Eat My Globe Part 4

me: 'Kva.s.s please.'

old crone: 'Kva.s.s?' (Looks mystified, as though she has never heard of it before, despite the fact she is sitting next to a barrel with the word KVa.s.s written on it in letters two feet high. She makes sure to turn to anyone pa.s.sing to show how unfair life is expecting her to deal with people like me.) me: 'Kva.s.s.' (Points to two-feet-high lettering.).

old crone: 'Ah Kva.s.s.' (Looks at me as though I had spoken gibberish and why was I wasting her time.Wearily pushes small b.u.t.ton to dispense beer into plastic gla.s.s as though it pains every bone in her elderly body.) me:'Thank You.' (Hands over exact change.).

old crone: (Stares at exact change as though I had given her a $1 million note, rolls her eyes, looks around again to make sure everyone knows just how miserable her life is, then gives me one more look of withering contempt.) Unfortunately, the beer is not worth all that effort. It is cloy-ingly sweet, and I poured most of it away. Out of sight of the old crone, of course.

If Siberia were a country in its own right, it would be the biggest country in the world, which explains the length of the journey from Irkutsk to our next stop, Vladimir. But I was actually looking forward to it. I didn't even mind when confronted by the two terrifying female attendants who would watch over us for the duration of the trip, or when instructions were barked at us as though we were prisoners on the way to Stalin's gulags. I slightly uncharitably christened them Kong and Mighty Joe Young and, at the advice of Andrew, our guide, went to try and buy them off with a bar of Russian chocolate, which they s.n.a.t.c.hed without the hint of a smile. There is a reason why Russian men have a life-expectancy of only fifty-four and almost always die before their wives. They want to.

I had been told that people become inst.i.tutionalized when travelling on the Trans-Siberian Express. Until I made the journey myself I thought this was absolute tosh, but they were right. After nearly four days of riding the rails to Vladimir, a few hours' drive from Moscow, with little to break the routine other than a leg-stretch on a station platform or a walk down to the dining car, I had quickly become used to the rhythm of train on tracks, the water bottle showers in the morning and the diet of dumpHngs, crisps and pasties washed down with beer and vodka. I had become used to reading, playing cards or board games, listening to music and, as the guidebooks advised, just staring out of the window for long periods of time. After almost fainting with misery on my first train journey through China, I really enjoyed the ride, and getting off the train in Vladimir was indeed a shock to the system in more ways than one. Not only did we all experience serious 'wobbly leg' syndrome, but we had arrived in the cold winds of Europe in the same clothes we were wearing in the warmth of Asia and stood shivering on the station platform until our bus came to collect us.

We spent our first night in the pretty town of Suzdal, capitals Russia in the eleventh century and famous for having the higl density of churches in the country, and for being where the Tsi sent their wives to live in convents when they got fed up them. After a huge breakfast and a good night's sleep everyo me included, was in good spirits as we boarded our bus for drive to Moscow.

It was not my first visit to Russia's capital. In 1998 I attended the Moscow Book Fair. I was accompanied by company's Russian literary agent, who not only translated fbi me but guided me through the complicated etiquette of doir business Russian-style, which seemed to consist mainly of drink ing umbrella stands full of vodka or whisky before, during ar after every meeting. By midday on the first day I was horribly! drunk and, in fear of alcohol poisoning, had to leave the confer-! ence hall to go and be violently sick at the feet of a large statue of Lenin. I had not been back since and knew that Moscow ha changed considerably since then. A friend who had been therej more recently told me that the change was not for the better, tha it was a dirty, ugly, corrupt and dangerous city.

It is all of the above, of course, but it also has elements of al frontier town and of a city that, rediscovering itself after years,! centuries even, of deprivation and struggle is alive with the good and bad effects of capitalism. A city where you have to admit; anything can happen.

I adored it and wasted little time setting out to explore, which' gave me a chance to marvel at one of Moscow's great treasures. The stations of Moscow's underground railway are like nothing else on earth, glorious tributes to Soviet power housing towering bronze statues of Soviet heroes that stand guard over the platforms. They are cheap and efficient, and we were soon blinking in the autumnal sunlight of Red Square, where we split up and headed off in our separate directions.

I was glad of the opportunity to be on my own. I'd had enough of eating junk for a few days and knew that if I were with any of my companions, they would baulk at my plan to go for a budget-busting lunch. I spent the late morning working up an appet.i.te with a long walk along the Moskva River, past the impressive monument to Peter the Great and through the grounds of the Red October chocolate factory, where production left a permanent sickly sweet haze hanging in the air. Then I headed up to Ostozhenka Street, where I had chosen a restaurant called Tflis for lunch.

Considered the finest Georgian restaurant in Moscow, it was also the lunch venue of choice for the country's oligarchs. It had suffered recently with the sanctions levied by President Putin after a spectacular fall-out with the Georgians and, because of this, it was not able to offer any Georgian wine or beer. But it was an agreeable place to have lunch, even if the prices brought water to my eyes. Georgian breads stuffed with suluguni cheese, soft rolls of curd in yoghurt, a salad of pomegranate seeds with chopped walnuts and an expertly grilled shashlik lamb kebab. After the privations of the train it was everything I needed, although my heart missed a couple of beats when they presented me with the ^ioo bill, which, to be fair, did include a small cup of tea.

We had considerable time to ourselves in Moscow, and I gladly took the opportunity to mooch. After buying a bowl of bortsch from a roadside stand, I found a small park filled with neglected statues of Soviet heroes. I sipped my bowl of soup with its fragrant beetroot steam wafting up into my nostrils, watched silently by my dining partners, Lenin, Brezhnev and Andropov, before heading back to meet my companions for an overnight journey. After our recent travels this was an unchallenging eight hours, allowing us two full days in Peter the Great's capital, an astonishing work of construction and rightly compared to Venice for its beauty and network of ca.n.a.ls.

As with Moscow, this was not my first visit. After the literary agent, had poured me into bed after a few drunken meetings at the Moscow Book Fair, she had poured herself in after me and we had become more than friends. I readily agreed to spend a week lOI.

in her company in St Petersburg over new year. I had enjoyed the city, but Russia in winter was, unsurprisingly, slightly chilly and we had spent quite a lot of time in our comfortable hotel room. That was no bad thing, but I did not see anywhere near as much as I wanted to and what little I did encounter was through the thin gap left by a woolly hat and a thick scarf.

Now, in autumn, however, it was a different matter, and I could see St Petersburg in all its considerable glory. Its courtyards, churches and gardens looked impossibly beautiful in the watery sunlight, and I had big plans to catch up on lost opportunities. The Russians, though, had different ideas. I had purchased a train ticket to take me from St Petersburg to Helsinki in Finland for the next leg of the journey and had arranged with the tour company to have my tickets delivered to the hotel. Once we checked in, I asked politely if they had arrived.

'No', the woman at reception barked at me. 'If they were here, I would have told you.' She gave me that now all too common look of withering contempt.

I decided to give it until the next day and headed off with the others to spend time in the Hermitage, but found myself unable to concentrate on the wonders in one of the world's greatest museums. I called my travel agent, and they a.s.sured me the tickets had been delivered, so I headed back to the hotel to ask again. The same woman was behind the reception desk.

'Are you calling me liar?' she snarled, looking across at her colleague. 'He is calling me liar.'

A slight air of panic began to set in, and Andrew suggested that I should consider alternative travel options on the overnight buses, which ran between the two cities every day.

Next morning the staff remained obdurate, and I headed out to buy a bus ticket, only to realize when 1 got to the station that I had forgotten my pa.s.sport. I headed back to the hotel, angry and frustrated, and stomped to the lift.

'You', a familiar voice snapped. It was the receptionist. 'Do you not want your package?' She waved an envelope at me.

'What?'

'Do you not want package? It has been here since yesterday', she added with an innocent look.

I took the envelope and opened it, hardly surprised to see my tickets come tumbling out onto the counter. 'But, but, but I asked you about these yesterday', I stammered.

'You never asked me. It must have been some other person.' She glanced across as the same nodding colleague for support.

I almost cried, but at least I had the tickets. I could go out and enjoy my last evening. For the last few months I had been a backpacker. I may have been a lousy one, who moaned a lot and was generally a bit useless, but I had been a backpacker. My companions, being experienced travellers, had all helped me along the way, but now it was time to drag them into my world, a world of smart bars, well-mixed c.o.c.ktails and plush leather seats. I gathered a willing handful together and led them the short walk to St Petersburg's famous Grand Hotel Europe, where 1 commandeered a circle of seats in the corner of their lavish bar. 1 called over the manager.

'Six Beefeater Martinis up with a twist, very, very cold. Very, very dry. Oh, and some crisps.'

The drinks came soon, and we raised them, by the stem of course, never by the bowl, and made a toast. I had been grateful to all of my companions, and the others on the previous trips, for their support. But now, with my first shuddering sip of Martini, I was back in my world and all was right with it, and not even the Russians could ruin that.

Pertti and the Prinsessa.

Sitting in my train carriage as it chugged away from St Petersbu towards Helsinki, I experienced an agreeable shiver of pleasi as the Finnish customs official took a cursory glance at my 1 tered British pa.s.sport, smiled and then said, 'Enjoy your tir in Finland'. After pa.s.sing through the Chinese, Mongolia and Russian borders accompanied by bladder-bursting waits ( locked train carriages and unsmiling men with guns, it felt goc to be back in the EU.

I had added Finland to my itinerary because of a friend i London, Martina Rydman. When she heard about Eat My Glob almost inevitably as I was buying her dinner, she suggested should go to Finland. 1 actually laughed so hard that I snorted ; rather good Argentine Malbec out of both nostrils.

'Finland?' I shrieked. 'That is the only country with a worse reputation for food than England.'

Martina began to wear me down with descriptions of how good the food was. Not an easy task because my only experience had been something called korvapuusti, a doughy breakfast bun more suited to hand-to-hand combat than to eating. She finally won me over, however, when she announced that she could arrange for me to go hunting with a family friend who only knew two words of English, one of which was 'vodka' and one of which wasn't.

Details of my visit were placed in the hands of Martina's family, and I arrived in Helsinki to be greeted by her older sister Paola, who helped me lug Big Red into her small car and pointed it in a northerly direction. I had no idea what was ahead of me. ^ith so much of the past two months having been organized down to the last detail, it was good to have some surprises. Paola explained that we were heading up to Juupajoki, where the family shared a holiday home.

After a two-hour drive we turned off the road and into the pages of a storybook. Their picturesque house sat on the edges of a lake whose surface shimmered a golden reflection of light from the low sun. The welcome from the Rydman family too was like something from a storybook, their immediate and genuine hospitality in stark contrast to many of my experiences in Russia and China.

Baggy, comfortable sweaters were provided to combat the chill in the autumn air, and my footwear was quickly replaced by a large pair of Wellington boots padded out with thick Finnish socks. They sat me, snug as a bug in the proverbial rug, at the kitchen table and made sure 1 finished off at least two bowls of thick pea and ham soup, mopped up with large chunks of bread, while they padded around making sure that my makeshift bed was prepared on a very welcome-looking couch. After my early start I could have dived under the covers right then. But Paola likes to plan, and she had plans for me. I was instructed to wrap up against the chill as we were heading out to forage in the local woods.

Foraging is not so much a pastime for the Finns as a way of life. For them it takes on a spiritual quality born of the fact that an abundance of wild food was responsible for keeping the nation from starvation in the dark days after the Second World War. So sacred is the right to forage that it is enshrined in Finnish law that any person is allowed to go picking fruits and mushrooms on any land in the country beyond a given distance from any house.

The woods surrounding the Rydmans' house had a thick carpeting of sharp, tangy lingon berries, which the Finns revere for the vitamins they provide. Alongside these, but much more scarce, were clumps of meaty chanterelle mushrooms, and I was warned to watch where I was treading in case I put my size ii a patch of fungal goodness. In a short s.p.a.ce of time we had up two buckets with prime specimens, and Martina's moi Maija, headed back to the house to start preparing them supper while I was shuttled to the next stage of my adveni hunting.

I was heartbroken to find that, because of my schedule the short season, I was going to miss the elk-hunting season a matter of days. Over 50,000 of these moose-like creatures culled and then butchered and prepared to provide meat for rest of the year. Martina's brother-in-law Henri and friend Ni told me that we were going hunting anyway, for wild duck a grouse.

Hunting in Finland too is a way of life. These are not peo] who think that their meat and fish come in choice cuts wrap in cellophane. The birds we shot that day, if indeed we killed a would end up in a pot, not as a trophy. Of course, when I 'we', I don't mean that there was ever going to be a circ.u.mstance where I was going to be let near a gun - a very wise decisi for all concerned. I was briefed to stand perfectly still when reached the hunting site and not to do anything that might ma them think I was a bird. I strongly suspect at this point they wi taking the p.i.s.s. I can just see the headline: 'Bald, 180 lb man wii large ears, wearing highly decorated sweater, shot when Finni: man mistakes him for small game bird.'

We met up with our hunting partner Pertti, who owned land on which we were about to hunt. Well into his seven and with a face marked with a crease for every year, he had b hunting since his childhood and had probably killed more bi in that time than I had eaten. We split into pairs, and I headed in pursuit of Henri, who was striding through the brush tow; a small copse. Niko and Pertti went in the opposite directioi towards a spot overlooking an open field.

Then we waited and waited and waited. Nothing. Well, not for us, anyway. Not a thing. We had more chance of catching 0ionia than a bird. I didn't mind. The scenery was indescrib-^^j^^ljgautiful and the air clear and crisp as I placed my rear on * vvelconiing tree stump. Henri seemed less sanguine about the * hole thing. He moved around a bit with weary sighs expressing jjis general dissatisfaction with the birds' failure to land in front of his gun sights and then decided to make some peculiar noises. They were meant to sound like a lady duck with loose morals, hut really sounded like a desperate Finn making cartoon duck noises in the middle of a forest. Eventually Henri gave in. With another sigh he broke his gun and called me over just as I was having a pleasant daydream about Sichuan barbecue.

'Did we catch anything?' I asked innocently, already knowing the answer but unkindly looking forward to the sheepish reply.

'No, but Niko and Pertti did', he replied, a mite too tersely.

How did he know? I hadn't heard any shots ring out. Perhaps there was an intuitive connection between brother hunters in Finland, built up over centuries. Perhaps, after years, he could smell a mixture of cordite and death in the wind. Perhaps this particular group of hunters had developed their own form of communication involving hoots and squawks that a novice like me would have mistaken for animal sounds.

'They texted me', he said, holding up his Nokia.

The others had indeed caught a couple of beauties, plump and ready for hanging. Pertti, who was sitting on the bonnet of his car with the ever-present cigarette dangling from his mouth, posed for a picture with his prize as his two young disciples looked on. He set off home to his wife so she could prepare the birds for a meal to which we were all invited the next day, while we headed back to the Rydman house with Henri and Niko talking about just how close they had come to shooting some beauties of their own. Course you did, boys, course you did. That night it was fish on the menu.

Loimu lohi is one of the most simple dishes you can imagine, but it tasted impossibly delicious. A whole side of salmon was nailed to a plank of wood and left to smoke gently over the embers of a fading fire. Dishes Hke this appeal to me Q great ingredient and then don't screw around with it too muclj^ When supper was ready, I cut a large slab of oily fish and ladlejj a spoonful of the mushrooms we picked earlier on to my plj^^ They had been cooked in a little cream. It was a truly sumptuo^j meal in the surroundings of a welcoming group of new friends It is little wonder that, as soon as I dived under the covers of put-me-up, I was asleep and dreaming of duck noises.

The next morning it was time to meet Pertti's wife, Kiti known to one and all as the Prinsessa. It is hard to know how to describe a woman who, like so much I had experienced in Finland, stepped straight out of the pages of a fairy tale. A plump woman with a face brightened by a constant smile, her entire existence seemed to involve making sure that everyone she met was eating all the time.

When I arrived at their picturesque house, she was already hard at work baking, and as I sat down, she poured me a large gla.s.s of fresh rhubarb and ginger juice that she 'just happened' to have made. She gave me a tour of her house, filled to bursting with a lifetime's collection of bric-a-brac, before settling me down to talk about her greatest pa.s.sion, food. I fell in love immediately. She was a kindred spirit, and as we talked, we cooked together. We prepared more of those meaty mushrooms, we stuffed wild mallard that I had collected from the cellar where they hung, with apples and garlic, we made salads and we laughed. A lot.

I never really spent that much time with my own mother cooking. The kitchen was her domain, and I just enjoyed the end-results. Now she's gone, I have added it to the long list of regrets I have. But sitting there with the Prinsessa, I got just an inkling of what it would have been like. By the time people began arriving for lunch, the Prinsessa had already laid out enough food to cause her dining table to sag under the weight of all the dishes. Alongside the mallard, which had been braised in cream, were rolled herrings, wafer-thin slices of cured elk, a whole poached salmon and the chanterelles served three ways: pickled, in cream jed with apples and walnuts. There were also salads and jftd to*^^ crusty bread to be smothered with b.u.t.ter, '"^p^rtti as tradition required, read a pa.s.sage about the joys of the harvest of the land, and then we all tucked in to a ''^^morable meal with almost everything served coming from heir land or the skies above. Among all the abundance was a niall dish of new potatoes from their garden. I popped one in mouth. It was the best potato I had ever tasted. Needing no accompanying salt or b.u.t.ter, it was sweeter than candy, and I returned time and again to sneak more. We ate until we had to be rolled away from the table and then moved to the parlour to take tea with a slice of apple cake. While everyone tucked in, I am not too proud to admit that I sneaked back to the dining table and stole the last potato. l( Eat My Globe was about anything, it was about moments such as this - sitting with people who were, until recently, complete strangers, sharing their delicious food.

At the end of what would prove to be one of the hardest legs of the trips - China, Mongolia and Russia - to be coc.o.o.ned in the welcoming arms of a loving family, even if it was not my own, was a very special thing. I shall never forget it. That night, as I went to bed, however, my mind was on other things. I had already turned my attention to the next stage of the journey. I was off to look for America.

Fed, White and Blue I fell in love with the United States on my first visit to New Yo^ City, in the early 1980s. Most of all, I love the people: extraordinary ily engaging, frighteningly open and the most pa.s.sionate and lo friends any man can have. I count myself fortunate to have many I adore eating in America too, and not just the fine dinit scenes in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles or Chicag where the restaurants can be staggeringly good but can also be j mediocre and over-rated as anywhere in the world. It is the fo Americans seem most apologetic about and loath to admit likic that attracts me most. Dishes that, when made well, are sir but stunning: barbecue, a legacy of German butchers; baking,; legacy of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe; and simpl delights such as meatloaf and hamburgers, which can be entirel^l delicious. It was this food 1 was in search of Of course, somewhere along the way I was sure to poke my curious nose arour the entrance of a few smart restaurants, but that is not whe the great stuff is, that is not where the great people are and it 1$ certainly not where the real America is.

Kansas City, Missouri, is an odd place to begin an eating tc of America. In fact, it's an odd place to visit anyway without: reason. It is a pleasant city, with a vibrant community spirit and bags of culture paid for over the last century by cattle, rail and : lumber magnates, but there is still a feeling that it has never quite recovered from turning down the chance to be the central hub' for the cross-country rail lines back in the nineteenth century,; an opportunity grabbed by Chicago instead.

no ave friend Mark Cordes is the most wholesome man I h f He uses phrases such as 'Gosh darn it' with no sense

ever niei- ^ i , i . .

f rony at ^^'^ ^^^^^ ^'^ many people 'sir' or 'ma'am' that I " thinking we are on the set of Little House on the Prairie. We became friends through business, and for years he had been invit-me to join him at the American Royal, arguably the biggest barbecue compet.i.tion in the world, where, my research told me, nearly 400,000 lb of meat were cooked and consumed in the s.p.a.ce of two days every year.

With the exception of my sister, who never touches the stuff, meat is rather important to the Majumdar clan. From the gargantuan roasts on Sunday, where inevitably we would have heated discussions about what animal would provide the centrepiece to the following week's lunch, to the Welsh stews and Bengali curries prepared by my mother, meat was at the centre of every meal and remains so to this day.

TGS and I have even predicated entire holidays around our search for meat. We talk about meat a great deal, love pressing our noses against the windows of local butchers, watching in awe as they use their skills to produce glistening cuts of things that once made cute little animal noises, and have even been known secretly to rub the fat on joints of beef, pork or lamb making sounds usually heard from honeymooning couples.

Of course, I was interested in coming to an event where thousands of Midwesterners cooked and ate vast amounts of meat while drinking beer, and there was nothing stopping me this time. I turned up at Mark's house two days before the event and made myself comfortable in his guestroom before he even had the chance to say 'That's swell'.

The American Royal barbecue compet.i.tion is part of a bigger event bringing together people from all over the Midwest to celebrate the cattle industry. There are rodeos and farm shows in events lasting a few weeks. The barbecue compet.i.tion is the centrepiece, with over 500 teams competing in two events: the Open, for anyone who can afford to rent a s.p.a.ce, and the Invitational, for the serious professionals who already hav championship under their belts. It is hard to explain the sea the event, even if I tell you that it covers a s.p.a.ce at least the i often football fields. It is immense.

Barbecue is serious business in America, not even clos related to the UK notion, which usually means lots of i lots of swear words, bits of supermarket chicken charred on outside and life-threateningly red on the inside, and inevitat plenty of tears as what should have been a nice family occasioni goes t.i.ts-up in withering blasts of accusations and botulism. InJ America, barbecue involves huge hunks of meat being smok over different woods for hours on end, in smokers the size a small European car, so they are cooked to succulent perfel tion. It involves slabs of pork or beef ribs marinated in seer rubs and cooked until the flesh begins to fall off the bone. involves chicken cooked until the skin is crispy and the fie moist, and it involves links of plump, spicy sausages with juices bubbling under the skin ready to release their flavc at the slightest tooth pressure. It varies from region to regioji In Texas it is all about the cow. In Kentucky you may eve see mutton on the menu. In Kansas it's a combination of fattyj beef brisket cooking alongside pork b.u.t.t and baby back rib Everyone in the different states of America thinks that their' barbecue is the best. They usually have guns, so I tend not to express an opinion.

I had been invited to join Burn Rate, a motley a.s.sortment Mark's friends who use this as an opportunity to do a bit of male bonding, barbecue being very much a male event. The womenfolk were left at home looking after the children while the men-set to work erecting a marquee and preparing two large smokers for the days ahead. It was hard work, lugging hay bales to mark our patch and erecting fences to create a perimeter, but cooled by cans of beer pulled from tubs of ice and fuelled by some ribs that had been thrown on the smoker to test the heat, we were able to turn what had originally been an a.s.sortment of cases, freezer boxes and off-cuts of wood into an attractive party s.p.a.ce with a working kitchen.

I was happy to be set to work hefting boxes, putting up fences and doing whatever I was told, not only because I wanted to earn my corn but also because it gave me the perfect opportunity to get to know my fellow team members and to thank them for their extraordinary generosity. After we had more or less finished, Paul Diamond, one of the team, tossed me a nice cold one and said, 'You wanna rub some b.u.t.t?'

I am not normally that kind of boy, but in this case, yes I did, I wanted to rub some b.u.t.t very much indeed. We headed over to the kitchen, and I was handed a tube containing plastic gloves of the sort that make me want to run and hide when my proctologist puts them on, before Paul opened one of the freezer boxes and produced a large piece of pork.

'About five pounds', he announced proudly. 'We have about fifty of them, I am not sure it will be enough.' He was deadly serious and pa.s.sed me one to work on.

We smeared each of them with French's mustard to hold the rub on. Then we heaped dry rub on to the mustard and began ma.s.saging it into the meat, which I am ashamed to admit was an unnervingly sensual experience. Americans love to explain their ingredients at great length. 'There's oregano in there', Andy, another team member, explained. 'A little rosemary, garlic, lemon, pepper', the list went on longer than the credits from a Star Wars movie. 1 didn't mind, I was just happy rubbing away, grinning like a buffoon.

'I can't ever recall seeing you look so happy', Mark beamed.

He was right. Buzzed with a couple or three beers and cheerily giving a foot rub to a dead pig, I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that this was one of the happier days of my life. It got better as the first rack of ribs was taken from the smoker for us to try, and the whole team gathered around the table grabbing hands full of succulent pork and moaning in pleasure as they took their first bite.

'The rules say that the meat should fall from the bone where you are biting and not off the whole rib, or it is cooked', explained another team-mate. 'These are good, they are not good enough for the compet.i.tion.'

By now it was beginning to get dark and, our set-up compl we prepared more meat and began to chill out after hoursi hard work in the hot sun. Someone produced the biggest be of Jack Daniels I have ever seen in my life, poured me a th finger slug and then the same for himself which he topped i with Coca-Cola.

'We've earned this', he sighed, taking a long draw from plastic cup.

We were all set up for the following night, and most of team members looked as though they were ready to drop. Sc in fact, had already begun to flag and were draped out over 1 bales; others had retired to the back of the van, where they 1 placed sleeping bags and pillows. I can take male bonding only far, and Mark, thank G.o.d, felt the same. We left them to it; drove back to the comforts of his flat for a good night's rest.

By the time we arrived the next morning, the team already hard at work preparing the meat both for the compe tion and for the night's party. The two smokers were stac to capacity with brisket, pork b.u.t.t and chicken, and ribs marinating happily in freezer boxes on the floor. There was : a lot to be done. Most of the team were having breakfast, whi^ from the appearance of ribs and whiskey on the table seer alarmingly similar to supper. I was not quite up to this breal of champions at 8.30 a.m., so I took the opportunity to wand off with Mark to see the rest of the showground.

All the teams were getting ready for action. They rang from small 'Mom & Pop' teams out to have a weekend's fun serious contenders with large marquees, enormous smokers at even stages for live music to be played during their party. Be of all were the names. I thought our own. Burn Rate, based on the term used for the speed at which new companies get through their start-up capital, was good, but it was tame in comparison with Motley Que, The Master Basters and, finest of all, hats off to Morning Wood.

The taste of what we had done at Burn Rate was good, but when I got to sample the barbecue from some of the teams in the 'pro' section, I realized that they had taken things to a whole different level. Pulled pork came with a fabulous char created by adding brown sugar to the rub; brisket had fat that just melted on the mouth like savoury candy floss; and the ribs, my G.o.d, ribs with just enough bite to make the hunt for meat worthwhile. It is little wonder that some of these people spend every weekend of the year competing and can earn up to $2 million in prizes and endors.e.m.e.nts.

By the afternoon country music Was already blaring from speakers all over the campground as I threaded my way back through the crowds to the Burn Rate marquee, where our party was just getting under way. The wives of the various team members were gathered, staring in horror into the back of the truck, where their husbands had been sleeping, a s.p.a.ce that now looked like a cross between Lord of the Flies and something Alexander Solzhenitsyn might have written about.

'We are barbecue widows', Paul's wife^ Kathy, sighed. 'The boys do this, and we take care of the kids for a few days. But next month all the girls get to go to Cancun or up to Chicago for the weekend, and the men look after the children.'

Their children had already begun to dive headlong into the food we produced. Nearly 400 lb of meat, I was told, alongside salads, coleslaw, beans, bread and desserts, it was easily enough to feed 500 or more, so I was glad to see a steady stream of people arriving.

'You're grinning again', Mark nudged me, and I realized I was just standing there with an overburdened plate in my hand and a huge smile on my face. I was still trying to take it all in. Not just the scale of the event, the amount of ^vork it had involved or even the unbeatable taste of barbecue, it was more about the people. Over the course of the day each one of the team had come up to me and personally invited me back again any timg I wanted. Some had offered accommodation if I ever got fed up with staying with Mark, and others had said just to come over any time anyway, just for the h.e.l.l of it. It was moments such as this that the whole trip had been about. The chance, through food, to meet people whom I could genuinely call 'friend', and here in America's oft criticized Midwest I had found a whole group of them.

I forked a large mound of pulled pork into my mouth, turned to Mark and just nodded.

Dog Eat Dog in Chicago.

I am slowly beginning to develop a theory about American food. It is by no means fully gestated but goes along the lines that the USA's greatest contribution to world cuisine is ... the sandwich.

Before all the amateur food historians pop out and buy a ladder to climb on the highest horse they can find, I know the Americans didn't invent it - the British did - but like football, we sent the sandwich out into the world for everyone else to do better. It is in America that the concept of slamming incredible ingredients between slices of bread has reached its highest point. Americans, in fact, have raised it to an art form.

1 am talking about portable food originally designed to feed honest, hard-working folk on the go for small amounts of money. I am talking about the Po'Boy and the m.u.f.fuletta I was hoping to see in New Orleans. The cheese steak 1 had marked out in Philadelphia, the pastrami on rye, which New Yorkers cannot live without, the barbecue brisket sandwich I had eaten in Kansas and was looking forward to in Texas and, of course, hamburgers and hot dogs, perhaps America's biggest contribution to the culinary landscape of the world, exported to and copied in every corner of the globe.

This theory began to find fertile soil in my brain as I headed off to one of my favourite cities anywhere. Chicago is to my mind one of the truly great American cities. New York, like London, 's a city of the world: it operates on a different level. Chicago, on the other hand, could never have been imagined or built anywhere but America. Its architecture, its location and, of course.

its food make it stand out from any other city in the USA. Every time I walk its streets, I fmd myself staring open-mouthed at a skyline that represents some of America's greatest achievements from the towering Gothic splendour of the Wrigley Building to the International-style high-rises of Mies van der Rohe. The people too offer a uniquely American combination of brusque charm and brashness, all mixed with a childlike enthusiasm for their home town.

I had been particularly pondering the evolution of the sandwich because, as I get older, 1 fmd myself underwhelmed by so many restaurant meals. It may be that, after thousands of them, I am jaded, or it may be that, after years of eating food that has been messed around with by chefs keen to show their skills, my taste buds just crave the simplicity of good ingredients not screwed around with too much. So it was in Chicago. Admittedly, I did not trouble the very highest end of their dining offerings by visiting Charlie Trotter or Alinea, but the restaurants I visited came well recommended by locals and were packed to the rafters with diners who seemed happy enough. The meals, however, were ordinary and fitted neatly into the identikit mould of mid-range American dining. A bit of tuna here, a strip steak there - you could write the menu in your sleep. I found myself much happier eating stuff between bits of bread and particularly, in Chicago, the hot dog.

The first was at a legendary joint. The Wiener's Circle, famous not just for its hot dogs but also for the abrasive nature of the staff, who are, shall we say, not the sort of people you would take home to tea. I had just had a 'blah' lunch at a place called North Pond and was feeling miserable and, even more shamefully, still hungry. On the way back to my hotel I pa.s.sed The Wiener's Circle and popped inside.

'What the f.u.c.k d'ya want, big ears?' shrieked a large African American woman through the serving hatch.

'Er', I stammered, 'I am not sure.'

'What the f.u.c.k kind of accent is that?', she hollered. Are you r.e.t.a.r.ded?'

'No, I'm British.'