Lyons - Around the world in eighty meals

N AN L YONS

Copyright 2011 Nan Lyons

ISBN: 9781933176-44-4

Red Rock Press
New York, New York

www.redrockpress.com

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Index by Sayre Van Young and Susan Smilanic (Studio 21 Design & Advertising)
Cover by Paul Tunis
Cover 3D Powered by AZUNA(tm). Patent #7,130,126

Lyons, Nan.

Around the world in eighty meals / Nan Lyons.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-933176-44-4

1. Gastronomy. 2. Dinners and dining. 3. International cooking. 4. Food habits--Cross-cultural studies. I. Title.

TX631.L96 2010

641.013--dc22

2010024118

Printed in China

For Ivan, who was with me every mile of the way

N.L.

~The Journey of~
PHILEAS FOGG

A SYNOPSIS

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne was first published in French in 1873, and appeared later that year in English.

Mr. Phileas Fogg, an enigmatic gentleman, according to his creator, regularly dines and plays whist at the Reform Club in London.

On October 2, 1872, Phileas and fellow club members talk about a recent robbery. One member suggests that the world is so large a thief might hide easily and never come to justice. Fogg objects, claiming that a man could make it around the world in 80 days exactly. This sparks a debate, settled with a gentlemans wager: 20,000 if Phileas Fogg can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. Putting his entire fortune at risk, Fogg confidently accepts the challenge, and sets out that instant. To win his bet, Phileas Fogg must be back in the Reform Club at quarter to nine on the evening of December 21, 1872.

En route, Phileas collects his manservant, Jean Passepartout. The pair leaves London at 8:45 p.m. on a train heading to Dover. At Dover, they take a ferry across the English Channel to Calais where they catch a train to Paris then switch to another train to Italy. Travel proceeds without difficulty to the steamship Mongolia, routed to pass through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea, then cross the Indian Ocean to Bombay.

Day 8, the ship briefly stops in Suez and takes on some dangerous supercargo, one Detective Fix from Scotland Yard. Due to Foggs abrupt departure from London, Fix considers Fogg the prime suspect in the recent bank robbery. The detective aims to arrest Fogg, and his strategy is to slow down the ship to give the warrant from London time meet him in India.

The ship docks in Bombay on Day 19. Fogg and his valet board a train headed to Calcutta. But in central India, the train haltsthere are 50 miles of missing track! Undaunted, Fogg buys two elephants and hires a local guide to manage the gap.

While on their elephants, Fogg and Passepartout witness a funeral procession. Their guide explains the beautiful young widow is to be sacrificed on the pyre of her deceased husband against her will in a local tradition called a suttee. Fogg decides to rescue Aouda. Under Foggs direction, Passepartout impersonates Aoudas dead husband and jumps from the lit pyre causing the mourners to flee in terror. On Day 23, the elephants bearing the men, and now Aouda, arrive in Allahabad, and board a train, reaching Calcutta the next day.

Foggs company barely catches the noon steamer bound for the British colony of Hong Kong. The Rangoon stops for half a day in Singapore. Here Phileas and Aouda find a moment to enjoy a carriage ride.

The Rangoon arrives in Hong Kong on Day 36. To slow Fogg, Fix gets Passepartout (who has the tickets for the next ship) drunk. In a stupor, Passepartout barely makes the ship, only to discover that he inadvertently has stranded his master and Aouda in Hong Kong. Passepartout jumps ship at the next port.

Meanwhile, Fogg finds a pilot boat to take him and his lady to Shanghai to catch the S.S. General Grant on its way to the U.S. Passepartout catches up, and the Fogg trio, still followed by Fix, sets out on the three week voyage across the Pacific, arriving in San Francisco on Day 62.

Fogg and friends, and his follower board a train headed east, but the Sioux ambush them and capture Passepartout. Fogg leads the U.S. cavalry to save his man before catching a train to Chicago where they transfer to one bound for New York.

In New York, theyve just missed the last ship to Liverpool. Time running out, they board a steamer going to France. Once afloat, Fogg uses cold cash to buy the ship from the captain and change course. Its full steam ahead. Fogg reckons hell be back in London on Day 80.

However, when our traveler disembarks, Fix pounces, arresting him on British soil. The police hold Phileas Fogg overnight.

In the morning they discover the real robber had entered police custody three days earlier, and Fogg is set free. Too latehe has lost his wager. Though it is not all for nothing, he asks lovely Aouda to marry him. She accepts, and Fogg sends Passepartout to fetch a reverend. En route, Passepartout realizes it is not December 22, its December 21.

Foggs calculations failed to account for crossing the International Date Line. The valet rushes back to his boss with this stunning news. Phileas Fogg sprints to the Reform Club where the clock reads 8:44 with seconds to spare, and he is victorious.

Paul Tunis
Editor

~ CONTENTS ~

~ CARTE OF RECIPES ~

~ INTRODUCTION ~

The Journey of
Nan Lyons

P HILEAS F OGG WAS NOTHING BUT PRECISE when he gave himself 80 days or 1,920 hours or 115,200 minutes to circumnavigate the globe.

Had Fogg not been so dedicated to the ticking of his pocket watch, he might have built into his dizzying schedule enough time in stopovers to actually stop over for a dining experience or two. Even Marco Polo, who had his hands full looking for a route to China, took time out to smell the noodles. You might say that Jules Verne missed a delicious opportunity by not having Phileas Fogg go around the world in 80 meals.

Verne, who after all knew Phileas best, tells us that when Fogg dined at the Reform Club, his home away from home in London, it was without particular interest in what reclined upon his plate. Seated at his usual table, no matter the day or the season, Phileas always made the same choices: a plate of fish, a plate of meat, and a plate of pudding for dessert. It was a meal that any self respecting nanny could rely on to mold the palates of her young charges to British culinary perfection. Fogg craved neither fillet of blow fish accompanied by Madagascar cranberries or Cactus Souffl or even Lavender Saffron Gelato. He was never in danger of being exposed to the joys of fusion confusion.