Tom Davies - The Hungry Cyclist - Pedalling The Americas In Search Of The Perfect Meal

There is an art to eating a buffet of this calibre. I needed to be calm, disciplined. I needed a strategy. How many times you revisit a buffet on this scale is a private matter between you, the capacity of your stomach and your conscience, but the first rule of buffet is knowing where your enemy lies.

‘Would like some bread, sir?’

Don’t even think about it.

To gently ease my system into the impending feast, I began with a bowl of fresh Rocky mountain berries and natural yogurt, and sticking with the breakfast theme I then decided on eggs Benedict, an old favourite. I declined the offer of having it served on an English muffin and opted instead for a couple of rashers of grilled Canadian back bacon and a little wilted spinach.

My next stop was the sushi bar where a patient Itamae was practising his art. I briefly questioned whether I should be eating raw fish in the Rocky mountains, but the objection was overruled, and I returned to my table with a plate laden with beautiful nori, wrapped futomaki, uramaki made with Pacific salmon, nigiri zushi with shrimp and eel, and plenty of tender cuts of sashimi, all enjoyed with a little wasabi and pink ginger that rebooted my system perfectly for the next step.

Spoilt with cold sides of smoked Pacific salmon, sparkling gravadlax and fat prawns the size of giant’s fingers, I loaded up yet another fishy plate with poached Bow river trout with a dill and caper sauce, and enjoyed it with some fresh asparagus dripping with butter. Fish is filling and, teetering on the edge of consciousness, I was grateful that I had had the foresight to bring a good book with me. After a visit to Middlemarch I was soon raring to go again.

Ahhhhhhh!

Roast loin of pork with morels, the sculptural mushrooms I had noticed growing on damp tree stumps and logs in the woods, served with a couple of boiled Yukon Gold potatoes coated in a little butter and fresh mint, and a couple of grilled peppers on the side. My mission was almost complete.

Unfortunately the Hungry Cyclist was on a tight budget, and this luxurious food had to be washed down with jugs of iced water and the complimentary fruit juices on offer. With each new plateful the black-dressed sommelier would approach to proffer his extensive wine list; each time he would retreat with merely a twitch to the corner of his mouth to show his disappointment.

He had much more luck with neighbouring tables, whose occupants changed two or three times during the course of my long-drawn-out brunch. By now I had been eating for over two hours. My brain was signalling frantically to my stomach and waves of dizziness washed over me. I began to feel increasingly light-headed and in a state of semi-delirium I mopped up the last of the meat juices with a lonesome potato. I needed to go back to Middlemarch .

After another chapter, I enjoyed some sharp Canadian cheddar and a healthy slice of Saskatoon strudel that had been flirting with me throughout the afternoon. I had reached my elastic limit and, sipping at a small espresso, I checked my time. Three hours and twenty-two minutes. I screwed up my napkin and triumphantly threw in the towel. Staggering out of the dining room I waddled through the labyrinth of the hotel like a sedated minotaur. The beast had been tamed. Stumbling across a cosy room with an open fire and a sofa the size of a family car, I slipped off my shoes, plumped up the cushions, let out a reassuring fart and collapsed.

Waking from a series of deep, cheese-induced dreams, I reluctantly made plans to return to the washroom to get back into my cycling clothes. In the lobby, excited fresh-faced guests were returning from the mountains and checking in for the night. How I wished I could have joined them. Instead I pulled on my woolly hat and walked outside into the cold. Reluctantly, like Cinderella returning from the ball, I gave the doorman my valet token and soon a young porter was struggling to push my bike to the front door. I shook his hand, slipped him a dollar for his efforts and pedalled out into the biting late afternoon.

‘Thank you, sir. Enjoy your evening.’

As I left Banff, the sun disappeared behind the dark green spruce that covered the mountains, and the warmth of the afternoon went with it. In the sunlight this snow-capped landscape was enchanting, but when you took away the sun it became a different place all together. Cold and imposing, the long shadows of the dark cliff-faces hung over me as if I was entering a whole new menacing world. The air chilled my face and icy drops of rain began to fall and to drip from the boughs of the dark trees that hugged the roadside. Cold and alone in this suddenly intimidating environment, my thoughts returned to the comfort of the hotel. It would be dark in an hour and I had no idea where I was going to sleep that night.

‘Hey there, I’m Dave. Quite a load you have there, eh?’ A man on a bicycle pulled alongside. ‘I’m camping in the woods on the left, seven miles up the road. Come and join me. Can’t delay, this rain doesn’t look like quitting and I need to get a fire going, eh.’

Ending every sentence with the expression ‘eh’, it was clear Dave was Canadian, but other than his name and his nationality I knew nothing about him, and he and his old racing bicycle quickly disappeared over the crest of the next hill. Exactly seven miles from where Dave had raced past me, a narrow track, flanked on either side by tall trees and scattered with fallen pine needles, led into the woods. Away from the road the forest was densely packed and the thick evergreen branches almost completely blocked out what was left of the day’s light. Rain poured down and heavy beads of water fell through the needles and branches. A mile or so up the track the light blue rainsheet of a small tent stood out in the darkness and working away behind it with a small hatchet was Dave, already busy splitting logs for a small fire that was sending a billow of thick smoke into the gloomy surroundings.

‘Welcome, welcome,’ he cried. ‘Try and find a dry spot for your tent, eh.’

Fat drops of rain splashed from the high branches but the forest floor, a mix of old spruce needles and small twigs, was surprisingly soft and dry. I pitched my tent, prepared my sleeping bag and, still wrapped from head to toe in my claustrophobic waterproof carapace, joined Dave by the fire.

‘Feather sticks,’ he said, holding up a piece of split wood. ‘Only way to get a fire going when the heavens open, eh.’ He went back to working at the piece of kindling with his long hunting knife. ‘You wanna try?’ He offered me a piece of wood.

In a blue bobble hat that came down over his ears to the top of his well-kept beard, and wearing an old jumper and well-worn yellow waterproof jacket that would have been more suitable on a fishing boat, Dave was skinny and probably in his fifties, but the deep lines of his weathered features surrounded a pair of keen eyes that sparkled with the boundless energy of a teenager.

‘So where are you cycling to?’ I asked.

‘Oh I’m jus’ here on a little holiday.’

‘And where’s home?’

‘Calgary right now, eh. But I’m kind of homeless at the moment.’

‘But what do you do during the winter?’

‘Oh, it doesn’t get too cold any more. Perhaps minus thirty when there’s a snap, and as long as I have my peanut butter and my marg, I do just fine.’ Pulling a plastic tub from his bag, Dave proudly directed a heaped spoon of white margarine into his mouth.

‘You want some?’ he offered through a mouthful of margarine.

‘Not for me, thanks.’

‘Keeps out the cold, eh.’

I watched in disgust as the lump of margarine moved down his throat before Dave went on to repeat the process with his peanut butter. What little appetite I had after my gourmet lunch almost disappeared after witnessing this gastronomic monstrosity, but expecting a cold night ahead I offered to cook some supper and returned from my tent with my cooking staples—two ripe tomatoes, half an onion, a head of garlic, two bruised courgettes, a roll-up chopping board, a collection of herbs and spices stored in 35mm film cases, some chicken stock cubes, some brown rice, a little olive oil, two apples, a small bag of raisins and a plastic bear half full of honey, plus a couple of pans. The kindness of strangers and plenty of cheap Midwest diners meant I hadn’t used them for a while. Producing my supplies, Dave’s eyes almost fell out of his head.