Kevill-Davies - The hungry cyclist: pedalling the Americas in search of the perfect meal

It seems only right that the seed of what was to become the Hungry Cyclist would be planted at the end of a fateful cycling holiday in France, a country the natives would argue, justifiably, is the centre of the gastronomic universe, and also the birthplace of the bicycle. But at the start of that journey, waiting in the darkness while the impatient growls of a hundred cars and trucks echoed off the metal walls of a cross-Channel ferry, I had no idea what lay ahead.

The air filled with the choking smell of diesel and combustion, and men in orange jumpsuits hurried to disconnect heavy chains. The jaws of the boat fell open, daylight cut through the darkness as if the stone had been rolled back on an ancient tomb, and our cycling holiday had begun. Squeezed into our finest Lycra, like a pair of badly stuffed sausages, we rolled our bicycles out of the fume-filled hulk of the ferry and into the fresh air of Frances hottest summer on record. We squinted into the bright sunshine.

It was summer and an old friend, Charlie Pyper, and I would use eighteen of our cherished twenty-five days of annual leave to cycle down through France. For ten days we would pedal our way through the back roads of the French countryside, and when the job was done enjoy a week of relaxing and pleasurable wound-licking. It would be a holiday of a little exercise, country roads, superb restaurants, good wine and lashings of cheese. That was the plan.

As a fierce heat-wave gripped the continent, old ladies perished without air-conditioning in Paris apartments and nursing homes, forest fires swept through the hills of Provence and the worlds media screamed headlines about global warming and climate change. Meanwhile, Charlie and I took to the hills and lanes that connected the small villages of Normandy. It quickly became clear that I was having a great time, but on each gentle incline I looked back at a wheezing, red-faced mess of a man, cursing, sweating and panting. An affable and chunky six-footer, Charlie dwarfed his slim racer like a cycling bear in a circus, and each slight hill was met with an onslaught of Essexs finest abuse.

Bloody French hills. The fucking map said this bit was flat. I thought you said this was going to be a holiday.

Exhausted at the end of a long first day, the small bed and breakfast we collapsed into could not have come soon enough for us both. But for Charlie it had come too late. He endured a sleepless night of cramps induced by dehydration, and nightmares about bicycles, derailleurs and hills. I woke from a good nights sleep to find him at breakfast in the garden, his concentration focused on our map.

We can hire a car twenty kilometres from here, he said glumly without bringing his eyes up from the map. A buttery piece of croissant hung in my mouth as my jaw momentarily unhinged itself from the top of my face.

You what?

Having endured his graphic complaints for most of the previous day, and been woken by his cramped agonies during the night, I knew he wasnt happy. But this was Charlie. The toughest guy I knew; the football legend; the hard-hitting, fast-bowling cricket star; my well-needed back-up in school punch-ups; a hero. And he wanted to quit. I couldnt understand it.

Come on, mate. Itll get better today, I promise. We can stop for a long lunch. We can find a nice river for a swim.

My optimistic words and false promises fell on deaf and sunburnt ears.

Sorry, mate, its just that Im not really enjoying any of this. I guess Im not a cyclist, he offered remorsefully before painfully pulling himself out of his seat and waddling back to our room with all the appearance of a man who had been violated by a rugby team.

Well, Im going on!

Back in our room, preparing to leave, I found Charlie awkwardly rubbing his undercarriage with a proprietary soothing cream, and we were soon both back in our unflattering Power Ranger costumes. We said our goodbyes, and arranged to meet for lunch. I headed south towards the Loire valley and the cathedral of Chartres. Charlie pedalled west in search of the nearest car rental office.

For the next week I spent each day cycling a hundred or so miles through the French countryside. Charlie spent his days driving the same distance, meeting me in the evenings and at pre-organised lunch stops.

Right. This little town here has a nice-looking brasserie and a stunning medieval monastery, Charlie would announce with all the authority of a general directing his troops, circling the relevant area of his map, laid out on the bonnet of his car, with a well-informed finger.

Medieval monastery! Youve never even been to church. Are you feeling all right?

Its culture. And if you can make another sixty kilometres after lunch, this little town has a very comfortable-looking hotel with a great set menu and two knives and forks in the Michelin guide.

Two knives and forks! I better get a move on.

Good. Ill see you for lunch in two hours.

I had my orders, and I was on my own again and at my happiest. It wasnt that I didnt enjoy the company, but out there on the back roads of France life was so peaceful, so calm and so far away from the fast world of advertising I had briefly left behind in London. Moving silently, apart from the spinning of my wheels and creaking of my saddle, I passed through vineyards and fields, small villages and quiet towns. My nostrils filled with the scent of newly fallen rain or the yeasty aromas from a local boulangerie, and I peered over fences into tidy vegetable patches and spied through windows at old ladies preparing their lunch behind heavy machine-laced curtains. Chartres, Bourges, Sancerre, Le Puy. Following the slow-moving waters of the Loire, I gradually made my way south and it became clear I was falling in love with a country that had previously only existed as a blur through the window of a cramped car on family holidays.

Showing the utmost respect for Frances sacred midday hour, when clanking metal shutters are pulled down over shop fronts, roundabouts become congested with hungry and impatient Frenchmen and the whole of France comes to a grinding halt for lunch, I did the same. Pulling into lively restaurants packed with feasting Frenchmen and bustling with the happy sounds of conversation and the clink of cutlery on china, I enjoyed plat du jour after plat du jour and formule after formule. Plates of hefty steak frites; fresh and gooey goats cheese salads; golden, oozing croque-mesdame; flavoursome slabs of hearty pte, all washed down with glasses of cool, crisp ros. Crpes suzette, doused in Cointreau, and a small cup of espresso would jump-start my afternoons ride, and after working off my calorie-packed lunch I would cover enough miles to ensure that I arrived famished at my evenings destination, primed to demolish the five-course extravaganza that awaited me.

Peeling off my Lycra, enjoying a necessary shower and putting on some less disturbingly noisome clothes, I would wander with Charlie into town for dinner. Chilled crayfish and cucumber soup; crispy frogs legs; snails drowned in garlic butter; oak-smoked duck breast salad; rabbit in a mustard and white wine sauce; marbled tte de veau; garlic-infused pommes dauphinoise; lavender-scented crme brle, and cheese. Endless amounts of smoky, unctuous cheese that smelt of the farmyards of France.

Food had never tasted so good, and as my pedal-powered gastronomic holiday came to an end I realised I had cycled head-first into one of Frances greatest secrets. Cycling and food are one of the great French double acts.

Like seared foie gras and a good Sauternes; chateaubriand and Chteau Lafite; Napoleon and Josephine; Asterix and Obelix, and Sarko and Carla, food and cycling are the perfect partners. Because on a bicycle food is your fuel, your four-star, your