and into the fresh air of France’s hottest summer on record. We squinted into the bright sunshine.

It was summer and an old friend, Charlie Pyper, and I would use eighteen of our cherished twenty-five days of annual leave to cycle down through France. For ten days we would pedal our way through the back roads of the French countryside, and when the job was done enjoy a week of relaxing and pleasurable wound-licking. It would be a holiday of a little exercise, country roads, superb restaurants, good wine and lashings of cheese. That was the plan.

As a fierce heat-wave gripped the continent, old ladies perished without air-conditioning in Paris apartments and nursing homes, forest fires swept through the hills of Provence and the world’s media screamed headlines about global warming and climate change. Meanwhile, Charlie and I took to the hills and lanes that connected the small villages of Normandy. It quickly became clear that I was having a great time, but on each gentle incline I looked back at a wheezing, red-faced mess of a man, cursing, sweating and panting. An affable and chunky six-footer, Charlie dwarfed his slim racer like a cycling bear in a circus, and each slight hill was met with an onslaught of Essex’s finest abuse.

‘Bloody French hills. The fucking map said this bit was flat. I thought you said this was going to be a holiday.’

Exhausted at the end of a long first day, the small bed and breakfast we collapsed into could not have come soon enough for us both. But for Charlie it had come too late. He endured a sleepless night of cramps induced by dehydration, and nightmares about bicycles, derailleurs and hills. I woke from a good night’s sleep to find him at breakfast in the garden, his concentration focused on our map.

‘We can hire a car twenty kilometres from here,’ he said glumly without bringing his eyes up from the map. A buttery piece of croissant hung in my mouth as my jaw momentarily unhinged itself from the top of my face.

‘You what?’

Having endured his graphic complaints for most of the previous day, and been woken by his cramped agonies during the night, I knew he wasn’t happy. But this was Charlie. The toughest guy I knew; the football legend; the hard-hitting, fast-bowling cricket star; my well-needed back-up in school punch-ups; a hero. And he wanted to quit. I couldn’t understand it.

‘Come on, mate. It’ll get better today, I promise. We can stop for a long lunch. We can find a nice river for a swim.’

My optimistic words and false promises fell on deaf and sunburnt ears.

‘Sorry, mate, it’s just that I’m not really enjoying any of this. I guess I’m not a cyclist,’ he offered remorsefully before painfully pulling himself out of his seat and waddling back to our room with all the appearance of a man who had been violated by a rugby team.

‘Well, I’m going on!’

Back in our room, preparing to leave, I found Charlie awkwardly rubbing his undercarriage with a proprietary soothing cream, and we were soon both back in our unflattering Power Ranger costumes. We said our goodbyes, and arranged to meet for lunch. I headed south towards the Loire valley and the cathedral of Chartres. Charlie pedalled west in search of the nearest car rental office.

For the next week I spent each day cycling a hundred or so miles through the French countryside. Charlie spent his days driving the same distance, meeting me in the evenings and at pre-organised lunch stops.

‘Right. This little town here has a nice-looking brasserie and a stunning medieval monastery,’ Charlie would announce with all the authority of a general directing his troops, circling the relevant area of his map, laid out on the bonnet of his car, with a well-informed finger.

‘Medieval monastery! You’ve never even been to church. Are you feeling all right?’

‘It’s culture. And if you can make another sixty kilometres after lunch, this little town has a very comfortable-looking hotel with a great set menu and two knives and forks in the Michelin guide.’

‘Two knives and forks! I better get a move on.’

‘Good. I’ll see you for lunch in two hours.’

I had my orders, and I was on my own again and at my happiest. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the company, but out there on the back roads of France life was so peaceful, so calm and so far away from the fast world of advertising I had briefly left behind in London. Moving silently, apart from the spinning of my wheels and creaking of my saddle, I passed through vineyards and fields, small villages and quiet towns. My nostrils filled with the scent of newly fallen rain or the yeasty aromas from a local boulangerie, and I peered over fences into tidy vegetable patches and spied through windows at old ladies preparing their lunch behind heavy machine-laced curtains. Chartres, Bourges, Sancerre, Le Puy. Following the slow-moving waters of the Loire, I gradually made my way south and it became clear I was falling in love with a country that had previously only existed as a blur through the window of a cramped car on family holidays.

Showing the utmost respect for France’s sacred midday hour, when clanking metal shutters are pulled down over shop fronts, roundabouts become congested with hungry and impatient Frenchmen and the whole of France comes to a grinding halt for lunch, I did the same. Pulling into lively restaurants packed with feasting Frenchmen and bustling with the happy sounds of conversation and the clink of cutlery on china, I enjoyed plat du jour after plat du jour and formule after formule. Plates of hefty steak frites; fresh and gooey goat’s cheese salads; golden, oozing croque-mesdame; flavoursome slabs of hearty pâte, all washed down with glasses of cool, crisp rosé. Crêpes suzette, doused in Cointreau, and a small cup of espresso would jump-start my afternoon’s ride, and after working off my calorie-packed lunch I would cover enough miles to ensure that I arrived famished at my evening’s destination, primed to demolish the five-course extravaganza that awaited me.

Peeling off my Lycra, enjoying a necessary shower and putting on some less disturbingly noisome clothes, I would wander with Charlie into town for dinner. Chilled crayfish and cucumber soup; crispy frog’s legs; snails drowned in garlic butter; oak-smoked duck breast salad; rabbit in a mustard and white wine sauce; marbled tête de veau; garlic-infused pommes dauphinoise; lavender-scented crème brûlée, and cheese. Endless amounts of smoky, unctuous cheese that smelt of the farmyards of France.

Food had never tasted so good, and as my pedal-powered gastronomic holiday came to an end I realised I had cycled head-first into one of France’s greatest secrets. Cycling and food are one of the great French double acts.

Like seared foie gras and a good Sauternes; chateaubriand and Château Lafite; Napoleon and Josephine; Asterix and Obelix, and Sarko and Carla, food and cycling are the perfect partners. Because on a bicycle food is your fuel, your four-star, your essence, and if you don’t fill up, you aren’t going anywhere.

It is no coincidence that the most prestigious cycling race on earth, the Tour de France, originated in the land of gastronomy. In the early years of this great race, brave competitors’ minds, and indeed other parts of their anatomy, were never far from food. Before the days of multi-million-Euro sponsorship and luxury padded Lycra, hard-up riders would protect their assets by placing a tender cut of beef inside their shorts and between their legs. By the end of the day these choice cuts of meat had been tenderised and marinated and would be cooked and enjoyed, providing those hungry cyclists with the ultimate comfort food.

I know there are deluded pedallers out there who, for reasons unknown to me, are happy to survive on factory-made energy bars when out on the road. But unless you are trailing Lance Armstrong over the Alps, it beats me why anyone would want to put themselves through the jaw-aching misery of eating a synthetically flavoured hunk of Plasticine.

There is so much more to this magical marriage of gears and gastronomy than simply refuelling and it’s not just your taste buds that are exposed to flavours. From the seat of a bicycle you pedal with every one of your five senses. You feel the sun that ripens the wheat that will make your bread. You hear the shrill morning call of the cockerel that will end up steeped in red wine as your coq au vin. You whiz past hypnotic lines of grape-laden vines that provide a relaxing glass of wine at the end of the day, and you can’t escape the pungent whiff of contented cows, sheltering at midday under a tree, who will give you a stinking Epoisses as runny and pungent as a ripe cowpat. On a bicycle you work for your food, you get fit and you build an appetite, and you are totally exposed to the terrain, climate and culture that results in what you are eating. Shielded behind the window of a car or a high-speed train or with your head squashed inside a motorcycle helmet, you miss out on these vital sensual experiences that quite simply make food taste better.

A career in advertising, a girlfriend, a car, a stack of bills, a mobile phone, weekend weddings, savings and foolish ideas about getting on the property ladder. There were more than enough reasons not to go, but I couldn’t help giving it more thought. After my happy holiday in France I would come home from a hard day’s work and stare at the large map of the world Blu-tacked to my bedroom wall. I wanted more. I was a food lover with a newfound passion for cycling, and all I wanted to do now was cycle and eat my way around the world.

Africa looked a bit hot for a bike ride and Russia a bit too cold; Europe was too expensive, Australia was too far away and, never a competent linguist, I was scared by the languages of Asia. I was left contemplating the Americas. Two great continents that would allow me to pedal from the United States and Canada all the way to Brazil and Argentina.

I did a little research into cycle touring, and soon found that the popular choice was the route along the Pacific coast from the wilds of Alaska to Terra del Fuego at the tip of Argentina. But call me a bluff old hedonist, if I was going to cycle the best part of 15,000 miles by myself, the last thing I wanted to do was start and finish my trip in two of the coldest and most desolate places on earth. I’m sure the thought of cycling from the northernmost point to the southernmost point of the Americas leaves many adventurers salivating with excitement, but, for me, being surrounded by rocks, penguins and little else, while surviving on porridge and Kendal mint cake, was not what I had in mind as the climax to my continent-crossing labour of love. I wanted to start in the culinary Mecca of America, in a city that didn’t sleep, and I wanted to finish in the sunshine, surrounded by bronzed bottoms and bikinis, sipping caipirinhas on Ipanema beach. It was set. I would ride my bicycle from New York City to Rio de Janeiro in search of the perfect meal. Now all I needed was a bicycle. ‘Good bike for long cycle tour.’ Click!

God only knows how people prepared for a trip like this, or in fact did anything, before the advent of the internet. Comfortably ensconced at my computer I was able to live vicariously through the lives of other cycle tourists. I could read their websites, eye up their equipment lists and prepare my own, and it quickly became clear that neither of the two bicycles I owned would be coming with me to America. One was so old and weather-beaten it barely made it to the local pub, and the other, the beloved racer that had carried me through France, was too lightweight and flimsy to cope with heavy panniers and the rough terrain of the Americas.

It wasn’t cheap, but eventually I settled on a chunky, British racing-green touring bicycle, with a very smart and traditional leather saddle. I was promised that if I looked after the bike, it would look after me, and for a completely inexperienced wannabe cycle tourist, this was all I wanted: to ride my bicycle and not have to worry about broken spokes, loose bottom brackets, a bent derailleur and other such dilemmas. After Christmas I set a departure date, handed in my notice at work, explained to my girlfriend that this was a journey I had to make, and woke every morning to be greeted by the violent pink Post-it note that clung to my bathroom door.

14 MAY—LEAVING

Front and rear panniers, rainproof map holder, cycling shoes, a camping stove, lightweight knives and forks, a torch you can wrap around your head like a Davey lamp, waterproof jacket, windproof trousers, camping soap, inflatable mattress, multi-season sleeping bag, a tent. The list of equipment I apparently needed was endless, but as my departure date shrunk from months to weeks to days away, I gradually accumulated all the gear. Buying a one-way ticket to New York, arranging travel insurance, selling my car, cancelling my mobile phone contract, vaccines, injections, visas and maps, were all on a lengthy ‘to do’ list, along with getting into some kind of physical shape. Loading my panniers with heavy cookbooks, to mimic my load when away, I set off on half-hearted weekend cycling trips into the English countryside. It got dark early, it was cold, it rained, it snowed and it was miserable, but naively I assumed that in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, everything would be fine.

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

John Pierpont Morgan

Chapter 1

All the Gear and No Idea LEAVING NEW YORK AND GOING THE WRONG WAY

I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle, it’s not going to be satisfying.

Greg Lemond

‘Yo, bike boy, why you so hungry?’

The deep and demanding New York accent rose above the aggressive throb of hip-hop beat that shook the otherwise peaceful Nyack Forest, some twenty kilometres north of Manhattan.

Just keep cycling, Tom—try not to attract any attention, I told myself, forgetting that I was sitting atop an overloaded touring bicycle, flying a Union Jack, with an audacious, fluorescent-yellow sign hanging from my rear, announcing that I was:

Eating my way from NYC to Rio.

www.thehungrycyclist.com

‘Yeah, you! I don’t see no other brothers riding a bike, get over here!’ came another growl. Glancing over my shoulder through the leaves and branches, I was able to make out a gang of menacing Hispanics hidden in a clearing between the trees.

‘Me? Really? Yes,’ I muttered nervously, before dismounting my bicycle and pushing it awkwardly down the forest track towards this daunting group of bare-chested men.

In baggy trousers and with bulging muscles covered in the kind of tattoos that seemed to be inspired by particularly gruesome nightmares, this group of eight hoodlums stood before me, their silver chains, diamond-stud earrings, long knives and skewers glistening in the afternoon sunshine. My heart pounded and cold beads of sweat dribbled down my back.

I’m going to get gang-banged, I thought, and I haven’t even made it out of New Jersey.

‘So you gonna tell me about da Hungry Cyclist?’ said the largest and most fearsome of the giants through his thick goatee beard, which more than compensated for the lack of hair on his shaven head.

‘Yeah, well…Um, I’m going to ride my bicycle from New York City to Rio de Janeiro, in search of the perfect meal.’

And it had all seemed like such a good idea back at home. A grand tour, an escape, a well-overdue adventure. But standing here now, on day one of my ‘trip of a lifetime’, in front of this line-up of professional wrestlers, hit men and gangsters, I began to wonder what the hell I was doing.

‘Well, if yo’ one of those TV chef people,’ the leader scowled, ‘you ain’t leaving till you tasted my mama’s Puerto Rican rice.’

‘No, no, no…’ Before I could explain that I was anything but one of those TV chef people, and that in fact I was little more than an overexcited, underprepared, ex-advertising executive who liked food and riding his bike, the leading giant had uncrossed his thigh-sized arms, draped one of them over my shoulders and was leading me towards a little old lady sitting peacefully at a wooden picnic table, chopping away at a small pile of lipstick-red chillies.

The hulk of a man squatted before his mother and after exchanging a few quiet words, in what I assumed was Spanish, planted a tender kiss on her forehead and I was ordered to take a seat. A paper picnic plate was placed in front of me, I was armed with a plastic knife and fork (no good at all if I was going to have to fight my way out of this unnerving situation) and a piece of tinfoil covering a large dish was removed, revealing a mountain of spicy-looking rice that released a cloud of sweet-smelling steam into the afternoon.

‘Ahh…Puerto Rican rice, my favourite.’ Whatever that is, I pondered, while one of the men shovelled a large portion on to my plate with the grace of a bulldozer. I loaded my fork and nervously, under the watchful eyes of all present, passed it to my mouth. Everything fell silent. I could no longer hear the menacing thud of hip-hop music or the wind playing in the leaves of the trees overhead. I was only aware of the jury standing before me, waiting for my culinary verdict. These were the kind of dudes who shot you just for looking at them funny. Imagine what they were going to do to an inexperienced Englishman stupid enough to ‘diss’ their beloved mother’s cooking.

Please like this, Tom, and if you don’t, make sure you look like you do, I told myself firmly.

But there was no need.

‘This is good!’ I mumbled through my first mouthful. And it was good, really good. Soft rice full of flavour, cooked in a rich chicken stock, mingled with fresh cilantro, hearty pigeon peas, chunks of salty pork and all impeccably spiced with those finely chopped chillies.

‘Damn right it is! And now you gotta try my cousin Emilio’s ribs.’

One thing the films do get right. Gangsters sure know how to eat. I soon found myself perched on the side of the small wooden picnic table, sandwiched between two enormous, sweaty men efficiently shovelling food into their mouths. In front of me, plates heaped with Puerto Rican rice; Emilio’s perfectly marinated, sticky pork ribs; grilled New York strip steaks, rosy pink in the middle and oozing juices; long skewers of tightly packed grilled prawns, doused in fresh lime juice; a stack of fat, spicy sausages, bursting out of their skins; creamy potato salads and crunchy home-made slaw.

Now this is what I left home for.

I speared another sausage with my flimsy plastic fork.

This is culinary adventure.

As it turned out, my new friends were not ruthless gangsters. They were hard-working people with respectable jobs in construction and haulage. They were all family, all from Puerto Rico and had come to America to make enough money to return home and start their own businesses. Every Sunday in the summer they got together here in the woods to eat, talk, laugh, and it was an honour to join them.

I explained that my plans were to cycle to Rio de Janeiro, sampling the most delicious and authentic food I could find along the way. They were insistent that the perfect meal I was looking for would be found only in Puerto Rico, and their kind words and good wishes filled me with a new zest and optimism for the journey ahead. For the rest of the afternoon the sun broke through the trees in smoky shafts of light and the sweet smells of barbecue filled the forest. I was forced to take part in a post-lunch game of baseball, in which I performed uselessly, and as the charcoal embers gave off the last of their heat it was time to say farewell. A family-sized silver-wrapped parcel of leftovers was presented to me for eating later that evening, along with a crackly pillowcase of potato chips and a vast bottle of bright yellow fizzy liquid. Each of the men embraced me with a bone-crushing bear hug before going through a confusing collection of handshakes, knuckle taps and high-fives. Full of food and optimism, I waved goodbye, mounted my bicycle and made my way back on to the forest trail.

‘Yo, brother! You ever write a book about this trip of yours, you better put my mom’s rice recipe in there,’ came a call from behind me.

‘No problem,’ I hollered back in my best New Jersey accent.

‘And one more thing, if you’re goin ta’ Brazil, you goin’ da wrong way. Rio de Janeiro gotta be south a here.’

This was not the last time I would be told I was going the wrong way. Leaving New York, my plan was to cycle north for the Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes before turning west across the country towards the Rocky mountains, on what I decided was the scenic route to Rio, via Toronto and Vancouver.

‘I’m cycling to Brazil,’ I shouted into the empty forest, buoyed with Puerto Rican rice, cheap American beer and naive self-assurance. Enjoying a long New England afternoon I made good time towards Nyack and the ominously named Bear mountain. The wide, slow-moving water of the Hudson river shimmered benevolently in the late afternoon sunshine. The dark green forested banks were dotted with whitewashed, clinker-built colonial houses, once homes to the wealthy merchants who managed the flow of New World commodities, fur, maple syrup, coal and buffalo, into New York. They stood as a reminder of the river’s important role as an artery into the great city I had left behind earlier in the day. In the morning I had battled my way through the busy traffic, kamikaze cab drivers and beeping horns of Manhattan, but out here, cycling along the banks of this historic river, I could have been a thousand miles away from the energy and power of New York City. At last, I was on my way.