The Hungry Cyclist
By Tom Kevill-Davies
Harper Collins, 2009, 368 pages
$17.95 in Canada, $13.17 in the US
Tom Kevill-Davies rode out of New York City on an empty stomach. He spent the next 15,000 miles filling it on a gastronomic cycling adventure that took him from the Big Apple to Rio de Janeiro. His goal? To find the perfect meal.
In his travel memoir, the British cyclist turns the open road into a buffet and takes us on a two-year ride through the highways and back roads of the Americas, propelled by a burning compulsion: to fuel his engine. No one can pedal on an empty stomach, he argues, and there is no better way to build an appetite than to cycle the very terrain that produces the food for your next meal.
Kevill-Davies’ adventure takes us on a culinary and sensory overload as he describes the mouthwatering meals he encounters along the way. We find him at a powwow in Northern Ontario, eating wild rice and bannock; in greasy-spoon dinners in the American Midwest downing piles of bacon and eggs, and at tail-gate parties in Oregon sampling some of the best barbecued ribs America has to offer.
His travels aren’t without pain and grit; he suffers the highs and lows of life on the road, the loneliness, the monotony of the highway, the flat tires and the close calls with semis. He faces uphill battles in alpine terrain, and the heat and sand of the Baja peninsula. But his efforts are well rewarded with lovingly prepared, and sometimes purely blissful, homemade food.
The route Kevill-Davies chooses is unusual as far as pan-American bike tours go. Instead of the classic West Coast route from Alaska to Argentina, he opts to start in New York, travel north and then west, looping through parts of Ontario and the American Midwest, then down the West Coast to Peru, where he cuts through the thick of the Amazon to reach Brazil.
Along the way he is exposed to divine flavors, always tied to the land he cycles and the people who live there. In the northern portion of his trip, he samples moose burgers. On the West Coast, he feasts on buttery Dungeness crab. He discovers steamy, juicy barbacoa lamb in Mexico, slow-cooked in a hot pit. He even shares ice cream with a scary but soft-centered military general in Guatemala.
As engaging as the food he enjoys are the people he meets, who generously take him into their kitchens to share some of the food they are most proud of.
The book is dotted with recipes throughout, a nice touch, although sometimes with ingredients hard to come by (beaver tail soup, snapping turtle stew, roast guinea pig). Other recipes, like his pupusas and chiles rellenos are accessible and authentic.
One frustration for the reader is his approach to big cities. If you have any interest in finding out what people eat in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Mexico City or Quito, you’re out of luck. While he cycles through these cities, he omits them from his travel tales, where the reader might long to hear stories of the hustle and bustle of downtown eateries.
Regardless, Kevill-Davies instills a sense of adventure and culinary discovery. Yes, he tells us about a great cycling trip, but he always reminds us that food is his fuel and its pleasures are his drive.
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