Читать книгу The Hungry Cyclist: Pedalling The Americas In Search Of The Perfect Meal - Tom Davies Kevill - Страница 15

You could smell Frazee before its giant cut-out cartoon turkey welcomed you there. The sour stench of mass-farmed poultry was repulsive and clung to the back of my throat. Cycling on Highway 10, parallel to the train tracks that cut an immaculate line through this featureless grassy landscape, I passed the huge sheds and cooling trucks that left me in no doubt what Frazee produced. Turkeys on an industrial scale. The town’s distinctive water tower came into view and I followed signs for Main Street. Getting off my bike, I checked right and left and began lifting my load over the rusty railroad when a brown Willy’s Jeep skidded to a halt on the other side with a smiling young man behind the wheel.

‘Hey, I’m Paul, where you coming from?’

‘England. Is this the right place for the street dance tonight?’

‘That’s right, starts at nine.’

‘Is there anywhere I can camp in town?’

‘Sure, Town Park, with our giant turkey. Follow me.’

If it smelt anything like the battery sheds I passed on my way into town, I wasn’t sure I wanted to camp near the world’s largest turkey, but obeying orders I followed the jeep through the suburbs to the town park: a scrubby piece of land with a few picnic tables on the banks of a small river.

‘This is Big Tom—over twenty feet tall and weighing in at over five thousand pounds.’

I was staring in complete bewilderment at one of the ugliest things I had ever seen. An enormous fibreglass turkey, complete with snood and caruncles. ‘THE WORLD’S BIGGEST TURKEY’, announced a plaque. I wanted to point out that it wasn’t a real flesh-and-feathers bird, but this was the Turkey Capital of the World and I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings of civic pride, especially as Paul had now kindly invited me to camp in his garden instead of in the shadow of this monstrosity.

Paul and his family lived under the town water tower, a vast white object that, if decorated correctly, would probably become the world’s largest upside-down onion. It towered above the town and ‘FRAZEE’ was proudly painted on its bowl, letting everyone know exactly where they were.

Paul’s family took me in as one of their own and, after leading me through a garage full of fishing gear, invited me to pitch my tent on the tidy lawn behind their bungalow. At a small table on the porch, Paul’s father, an elderly man in a grey T-shirt, denim dungarees and tidy white beard, patiently scaled and gutted recently caught sunfish that filled a plastic bucket. He dipped each one in a dish of milk and then flour before his wife ferried them into the kitchen where she was busy preparing for the invasion of her children and grandchildren, two of them, energetic twins, took great interest as I put up my tent, only to shriek in complaint at the fetid smell once they scrambled inside.

I was invited to join the family for supper, and ten of us crowded round their narrow kitchen table. After holding hands and saying grace, a feast of ‘pot stickers’, a type of Chinese dumpling filled with ground turkey and fried until they stuck to the pot, was served with heaps of rice salad and fried sunfish. After supper Paul and I wondered into town for the street dance. It was time for my ‘Frazee Turkey Dayz’ weekend to get under way.

In the centre of Frazee, under the orange glow of the town’s street lamps, hundreds of residents and outsiders were gathering for the much-anticipated annual street dance. Bunting drooped from telegraph poles decorated with spirals of fairy lights and canvas banners hung over the street welcoming everyone to the town. A pleasant July evening, the day’s earlier storms had cleared the air and under a star-filled sky a lively buzz of excitement resonated in this small Midwestern town. Frazee’s Main Street had been closed off at either end by two enormous turkey-transporting juggernauts, and the space in between was quickly filling up with lively revellers. Leather-clad bikers revved the engines of oversized chrome-decorated motorcycles, clusters of burly men in cowboy hats and blue jeans attracted the admiring glances of giggling blonde-haired Daisy Duke look-a-likes, and from a makeshift bar set up in front of the town’s magnificent fire engines, firemen clad in yellow trousers and tight-fitting Frazee Fire Department T-shirts handed out a constant stream of plastic cups brimming over with cold beer. Paul seemed to know everyone in Frazee, and as the drinks kept coming I was introduced as a continent-crossing cyclist on my way to Brazil. Turkey farmers and ranchers greeted me with roughened hands and ready smiles and impressed local girls asked to squeeze my prominent calves. It was going to be a good night.

The live music started and I looked out over an ocean of swirling, swinging, jiving Midwesterners. Willie Nelson, Travis Tritt, The Eagles and Kenny Rogers—with a feeble knowledge of Country and Western music, I was only able to recognise a few of the classics that kept the crowd moving and my feet irresistibly tapping. But I’d soon had enough of standing on the sidelines. The beer had numbed my shyness and as a new song was greeted with a wild ‘Whoooop!’ from the crowd, I waded into the action, introducing myself to a wholesome-looking girl with the clear completion and bright smile of someone who had spent most of her life outdoors. A flattering checked shirt was tied in a knot above her toned midriff and her big eyes and all-American white-toothed smile sparkled under the rim of her cream Stetson.

‘I don’t have a clue how to dance to Country and Western,’ I called, trying to be heard above the music.

‘Everyone can dance Country and Western,’ she returned with a smile, and putting one hand round my rigid waist and clasping my unattractively sweaty palm in hers, she pulled me into the crowd.

The band played late into the night, interrupted only by the deafening clanking of the freight trains that rumbled through the town every hour, massive, mile-long mechanical serpents that passed so close you could see the driver ringing his bell in recognition of the jubilant mass of people below him. The crowd cheered. This was one hell of a Friday night. I had arrived in the Midwest, in a small town, and I was dancing under the stars with hundreds of happy people. The band kept playing. Travis Tritt was being covered by a group of seven elderly men performing on a trailer bed. They wore denim and Harley Davidson T-shirts, had bandanas and drooping moustaches and their paunches were supported by ornate belt buckles. With closed eyes and sweat-beaded faces they belted out the familiar chorus. The crowd loved it, roaring and twisting to the amplified metallic twang of the guitar and the whine of the harmonica. I had a beautiful cowgirl in my arms and at last life felt good.

I had never seen a snapping turtle. I didn’t even know they existed, but they were a local Minnesota delicacy and Paul insisted, the next day, that I track one down. With the sort of half-hearted hangover that can only be achieved by drinking litres of tasteless American beer, I made my way accompanied by Paul to the local butcher. Ketter’s Meat Market and Locker hadn’t changed for a hundred years. It had one of those false flat fronts I had only ever seen before in Westerns, and a wooden deck raised a few feet above the street. On the counter stood a huge old-fashioned set of scales and bundles of sausage strings were hung up on the back wall. The dusty shelves were lined with bags of various types of jerky—air-cured slivers of marinated meat, the favoured chews of cowboys and cyclists—and disturbing jars of pickled turkey gizzards that would have looked more at home in the laboratory of a mad biologist.

The proprietor was an unhappy fellow who seemed too skinny to be a butcher. A blood-stained apron hung around his neck and in his large rubber-gloved hands was a menacing meat hook.

‘Wal, this is a friend of mine. He wants to see your turtles.’

The butcher gave me an investigative look as if to establish I wasn’t an operative for the CIA.

‘Sure.’

Paul stayed back in the store while Wal led me behind the scenes into a cool concrete corridor lined with the mechanised heavy doors of refrigeration and lit by white fluorescent strips. At the end of the passage a set of damp concrete steps took us underground to another large metal refrigerator door, which opened into a dark, dank, musty cell. I began to recall a schoolboy production of Sweeney Todd and visualised the other unlucky tourists who had came down here to ‘see the turtles’ and who were now being sold upstairs as jerky and gizzards.

A single fluorescent strip hanging from the ceiling flickered to life like an injured insect and adjusting to the raw, unnatural light that now filled the small room I made out eight or ten monsters huddled on the floor around my feet.

‘Keep ’em down here cos the cold makes ’em sleepy. They can get pretty frisky when their blood’s up.’

I had expected to be shown a handful of terrapins paddling about in a dirty fish tank. These lifeless monsters were the size of coffee tables. Armoured horned heads with yellow eyes and ferocious pointed jaws peered out from thick, uneven, lichen-covered shells. Stiff, powerful arms with thick claws rested on the ground on either side of their grotesque faces. These things weren’t turtles, they were prehistoric beasts. Stupidly squatting down for a closer look and a possible photo, I reached out a hand for a stroke. Before I made contact two strong arms grabbed my shoulders and I was yanked backwards, my buttocks landing on the cold hard floor.

‘You wanna lose those little English fingers you’re going the right way about it.’

‘Sorry, it’s just that I thought….’

The butcher took an old broom from the corner of the room and cautiously began prodding the head of an especially large specimen. I can’t say I saw what happened next, it happened so fast, but after a powerful head movement on the part of the turtle the butcher’s broom was six inches shorter.

‘That’s why we call ’em snapping turtles.’

‘And these things live in the wild?’

‘Sure. They make great eating too—four different types of meat per turtle. Makes a fine stew.’

We handed over a few dollars in exchange for a kilo of ‘snapper meat’ and headed home. Paul’s mother was a snapper-stew aficionado and in her small kitchen, which was a confusion of pots and pans, recipe books and washing up, she went to work. The rubbery meat of different shades was cut into small chunks and browned on each side in a little butter before being added to a large pot. Thrown in with it were chopped vegetables—onions, potatoes, celery, carrots and tomatoes—cloves of garlic and plenty of seasoning. The contents were covered in water and left to stew over a gentle heat. Paul’s house quickly filled with the sweet aroma of snapper stew and soon enough his family gathered around the kitchen table. Steaming bowls of this hearty Minnesota classic were passed from place to place, and after grace was said, the slurping began. Chewing on the subtly flavoured meat and drinking up the warming broth, I realised the butcher was right. These strange-looking creatures that lived in the swampy waters and ditches of Minnesota made a great stew.

‘Leg or breast, Miss Minnesota?’

Taken in by the kind people of Frazee as something of a cycling celebrity, the next meeting on my Turkey Dayz agenda was to join none other than Miss Minnesota for a VIP turkey dinner before she crowned this year’s Miss Frazee. The bikini-clad beauty that had been screwed up in my pocket for two days was going to become a reality. This would be something to tell the folks back home about.

The dinner was held at the substantial mansion of a prominent Frazee real-estate dealer. A recently built home in a traditional style, it boasted a grand hallway that led up to a sweeping stairway lined with wooden balustrades. The bathroom was encased with dark marble and in the living room a vast television beamed a football game to the owner’s sons, who slouched in the expanse of an enormous leather sofa.

On a veranda that ran the length of the back of the house, a long table had been set up for the feast. Various journalists and people of local importance were there, and the finest Frazee spread was on display. Turkey soup, turkey fricassee, cold turkey breast, turkey Caesar salad, grilled turkey drummers and a large turkey hotpot. The people of Frazee were clearly proud of their town bird and loved eating it. I raced a couple of keen local dignitaries for the best seat in the house—next to Miss Minnesota herself. She ate as I expected, nibbling away daintily at a piece of turkey breast. I more than made up for her lack of appetite and as a result soon found myself in a strange, sweaty, post-turkey coma that left me completely unable to communicate with the Barbie doll beside me. Her teeth were whiter than white, her skin was free of any blemish, her hair perfectly blonde, and she said all the right things, mostly about her boyfriend, who came in the muscle-bound shape of the Minnesota state football team quarterback. We had an enjoyable evening. Miss Minnesota was pleasant on the eye and she never stopped smiling. She was kind enough to leave me with a signed photograph of herself to add to my collection. I was unable to return the favour. We wished each other luck and went our separate ways. Miss Minnesota was there to crown Miss Frazee and I was there to watch her at the greatest of American small-town events. The beauty pageant.

The Frazee high school gymnasium was packed. Neat rows of spectators ran the length of the hall, twittering with nervous anticipation. The question on everyone’s lips was: who will be crowned Miss Frazee?

Shortly after I took my seat, the lights went down. A synthesised dance beat throbbed off the concrete walls and spotlights chased each other around the room. The crowd erupted. Bursting from behind a pink curtain decorated with tinfoil stars, five girls of all shapes and sizes, dressed in leotards, white tights and top hats, hurled themselves on stage. High kicks, tucks, twists and spins were all attempted as each girl struggled unsuccessfully to stay in time.

The initial excitement was soon extinguished as the self-important organiser took the stage to make a rambling speech about the virtues of beauty pageants. Each girl was introduced to a judging panel of local dignitaries who sat impassively at a desk at the foot of the stage.

Apparently the opening gambit of wobbling and gyrating had not been enough for the judges, and the first test in this gruelling contest was to be Modern Dance and Singing.

Each contestant returned individually to sing a chosen song while performing a choreographed dance routine. One by one Celine Dion, Elton John, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston were all dishonoured, but it was contestant number five who got my vote. Dressed in fishnet tights, her ample proportions squeezed into a bustier, she performed a raunchy small-town rendition of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. Her puffing and panting was amplified around the hall by the microphone concealed in her corsage while she attempted a routine that managed to incorporate tripping, stumbling and belly dancing. She was greeted with proud applause by the enthusiastic audience.

The next round was designed to test that most important of female virtues: how to look good in a bikini. Eagerly anticipated by the male contingent in the room, who did their best to disguise their eager anticipation from their wives and girlfriends, the girls took to the stage in their finest beachwear to ripples of polite applause. Frazee is thousands of miles from the nearest beach and it was obvious the contestants had spent their winter evenings scanning home-shopping channels and catalogues in order to acquire the most alluring Californian beach swimsuits. Sashaying forward, each competitor attempted a pin-up pose, lowering their heads to smirk suggestively at the judges before turning with a final swing of their assets to leave the stage.

Each potential champion then re-emerged in a shiny evening dress made by their grandmothers for the battle of the ball gowns. More sauntering, more simpering, more posing, more cleavage, and more purposeful scribbling from the judges.

Last but not least the judges asked each of the contestants a series of taxing questions.

‘What are your hobbies?’

‘What do you think makes Frazee such a special place?’

‘What are your plans for the future?’

Each girl did her best to remember her scripted answers, telling us how much she enjoyed working with children and animals and wanted to save the world. The final question, ‘What are your views on America’s involvement in Iraq?’ was responded to in every case with patriotic fervour and roars of approval from the audience.

While the panel of judges discussed their decision in whispers, last year’s Miss Frazee, as pink and plump as one of the town’s prized turkeys, stood up. Predictably she burst into floods of tears, while trying to tell us through an onslaught of sniffling and blubbering how being a beauty queen had changed her life. She was followed by the sophisticated visiting Miss Minnesota, who drew astonished gasps from the crowd who had apparently never seen anything so beautiful.

Teasingly she peeled open the gold envelope holding the results while the five contestants and the whole of Frazee held their breath. In a slow Midwestern drawl, she announced:

‘This year’s Miss Frazee is…Anna Hanson.’

The stage erupted in a tumult of shrieks and tearful hugging. The crowd rose to its feet in applause. At last the ordeal was over.

Or so I thought. Sadly, this was not the case. My buttocks, anaesthetised by three hours on a hard plastic seat, and my hands, weary from perpetual applause, would have to endure another forty-five minutes of crying, crowning and acceptance speeches before I could escape. At long last it came to an end and, mentally exhausted, I staggered from the hall. I had survived the roller-coaster ride of my first small-town beauty pageant, and Frazee had a new Queen.

Paul’s family wouldn’t let me leave. After all, how could I possibly say goodbye to Frazee without enjoying the turkey luncheon and the Turkey Dayz parade? The previous night’s dinner had pushed my annual turkey intake dangerously close to maximum and the thought of Christmas almost brought on a panic attack, but in the name of gastronomic research I promised to push on.

Held in the sterile surroundings of the Frazee event centre, the annual turkey luncheon was another excessive, no-holds-barred celebration of the town’s bird. It took place shortly after the announcement of Frazee’s mystery gobbler, in which the public had to identify a local dignitary from his warbling imitation of a turkey played out over the tannoy. The doors were opened and the townspeople shunted forward in an orderly line. A hard-working team of blue-rinsed female elders bustled around industrial-sized ovens, from which abnormally sized golden turkeys were produced. Other teams of busy Frazee doyennes set about tearing birds to pieces with alarming enthusiasm, piling the steaming meat on to large metal serving trays. Turkeys were being cooked, carved and served on an epic scale. Waiting in line with my flimsy paper plate, I inched closer towards the panel of old ladies serving up this gargantuan meal. Two heavy dollops of potato salad. An eight-inch gherkin. A turkey leg the size of a small child’s arm. A ladle of gloopy gravy and a packet of crisps. My plate buckled under the weight of its load, my stomach gurgled in frightful anticipation of the suffering it was about to endure, and I tried to forget the rancid smell of the turkey sheds I had passed as I pedalled into town. I found a seat and did my best to dissect my genetically modified turkey leg with a plastic knife and fork.

The turkey luncheon was clearly a gathering of the Great and the Good of Frazee. On my table I was sharing conversation with none other than the deputy fire chief, the town sheriff and the local undertaker.

‘And you must be Taaarm.’

Feeling a hand on my shoulder, I turned round to be greeted by a friendly-faced man with a large gold chain around his neck.

‘I’m Mayor Daggett and people here tell me you’re riding your bicycle to Brazil.’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘Well, that’s just wonderful,’ he drawled. ‘The people of Frazee would be honoured if you would ride your bicycle in the Turkey Dayz parade.’

Filled with a mixture of pride, nervous anticipation and turkey nausea, I accepted. With my turkey luncheon slowly working its inexorable way through my system, I fetched my bicycle and hurried to where I was told the parade would begin. A clipboard-wielding woman in a blue tracksuit gave me my orders.

‘Taaarm, today you’re riding in position eight. You have candy?’

‘No.’

Rushing to the general store I grabbed two bags of synthetic lollipops and returned just in time. The Frazee marching band rolled their drums and crashed their cymbals, and the large trucks pulling the floats started their engines. At position eight in the parade I was riding behind none other than Miss Frazee, who was perched like a cake decoration atop a giant sequinned re-creation of a red stiletto-heeled shoe, being pulled by a tractor. In the position behind me was the Frazee Retirement Home float, a low-loader lorry with a few dazed octogenarians still in their beds, complete with swinging drips and catheter bags.

Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!

An immaculately polished fire engine let out a controlled blast on its siren and the parade began to inch forward through the backstreets of Frazee before turning on to the main street. Frazee may only have had a population of 1,500 but her main street was lined with cheering residents and visitors. I rode with no hands and cycled in circles like a circus performer, rang my bell and waved to the crowds. The streets were lined with families and children who swooped like seagulls to pick up the sweets I tossed to them from my handlebar bag, like all the characters on the other floats were doing.

It was a surreal experience. Police cars and fire engines let off their sirens. The marching band played perfectly, while silver batons were tossed high into the air. Scantily-clad cheerleaders with turkey-fattened thighs ducked and dived, shaking day-glo tinsel pompoms. Clowns on stilts mingled with dancing turkeys, a group of fez-wearing old men in go-karts swerved crazily. Cowboys and cowgirls trotted on horses, their harnesses jingling. Vintage cars beeped their horns, children rode on the back of plump pigs, and the Hungry Cyclist rang his bell and cycled amidst this hallucinatory procession. I had no doubt that I would see some weird and wonderful things on my way to Brazil, but my weekend in Frazee would take some beating.

In the last two days all my Christmases had come at once and, never wanting to see a turkey again, I left Frazee and moved west towards North Dakota and Fargo, a large Midwestern town made famous by the Cohen Brothers’ 1996 film of the same name. By all accounts the townspeople of Fargo could not have been more excited at having a feature film made about their beloved city, only to find that it portrayed them as group of backward, inbreeding maniacs who liked feeding people into industrial shredders. I didn’t find any maniacs in Fargo, just car dealerships, endless strip malls and organised traffic patterns that cleverly led you to the doors of Burger King or Starbucks.

Less than happy with my stay, I turned northward for Grand Forks and got my first taste of the scale and emptiness of this rarely documented heart of America. Gone were the winding roads and the meandering highways that connected the small towns of Michigan and Minnesota. Here in North Dakota getting from A to B was much more functional and the straight roads on my map now looked like the national grid, a system perhaps left behind by the German farmers who settled here in the nineteenth century. Riding Highway 200, I was now on a straight road that would be my home for two weeks and carry me five hundred miles across North Dakota, from small town to small town without deviation. Day after day I moved gently, silently through flat fields that stretched as far as the eye could see, unbroken in every direction. I was cycling across the floor of a giant room. Take a pedal-boat cruise across the Atlantic and you will have an idea what it’s like to move so slowly over such a vast distance. Gentle winds generated hypnotic waves through the corn, wheat and flax that surrounded me, as if an invisible giant was slowly dragging his hands over the tops of his crops. Perhaps it sounds monotonous, but this huge state, half the size of Europe with a population of no more than 650,000, held a unique peace and tranquillity all of its own, and as a tiny speck in this enormous landscape of land and sky I felt blissfully unimportant. I passed under herds of huge clouds moving gently across the deep blue sky, casting heavy shadows over the landscape like dark sprits. When I wasn’t deep in thought, thinking about why I was thinking about what I was thinking about, I found ways to entertain myself on the never-ending strip of tarmac that passed beneath me. Mystified truck drivers peered down from their air-conditioned cabins in bewilderment at the strange Englishman pedalling across the state with a good book propped up on his handlebars.

More often than not they would release long, deep blasts of greeting from their air horns. The deafening noise would startle me from my book, forcing me to swerve and wobble as twenty tons of fast-moving cargo rushed past me in a violent vortex of wind and dust. Unlike the dirty and impersonal lorries of England, these huge juggernauts were palaces of polished metal, boasting rows of chrome-capped wheels, bright fenders and cabs personalised with flames, crossed pistols and semi-naked women, like those found on World War Two fighter planes. Tall vertical aluminium exhausts protruded like proud animal horns and their personalised slogans—Got A Problem? Just Try JESUS! and Keep Honking I’m Reloading—were the last words of wisdom they offered me before vanishing into the distance. Following slowly in their wake with my own heavy load decorated with stickers, flags and lucky charms, I felt an affinity with these kings of the road.

A water tower would appear in the haze on the horizon. Or was it another figment of my imagination? No, definitely a water tower. A symbol of life out here in this empty space. The sign of another small town with shops, a gas station and perhaps a diner. Incentives to up the pace a little. These small towns off Highway 200 were few and far between and could be over a hundred miles apart. Two days of cycling if the wind was against you, and ten hours in the saddle if it was on your side. Either way I would roll into town hungry, exhausted, but triumphant to have made it to another oasis lush with fizzy drinks, conversation, rest rooms, running water, milkshakes and hamburgers.

One-street towns, they all had their own local eatery: Tina’s, the Prairie Rose, the Midwest Café. And in each one the décor didn’t seem to have changed since John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John warbled at each other at the local drive-in. The daily specials, normally an item from the regular menu with 25 cents knocked off the price, were always a good bet, and the food was almost always fresh, home-made and served with a smile. Chunky home-made burgers topped with onions, mushrooms and any cheese you wanted as long as it was processed, turkey ruben sandwiches, well-stacked BLTs, plastic baskets of fries served on a red-and-white-checked napkin, malted milks, and always a home-made pie.

I do not normally have a sweet tooth, but riding an overloaded bike made my body crave sugar, and as I rode through North Dakota I got my daily fix from these pies, displayed in chrome and glass cabinets like prize exhibits in a museum. Peanut butter pie, apple pie, blueberry pie, Saskatoon pie, peach Melba pie, rhubarb and custard. These marvellous pastry-encrusted creations came with a dollop of vanilla ice cream as standard, and were washed down with a cup of coffee. The perfect post-lunch pit stop.

These small, friendly and cheap eateries that fed me every day determined my routine. Camping where I could—town squares, fields, farmyards and parking lots—I would grab a light supper at the local diner and then join the truck drivers and other men of the road sipping coffee while staring out of the windows at the sporadic traffic that flashed in the darkness like figures in an Edward Hopper painting.

‘What time are you open tomorrow morning?’

‘Five-thirty.’

‘See you then.’

In the comfort of my tent I would drift to sleep anticipating the breakfast that waited when the sun came up. And rising at day-break I would make my way back to the same diner, already abuzz with hungry local farmers. Worn-out jeans, frayed checked shirts and braces pulled tight over a large frame. This was standard dress for these leather-skinned men of the land who would fill the tables and booths of the small diners. Eating together, drinking gallons of coffee and talking, always talking. Initially it was all too easy to categorise them as simple-minded rednecks who let the wrong people get into power, but every morning as I sat and munched my way through cream-topped waffles, syrup-drenched pancakes, crunchy hash browns, cinnamon buns and French toast, I would tap into their conversations with fascination.

‘Flax seems to be coming through well this year.’

‘Need to get my barley in before it gets too cold.’

‘Could be an early frost this year, judging by the clouds.’

Farming in North Dakota is no easy task. Operating on such a grand scale means that changing crop prices, varied weather patterns, a wrong decision or simply some bad luck can make it hard to survive. These modest men had to be mechanics, meteorologists, botanists, gamblers, drivers and chemists, who worked tirelessly to feed America. Watching the harvests of wheat, flax and barley come in as I rode through their factory floor, I could only admire them.

Although the Midwest of America may host some of the most fertile land on the planet, after a week crossing the bread basket of America I began to wish that her farmers would grow some vegetables. Diner after diner in these small prairie towns pushed out endless carb-packed breakfasts, hefty daily specials and meaty evening meals, but the closest I got to any greenery was, in most cases, depicted in the pattern on my plate. Thus I became a skilled user of any all-you-can-eat salad bar I was lucky enough to come across. Not all diners offered such a luxury, and even if they did it was often hard to find anything genuinely nutritious among the mayo-dressed starchy offerings that prevailed. But if there was any vegetation, I would pounce, playing a precarious game of Crudités Jenga and making the most of the little ceramic real estate I was given on my one visit to the bar.

Feeling lighter and faster, I pushed deeper into North Dakota and the now-familiar crops of flax, wheat and barley began to be replaced by ranches dotted with cattle. I was getting to cowboy country.

This is looking good. This is looking really good.

I glanced down at my watch.

Could be a personal best.

A second time-check confirmed my excitement. Thirty-three minutes and seventeen seconds. I had sucked the same sour cherry drop for over half an hour, smashing any previous records, and I celebrated my proud achievement by popping another sweet in my mouth and continued pushing into a fierce headwind. Sapping every ounce of my strength, it howled in my ears and meant I had been crawling forward at no more than five miles an hour all day. My dry lips were peeling in large flakes, my knees complained with every turn of the pedals and the road sign for Stanton could not have come soon enough.

Stanton, North Dakota was another small one-street town that called itself a city. Three or four miles off Highway 200, it sat on the banks of the Knife river. Its dusty main street of flat-fronted rundown buildings was no different from all the other small towns I had passed through. The liquor store, the general store, the gun store and the diner. The place was deserted.

A guttural growl followed by a loud sound of spitting broke the silence of the afternoon. In a beaten-up blue Lincoln a man, apparently with nothing better to do, was busy topping up a puddle of brown tobacco-infused phlegm in the street. I cycled over to where he was parked.

A bald round-faced individual was slouched in the driver’s seat. His dome-shaped belly swelled under a dirty shirt and a pair of braces while Willie Nelson sang about a ‘Whiskey River’ from a radio set hidden among the dusty papers and coffee cups on the dashboard.

‘Good afternoon, sir. You don’t know anywhere a guy can camp in Stanton, do you?’

‘Heeeeeeech papuut! City Park, down by the river. Gonna get mighty busy though.’

‘Yeah, why’s that?’

‘Stanton Rodeo.’

‘Sounds fun.’

‘If you’re into that kinda thing. Heeeeeech papuuut!’

Another projectile flew from deep inside the man and landed perfectly in his puddle of spit. I thanked him for his information, steered wide of his phlegmy pond and rolled down the empty main street towards the river.

I unpacked and pitched camp in the shade of some large cottonwood trees with the muddy banks of the slow-moving Knife river only a few yards away. I slipped out of my sweat-stained T-shirt and my stand-alone padded Lycra, and waded into the river. The cool water washed away a week on the road and, after washing my clothes and hanging them up to dry, I put on clean jeans and a shirt and walked along the riverbank. The sun was setting in the west, painting the white bluffs of the distant Missouri river a soft orange. The silver leaves of the willow and cottonwood trees that lined its banks rolled gently in the wind. The town park provided basic brick grills, and once I had cleaned out the cigarette ends and incinerated beer cans from one, I set about collecting enough dry wood to see me through the night. With a small fire reduced to glowing embers, I unwrapped a large steak I had picked up in the general store and poured a tin of beans into my pan. I opened a can of Budweiser and lay back next to my fire to enjoy a peaceful North Dakotan Friday night.

The following morning I was woken from a deep sleep by the grumble of engines and the whining of generators. Peering from my tent I saw that the park was fast filling up with bulky pick-up trucks, trailers and oversized motor homes. Deckchairs were being spread out in designated camping spots and the park was abuzz with weekending Americans doing something weekending Americans do very well. Camp.

In the United Kingdom we don’t know how to camp. Our idea of a weekend’s camping involves hiking to a cold, wet and desolate corner of the country, cooking an inedible meal from a ration pack, then spending a sleepless night cramped inside a smelly nylon shell designed for a hobbit. Americans, being Americans, do it very differently.

Motor homes the size of central London flats are plugged and plumbed into specialist bays. Reclining deckchairs with beer holders and sun visors are unfolded. Cold boxes the size of industrial freezers are unloaded. Smokers and multi-grill BBQs are constructed while sun shelters and gazebos are erected. The vast array of specialist camping gear available on the market allows Americans to recreate the ambience and comfort of their living room anywhere on the continent. Here in Stanton with my tiny tent and lightweight equipment I felt completely out-gunned, but I was only too happy to enjoy the hospitality of my new neighbours. Music played, beers burst open and another Midwestern weekend got under way. I was hanging out with the rodeo crowd, a faithful group of nomads who spend their summers following, and competing in, the various rodeos that take place across the States.

Rodeos are an important part of American culture. In the early eighteenth century, when the Wild West opened up, its grassy plains provided perfect cattle-grazing country. To feed the soaring population of the cities of the eastern United States, huge herds of cattle needed to be moved from west to east. For the cattle barons to get their commodity across country, long cattle drives were organised, and the skills of roping, branding, herding, horse-breaking and bronco-riding were vital to the cowboys who made these remarkable journeys.

The expansion of the railways and the introduction of barbed wire in the late nineteenth century meant that these roaming cross-country cattle drives were no longer possible or economically viable, creating a dip in demand for the specialist skills cowboys provided. Entrepreneurial ex-cattle hands, such as the famous Buffalo Bill Cody, began to organise Wild West shows that did their best to glorify and preserve the traditions of the fast-disappearing American frontier culture, and many cowboys found work in these shows that toured the country in what became an entertainment phenomenon. Part theatre, part circus, part competition, they recreated famous battles of the American Civil War and victories over Indians, as well as providing opportunities for cowboys to compete against each other for cash. Today Wild West shows still exist and the rodeo circuit is still strong, commanding large crowds, big prize money and a wide television audience. Stanton Rodeo, my first, was a low-key team-roping event. I leaned on the rusty metal fence of the enclosure as it got under way.

Two young cowboys on horseback waited behind a gate on either side of a terrified-looking young bull. At the sound of a klaxon the bull was released, nudged forward with a kindly jab from an electric prodder. Running in blind panic, the bull was pursued into a dusty arena by the two cowboys, who worked in a team swirling lassos above their heads.

One cowboy, the header, aimed his lasso for the young bull’s head. His partner, known as the heeler, had to aim his lasso at the hind legs. Once head and legs were secured and the bull was immobilised, the clock would stop. Grown men on horseback chasing cows with long bits of rope may not sound like compelling viewing, but the whistling of rope lassos, the clatter of hooves kicking up dust and the hoarse cries of the men were enthralling. This team sport, which originated in the need to bring down cattle for branding, totally gripped the thirty or forty onlookers.

Team after team raced out of the gates. Heads were missed, cows escaped and horses bucked their riders as these highly skilled horsemen went to work. Involving amazing coordination and precise horse control, these immaculately dressed men in checked pop shirts and faded jeans charged across the arena, effortlessly manoeuvring their steeds into sharp turns and sudden skids. No helmets, no gum guards, no kneepads, no health and safety. Stetsons, a pair of boots, a Lone Star belt buckle, leather chaps and plenty of bottle were all that were needed here. These guys were real cowboys.

Surrounded by the smell of hot leather and hide, Marlborough men slept under large hats in the shade of trailers; others patched up bloody injuries and got on with the job. As these men strode between trailers, borrowing horses and testing lassos, I had no choice but to join the gaggle of giggling female rodeo groupies, local girls who had come to catch a glimpse of these rock stars of the rodeo circuit, men who were mad, bad and dangerous to know.

The contest came to an end and prizes were awarded. A few hundred dollars went to winners but most of the young men here didn’t practise this dangerous sport for financial gain. Sure if you made the big competitions there was big money to be made, but the majority of the men I spoke to didn’t have the funding. Most of them didn’t even own a horse and had to borrow a ride from other competitors. Medical insurance was a laughing matter.

‘Smashed four ribs, a pelvis and popped three shoulders. Still, no one wants to insure me.’

‘Been concussed since I was fifteen—wouldn’t have it any other way.’

‘Drove three days flat to be here, and I ain’t got plans to go to bed yet.’

Surfers follow waves around the world in a never-ending search for that next adrenalin-exploding ride. Rodeo junkies spend their summers driving from small town to small town in search of their next fix, covering huge distances to ride horses, local girls and live the dream. Sure a few hundred dollars might help pay a few bills and a bar tab or two, but these guys were here because they couldn’t be anywhere else, they were addicted to this crazy way of life. And their energy was infectious. I wanted the hat and the confident swagger. I wanted the dirty old pick-up and a horse to ride. I wanted to chase women in smoky pool halls and ride out of town the next morning. I wanted to spend my days rumbling down prairie roads in a truck, kicking up a trail of dust and listening to Johnny Cash with a six-shooter under my seat. I wanted to wear the fitted checked shirts and the tight blue Wranglers with a huge buckle, I wanted a pair of lived-in cowboy boots, and I wanted to sit on my porch in a brim hat watching the sun set on the peaceful world around me. Cycling was suddenly very uncool. I wanted to be a cowboy.

Stanton’s only bar was as unimpressive as the town itself and from the outside it seemed to be no more than an industrial-sized shed. A small neon light, advertising America’s leading tasteless beer, blinked in the window of its only doorway but, excitedly, I followed my new cowboy buddies inside. The scene that greeted me was bathed in cigarette smoke and the faintly illicit red glow of neon advertising signs, while lively Country and Western music jumped out of a jukebox. A bar stretched the length of a room jam-packed with burly men in the usual faded jeans, cowboy hats and pop shirts. A busy gang of busty barmaids hurried from fridge to fridge, answering the demands of their rowdy customers.

I made my way to the bar and squeezed into a space between some Stetson-wearing ranchers. Behind the bar, surrounding the dusty bottles of Scotch and flavoured brandy, was a display of North Dakota memorabilia. A stuffed bear smoking a cigarette, sets of antlers, stuffed rodents, lost hubcaps, state flags, licence plates, worn-out saddles and prized Walleye fish. The rest of the room was decorated with the Stars and Stripes, posters of girls in hot pants draped over sports cars and flashing beer signs. Stern-faced men played cards at small round tables, players lent on cue sticks by a pool table, flashing video poker machines blinked erratically and a dated jukebox filled the space underneath a large screen showing men doing their best to hang on to crazy horses in a televised rodeo.

‘What’ll it be, sweetheart?’ cooed a barmaid.

‘I’ll get a beer please.’

An ice-covered glass tankard was pulled from a chest freezer and filled with pale fizzy beer. I swigged and took stock of where I was. The whole bar joined in with the chorus of the popular Country and Western classic that was being spun in the jukebox.

‘Save a horse. Ride a cowboy.’

I sat at a table with my rodeo friends, who drank in the same way they rode their horses. Fast, and with total disregard for human safety. Tall story followed tall story, beer followed beer and busty girls in tight jeans and T-shirts tied at their midriff were passed from lap to lap. Perhaps I needed a hat or my jeans weren’t tight enough but I kept getting missed out. It was clear that a cyclist, however far he had come, didn’t cut the mustard.

The evening wore on in a continuing blur. As each drink arrived my determination to quit cycling and ride out on a horse became stronger, and by the time the bottles of blackberry brandy were being shot back I had as good as sold my bike. The problem was that apart from a few salty handfuls of popcorn salvaged from the bar, I had eaten nothing since breakfast. The cowboys were drinking faster and faster and if I was going to make it through the night and become one of them, I needed some ballast. I staggered outside, where my first lungful of fresh air was pure luxury.

As with all good drinking dens, a savvy local had set up a small stand within falling distance of the bar. Under a red umbrella a deep-fat fryer was sending a cloud of steam into the night and a home-made cardboard sign read: