A Fork In The Road: Tales of Food, Pleasure and Discovery On The Road (Lonely Planet Travel Literature)

by Lonely Planet

  I asked her to book ten nights.

  ‘Won’t you be wanting to stop anywhere else?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘It’s winter in Helsinki,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I like the cold. My favourite people are Shackleton, Scott and Mawson and they’ll be in my first novel.’

  During the twenty-six-hour flight with Qantas, I made plans. I’d book a train to Northern Finland to see the aurora borealis, hire a snow sled with four black-eyed huskies who’d mush me through blizzards. I could call ‘gee’ and ‘haw’ with a blanket on my lap and, if the conditions were extreme, ‘duct tape for the face’ which, according to the travel guides, should prevent frostbite.

  Scandinavian food involves lots of fish so I asked the man in 14C to teach me how to say ‘I think there’s something fishy going on here in Finland’ but as he rightly pointed out, this pun wouldn’t work in translation.

  ‘How about: I’d like to watch the fishermen fishing for fishes in Finnish ice-holes?’ I said.

  The man in 14C had a few more drinks.

  At Helsinki-Vantaa’s taxi rank, the air was so cold it made my skin sting and when I unzipped my suitcase, my fingers were numb and sore—as though bruised. But I was more alive, wide awake, no lucid indifference now. I was sharper in the snow and already happier. I was still happy when I got to the hotel and saw that Huone 18 was cheap because it was smaller than a holding cell under a cop-house.

  For three days I went for walks through the city, brisk in my Doc Marten boots on streets of ice and snow. I sat in a café with a view of the Baltic Sea and watched ferries and ice-breakers crunching a path to Estonia and St Petersburg.

  In the late afternoon, when it got too cold for walking, I went to Strindberg Café and read Ibsen, Strinberg and the grotty Timo K. Mukka. On the fourth day, I bought a ticket for a Sibelius concert in Finlandia Hall, withdrew a lump of spending money, and checked my bank balance.

  I was broke.

  I’d been an idiot. I was a lawyer and earned good money but I had debts, and I’d run out of favours. I wasn’t only bust, but trapped in Helsinki for a week with no more than the equivalent of $18 a day or 76 Finnish markka.

  I’ve always preferred the cold and the dark of winter, but I didn’t want to be cold in Helsinki, not if I couldn’t spend money on nice hot food and excursions up north or husky rides or a trip to watch the ice-fishing.

  Like most people, I’ve got more than one fear. In 2001, as well as my dread of summer, I had an equal dread of being poor, of living a straightened and botched life; a fear of not being able to get my hands on luxury or extravagance—a fear of ending up bust and broken like my mum and dad and brother.

  In the intermission at the Sibelius concert, I sat in the foyer and watched people who had plenty of both food and money and they were eating a feast of cakes and pastries and drinking strong, hot coffee.

  I was hungry and wanted cake and coffee.

  I went to the bar. Maybe I could afford a small slice of kinuski-kermakakku (a caramel cream cake).

  ‘How much for just one slice and a small cup of coffee?’ I asked.

  ‘There is no further cake left,’ said the barman. ‘It was necessary to pre-book.’

  He was with regret.

  ‘Will you order a drink?’

  ‘No, thanks. I want cake.’

  Just like Tolstoy’s white bear, triple-layer chocolate cream cake, once mentioned, can’t be ignored or forgotten and, from my armchair in the corner of the foyer I sulked and stewed in my hunger.

  Then I had an idea. I’d do something I hadn’t done since university: the ‘pass-over’. I’d lift some leftover cake and biscuits (keksi) from an abandoned table.

  Although there was plenty of time left before the concert started—at least fifteen minutes, maybe more—a young couple got up from their table and headed back to the auditorium. There are always people who return to their seats early. They are fretful and conservative types, the same kind of people who won’t sit in a train carriage unless it’s the exact seat they’ve been allocated, and they won’t move even if there’s a more comfortable seat across the aisle or in the next carriage. Without them, ‘the pass-over’ wouldn’t be possible.

  I took a book from my bag and dropped it near the abandoned table and, as I bent down to pick up the book, I made sure my backpack swiped at a cup of coffee, causing spillage. Next, I pretended to clean up and used a napkin to scoop a slice of leftover cake and some biscuits, too.

  This manoeuvre is surprisingly easy. By the time waiters realise what’s happened, and they come to the table all worry and wiping, I’ve stashed what I want, and nobody’s the wiser.

  Back in my armchair in Finlandia Hall’s grand foyer, I ate the cake and got more proof that food tastes better in cold climates. No cake had ever tasted as good as this cake tasted.

  In hot weather, I get hungry, of course, but only at the top of my stomach. And the day of the concert, I’d been outside all afternoon in the freezing frost and my hunger was deeper and the eating was better.

  The concert ended late, nearly midnight, and it was too cold for walking. My saliva might freeze and I had no earmuffs, or duct tape, and so I caught a taxi to the hotel and used half of next day’s money.

  Being broke was a nuisance, but not an emergency: Helsinki’s a beautiful, compact city, and there’s plenty to see for free. But having no money meant not eating in restaurants, and this bothered me most of all. There was a supermarket near the hotel, and I’d have plenty of bread and jam, but it pissed me off that I’d come all this way to eat bananas and biscuits.

  I decided I’d eat on the cheap during the day, and at night, go to a fancy restaurant near Market Square and order the soup, or whatever was the cheapest thing on the menu. Eating even a small portion in a flash restaurant was a whole lot better than nothing at all. And my it mattered to me, perhaps too much, that I’d escaped a life of poverty and grunge for a life of privilege and if I couldn’t eat my dinner in flash restaurants—after all my efforts and study, scholarships and prizes—I might as well call myself a failure, like the rest of my family.

  The next day, I stayed in my room and learnt some Finnish:

  ‘I’m very sorry, but I’d like to have the soup, but nothing else’ and ‘I feel sad’.

  When somebody said, ‘Why are you sad?’ I’d say, ‘I’ve lost my mittens.’

  I also learnt to say, ‘I’d like to sample more dishes on this lovely menu, but I don’t have much time.’

  And I learnt how to say, ‘I’m a lawyer, but not a crooked one’ and ‘Finnish food is far superior to Swedish food.’

  If somebody said, ‘Really?’ or ‘Why?’ I’d say, ‘Swedish food tastes like a poet’s raincoat.’

  The first fancy restaurant I tried was right across from Market Square and had a beautiful, snowy view. It was early, half-past six, and I sat at the unfortunate table: every restaurant has an unfortunate table, and this one was close to the toilets.

  There were four other diners, two couples. The men wore flashy suits and the women had crispy, sprayed, wig-like hair. They were rich and they smelt rich, and the women were so thin that even inside their big coats they had no bulk.

  The waiter wasn’t busy, but he didn’t bother coming to my toilet-side table. He looked at me when I first came in, but after that, he paid me no mind.

  While I waited, I looked round, a hard and long examination. Doing this hard-looking is more than a cure for boredom; it’s the only proper way to live, though some of my friends don’t agree: ‘You’re like a cop behind a two-way mirror’ and, ‘You’re like an alien. It’s like you’ve never seen anything before’.

  By the time the waiter came, I was very hungry and wanted everything on the menu: avokukko (open-faced fish loaf) and moose mousse, pike with mushrooms and wild-berry sauce, reindeer with lingonberry sauce and chanterelles, blue-mussel soup, slow-fried lavaret (whitefish), mushroom crepes and traditional desserts, such
as strawberry milk and doughnuts with coffee pudding. But an entrée cost €14.50 and a main cost €28.00 and I’d have to stick to a bowl of pea and ham soup.

  I made sure the waiter saw me writing with a Montblanc pen. I also made sure—by rolling up my sleeve—that he saw my watch, which was a gift from a rich lawyer who smelt like old vase-water. It was TW Steel with sapphire crystal, and worth a small fortune.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ I said. ‘I’d like to have the soup, but nothing else. Is that possible?’

  ‘With our pleasure,’ he said.

  I did some writing then, made notes as though in secret, waited until the maître d’ and waiter were in the kitchen, and when the waiter was near my table I put the notebook away, and quickly.

  The soup came with a basket of bread rolls, each a different shade. I ate all six and slowly and went on looking round, went on making notes.

  The waiter asked if I was satisfied.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Kitos.’

  He made a long speech, and I’d no idea what he said, but I nodded and smiled and asked for the bill. He made another speech, then came back with a plate of food.

  I think I said: ‘No, thank you. I am not hungry. I would just like some water please. And the bill.’

  He smiled, and I saw his teeth.

  ‘Kitos paljon,’ I said. (Thank you very much.)

  He said something else. I think I said: ‘Kitos … että oli erittäin maukasta, mutta minun täytyy lähteä nyt.’ (Thank you. That was lovely, but I need to go now.)

  If there’d been a mistake, so be it. It wasn’t my fault. So, I ate all the food. The waiter came back with yet another plate and the maître d’ kept watch from his station, his back pressed against the bar.

  The third serving was bigger than the last: six morsels of fish, fishes in pastry, fish with noodles, scallops, and fish thingies inside tempura and a sea-yoke floating in a bowl of tasty water.

  I didn’t waste any time worrying about being asked to pay. I was happy. I’d made my mind up: the waiter must’ve mistaken me for a food critic, or a reviewer, and why? I’ll never know for sure. When I’d told him that I only wanted the soup, I suppose I tried to compensate, and assert myself, and I said I was a lawyer, and something like this:

  ‘I would like more food, but I am a lawyer. I need to go to my hotel. I must make an important phone call.’

  Maybe the waiter thought, who is this person? No lawyer in the world dresses the way she does. If she’s not a lawyer, then what is she, this woman?

  My baggy jumper was too shiny to be made of wool and my hair looked like a mistake (I’d cut it myself) and my torn Crumpler backpack was held together with an Occy-strap.

  The bill came and I hadn’t been charged a penny for the extra food. I paid only for the bowl of soup and no more. My mood soared all the more when the maître d’ said, ‘For your pleasure, madam.’

  Tomorrow was going to be a great day. I’d walk during the bright hours and spend the darkness somewhere warm, maybe the patisserie that looked out at the Art Nouveau train station, or I’d have a hot chocolate in that place near the harbour and scout for food.

  I’d definitely get some ‘pass-over’ in Strindberg Café—where most people, who had too much of things, didn’t seem able to eat a whole piece of Omenapiiras ja vaniljakastiketta (apple pie with vanilla sauce), especially not after they’d eaten a plate full of graavilohiruisleipä, kananmunaa ja mummonkurkkuja (rye bread with lightly salted salmon, egg and pickled cucumbers).

  So, I would. I’d finish for them.

  CURTIS STONE is an Australian chef, television personality and New York Times bestselling author. He’s the host of Bravo’s culinary competition Top Chef Masters and appears regularly on shows including The Today Show, Ellen, Conan, The Talk and The Chew. His fifth cookbook, What’s for Dinner?: Recipes for a Busy Life, was released in April 2013.

  AN ITALIAN EDUCATION

  Curtis Stone

  Somewhere in a drawer back home in Australia, there’s a photo of me standing in the Melbourne International Airport. I’m wearing a wide-brimmed outback hat and holding a beat-up Australian football under my arm. A gigantic backpack looms behind my head, dwarfing my 6-foot 3-inch frame. I’m twenty-one years old and feeling like I’m the first Aussie to ever set foot outside the Commonwealth.

  It was 1998, the year Monica Lewinsky’s stained blue dress almost impeached a president and the European Central Bank was born in Frankfurt, Germany. It was also the year that I first travelled outside of Australia, and I had that particular blend of swagger and stupidity that young men have when they get their first real taste of freedom.

  In hindsight that photo is the beginning of adventures that are still unfolding today. But when I posed for it, I only knew what had ended—culinary school. After four years studying and working every conceivable station at the Savoy Hotel in Melbourne, I was officially a chef. In those days, all the best chefs were European, so I reckoned that after school I’d head to Europe to study with the masters. While I was filleting barramundi and julienning carrots, I saved like a man with a plan. When culinary school ended, I sold my sky-blue Datsun 200B and counted the till; I had ten thousand Australian dollars to my name, which meant I could travel for roughly three months on $100 a day. When the money was gone, I’d need to find a job.

  That budget added up for my best mate Tommy, who was working for his dad as a concreter at the time. Tommy and I had been thick as thieves since high school. He was that kid who would lean against a wall at a party with his arms crossed and a sly smile lifting one side of his mouth, just taking it all in. He was the quintessential fly on the wall, which explains why everyone called him Tommy the Fly. Tommy was also mad about soccer, an obsession I never really understood, as Aussie Rules was my game, and that summer he was headed to the FIFA World Cup in Paris. So we hatched a plan to meet after the finals in Pamplona, Spain, for the running of the bulls.

  Actually a plan might be stretching it. We looked at a map and agreed to meet at two o’clock on a day in July at the entrance to the Plaza del Castillo, the main square in Pamplona. We’d figure it out from there. So I boarded my first ever international flight, from Melbourne to Rome, sure of nothing more than I’d need to catch a train from the Italian capital to Spain.

  Naïve trust is both the beauty and the downfall of being a young adult. It’s the set of blinders that makes you braver than you realise and more foolish than you’ll ever be again. It gets you on a flight to Europe without knowing a word of Italian or Spanish and helps you gesture your way onto all the right trains so that you’re miraculously standing at the entrance of the Plaza del Castillo at two o’clock on the agreed day in July with a money belt strapped under your shirt.

  Only Tommy wasn’t there. What had looked like a charming little town green on the map turned out to be an enormous central square, heaving with tourists and locals dressed head to toe in white with red handkerchiefs tied around their necks, randomly erupting in cheers of ‘Viva San Fermin!’ It was chaotic, boisterous and disorienting. Suddenly that wave that had effortlessly carried me to a different continent crashed and everything felt foreign.

  So I did what any young man in my position would—I called my mum. And Tommy’s mum. Multiple times. My mum called Tommy’s mum and at some point Tommy called his mum to give her an address of a nearby building, and she phoned my mum. It took two hours, but finally I had actual coordinates. I scouted the buildings lining the square and there, leaning in a doorway with his arms crossed and a sly smile on his face, was Tommy the Fly. We had been a few feet away from each other the whole time.

  The Sanfermines slaughters everyone—at least metaphorically. The whole city drinks all night and runs with the bulls in the morning. It’s revelry without end. On the third day, passed out in the park, waiting for our hearts to stop pounding from that morning’s brush with death, we said enough and packed our bags. After a short stop in Barcelona, we’d head to the Greek Islands.

 
; There are few places better for a young person to be than the Greek Islands in high summer. Middle-aged men might grumble that the islands have become overrun with tourists, but the young man sees only a playground of beautiful people from all over the world with sun-kissed bodies that dance from dusk to dawn. We meant to stay for a week; we ended up there for a month—and it was hard to tear ourselves away even then. Day after day we lounged in the sun, taking breaks only to swim in the clear blue Aegean Sea or pool our drachmas for some tzatziki and gyros. At night we danced and drank grappa. When someone in Santorini insisted we see the blue-domed chapels of Ios, we hopped a ferry to the party island. When another traveller told us about the spectacular sunset in Mykonos that turns the island’s brown rock to gold, we moved north to yet another all-night fest. It was pure freedom, the kind you can only experience when you’ve got time on your side and a little cash in your pocket.

  The day eventually came, in August, when we had to go. Tommy’s parents had emigrated from Calabria, Italy, a few decades before, but his entire extended family—on both sides—still lived in Francavilla, and we had both promised to visit. I like to think that not much throws me, but shifting from the Greek Islands, with its shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of young bikini-clad tourists, to a village of two thousand Southern Italians certainly did.

  Like many families in Francavilla, Tommy’s lived in separate houses on the same plot of land. In the main house lived his eighty-year-old nonna, the matriarch, reliably dressed in black in the custom of Italian widows. An uncle and his family resided in another house and his aunt and her brood in a third. There were kids and pigs and goats and vegetables growing on every spare patch of land. As we walked up to the front door, all I could think was, What in god’s name are we doing here?

  The answer came soon enough: we were eating. We had arrived just in time for lunch, the largest meal of the day, an eight-course, three-hour feast during which Tommy’s uncle regularly got drunk and fell asleep at the table. That first night we journeyed across town to visit Tommy’s father’s family. In our honour, they laid out a similar spread, though the evening meal is normally more modest. I couldn’t speak a word of Italian and no one in either family except Tommy knew English, so I asked him to tell them that we had just eaten. He looked at me dumbfounded. ‘I can’t tell them that,’ he whispered. So we ate again. Every time I would slow down, someone would ask Tommy whether I didn’t like the food. By the end of it all, I felt like a foie gras goose.