Summer XVI. On the road

Intro & Preface & Contents

Previous: Summer XV. Age + online communities

In the past ten years I have seen a good deal of English inns in many parts of the country, [we won’t ask why]  and it astonishes me to find how bad they are. Only once or twice have I chanced upon an inn (or, if you like, hotel) where I enjoyed any sort of comfort. More often than not, even the beds are unsatisfactory -- either pretentiously huge and choked with drapery, or hard and thinly accoutered. Furnishing is uniformly hideous, and there is either no attempt at ornament (the safest thing) or a villainous taste thrusts itself upon one at every turn. The meals, in general, are coarse and poor in quality, and served with slovenliness. [I'm guessing Ryecroft was not writing for the Board of Tourism.]

I have often heard it said that the touring cyclist has caused the revival of wayside inns. It may be so, but the touring cyclist seems to be very easily satisfied. Unless we are greatly deceived by the old writers, an English inn used to be a delightful resort, abounding in comfort, and supplied with the best of food; a place, too, where one was sure of welcome at once hearty and courteous. The inns of to-day, in country towns and villages, are not in that good old sense inns at all; they are merely public-houses. The landlord's chief interest is the sale of liquor. Under his roof you may. if you choose, eat and sleep, but what you are expected to do is drink...

At a public-house you expect public-house manners, and nothing better will meet you at most of the so-called inns or hotels. It surprises me to think in how few instances I have found even the pretense of civility...

And the food. Here, beyond doubt, there is grave degeneracy. It is impossible to suppose that the old travelers by coach were contented with entertainment such as one gets nowadays at the table of a country hotel. The cooking is wont to be wretched; the quality of the meat and vegetables worse than mediocre. What! Shall one ask in vain at an English inn for an honest chop or steak? ... It would be mere indulgence of the spirit of grumbling to talk about poisonous tea and washy coffee; every one knows that these drinks cannot be had at public tables; but what if there be real reason for discontent with one’s pint of ale? Often, still, that draught from the local brewery is sound and invigorating, but there are grievous exceptions, and no doubt the tendency is here, as in other things -- a falling off, a carelessness, if not a calculating dishonesty. I foresee the day when Englishmen will have forgotten how to brew beer; when one’s only safety will lie in the draught imported from Munich.

Alpha.

I am reminded here of Bill Bryson’s observations on eating and living on the road while traveling in Britain in Notes From a Small Island (1995).

Given the nature of the hotel [an Elizabethan manor in Corfe Castle], I’d expected the menu to feature items like brown Windsor soup and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, but of course things have moved on in the hotel trade. The menu now was richly endowed with ten-guinea words that you wouldn’t have been seen on an English menu ten years ago --”noisettes,” “tartare,” “duxelle,” “coulis,” “timbale” -- and written in a curious inflated language with eccentric capitalizations. I had, and I quote, “Fanned Galia Melon and Cumbrian Air Dried Ham served with a Mixed Leaf Salad,” followed by “Fillet Steak served with a crushed Black Peppercorn Sauce flamed in Brandy and finished with Cream.” which together were nearly as pleasurable to read as to eat...

It’s a funny thing about English diners. They’ll let you dazzle them with piddly duxelles of this and fussy little noisettes of that, but don’t mess with their puddings, which is my thinking exactly. All the dessert entries were for gooey dishes with good English names. I had sticky toffee pudding and it was splendid. As I finished the waiter invited me to withdraw to the lounge where a caisson of fresh-roasted coffee, complemented by the chef’s own selection of mint wafers, awaited. I dressed the tabletop with a small circlet of copper specie crafted at the Royal Mint and, suppressing a small eruction of gastrointestinal air, effected my egress.

Did the railroads kill the trade for these local inns Ryecroft refers to? It wouldn’t surprise me. Just as the Interstate highways ruined the business of motels and restaurants in small towns on the older highways in the U.S., the railroads must have made redundant much of the infrastructure of the old coach system.

I only stayed for one night in a Bed and Breakfast (in Edinburgh) the three weeks I spent in Great Britain, so I can’t really contribute anything on the subject of public lodging -- my only difficulty was in finding a laundromat. And when I did find one it turned out not to have dryers. (?!) Fortunately the proprietor of the B&B let me hang my clothes to dry in her greenhouse/rabbit hutch.

As a vegetarian I actually ate very well in Britain, though mostly Indian, Chinese, or Italian when eating out. And I can’t comment on the beer since I don’t drink beer... sad to say.

Growing up, in addition to our other vacation and visiting family trips, I would often accompany my father on sales trips when out of school. In other words we spent a great deal of time in motels and restaurants and cafes all over America in the 1960s. I loved it all. The motels usually had swimming pools I would use. I liked to eat out (my mother was not the best cook). I only recall one motel disaster in a bug-ridden, disgusting little motel in Kansas (probably around Hoxie?) that we accepted in desperation and abandoned before dawn to continue our trip.

Perhaps today I would be less pleased with those places, but there is an attraction to novelty. I still recall (vaguely) my fondness for particular motels or hotels in Colorado Springs, Disneyland, and Van Nuys. And now that I’m thinking about it, some atypical older hotels and lodges come to mind as well: The amazing Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone, Beaver Lodge in Winter Park, a hotel we stayed at in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. There’s a mix here of the attractiveness and unusualness of the venue along with the good times I had at these places as a child. 

Modern and new or old and charming, I pretty much enjoyed them all. I remember a very traditional motel in (I believe) Columbia, Missouri with detached units around a large central lawn/play area. We arrived just as a storm hit with lightning, thunder, and the threat of tornadoes.

Today the mattresses and food might be dramatically better or worse, but in either case it wouldn’t be what I remember from my childhood.

Next: Summer XVII. Class struggle.