The places we sleep, the food we eat

This morning I am writing in the hush of an empty pub, just downstairs from our room at the Black Bull Inn and Tavern in Nateby. The low ceilings supported by dark, rough-hewn beams in combination with flagstone floors smooth and shiny with wear create a space that is the kind of cozy that can only exist in England and movies about hobbits. It is achingly cozy; the kind of room you could curl up in with a cat or two and write books for the rest of your life. In fact, this particular thought is becoming more pervasive the longer we’re in Yorkshire. More on that later.

While possibly slightly more atmospheric, the Black Bull is typical in every way to all the pub/inns we’ve stayed along the trail. It is high season here in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and every place that rents a bed for the night is fully booked. Many walkers, like ourselves, doing the Dales Way, or the Coast to Coast; but also Southerners on holiday with their families, enjoying a bit of the North Yorkshire air. The inns, taverns, and B & B’s all offer a cooked breakfast menu which includes a full Yorkshire (eggs, sausage or bacon, black pudding, beans, broiled tomato, and toast with plenty of good butter), porridge or overnight muesli, or Eggs Benedict or Florentine. Often we are handed a form at check in on which we check a box next our preferred breakfast, indicate whether we have any dietary needs (vegetarian, vegan, or gluten free), and specify when we’ll be down to eat.

Full Yorkshire Breakfast, vegetarian style! Eggs, toast, veg sausage, grilled portobello, broiled whole tomato, vegetarian blood pudding, and baked beans.

If the inn provides packed lunches (most do), we are also given a form for this to indicate our preferred sandwiches and crisps (potato chips). I’ve found that sandwiches are never made with mayo, but rather a thick layer of butter on both slices of bread (unless it is an Egg Mayo sandwich, or chicken—which always means chicken salad). The flavors of crisps are novel, and we’re on a mission to try them all: sweet chili, black pudding, cider vinegar and sea salt, and simply “beef” which, in its stark nomenclature, is probably the most intimidating.

All packed lunches include crisps. These are “Black pudding” flavor. Not awesome. A lot of these fancier flavors are being made by the farmers as a value added product.

While we haven’t had a proper English tea yet, every room is equipped with a well-stocked tea tray. I have become accustomed to brewing a cup of tea as soon as we check in to our room after the day’s walk. In fact, I don’t think I’ll be able to carry on without a stash of Yorkshire tea sachets. It’s true what the English have been demonstrating for centuries: a cup of tea is restorative, comforting, and once it becomes familiar,impossible to live without.

Also, biscuits (cookies). Yes, there’s shortbread, and it’s delicious—but there’s also a whole new world of crispy, oaty, raisiny, chocolatey, and nut-studded treats to have with tea! There are also “tray bakes” (bars) and “slices” (also bars). My favorites are the English “flapjack”—a syrup-y oat bar studded with raisins or other dried fruits; and the Bakewell Slice—half cake-half shortbread with a layer of jam near the bottom and crackly sugary icing on top.

Bakewell slice

For dinner there are the ubiquitous fish & chips, which are served always with malt vinegar and mushy peas. Mushy peas are completely new to me—bright green and unadulterated, they are exactly as advertised. As Steve says, “they really know how to fry food here,” and the fish & chips are usually a sure bet on any menu. Personally, I’m a fan of the Yorkshire pie. Filled with anything from pork to steak & ale to cheese & leek, and encased in either a short or hot water crust, this is the food of my dreams. For dinner, pies are usually served with chips and veg. The vegetables often include steamed cabbages and carrots doused liberally with malt vinegar. A smaller style of pie, made by village butchers, can also be eaten out of hand for a picnic lunch.

Cheese and leek pie at the Craven Heifer in Skipton.

Dinner at the pub is always ordered at the bar with the bartender and then brought out usually by the kitchen help or a runner, depending on the staffing situation (we have found that, as in the States, there is a serious shortage of help here). For your pint—or whatever you’re drinking—you’ll place your order at the bar, and then chat with the bartender while they pull it. As a non-drinker, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with just how many pubs have NA beer available. Sure, sometimes it’s just Heineken (which I will politely decline), but others will have local NA ales or porters that are quite good.

Non alcoholic Guinness at the Buck Inn pub in Buckden.

For the most part, there are no raw vegetable dishes (such as salads) on any of the menus we’ve seen. Every once in a while you’ll see a salad squashed into some far forgotten corner of “Sides,” but for the most part, salads—as we know and love them—are just not a thing here. I’ve found that “salad” instead refers to the lettuce on a sandwich, which also seems to be quite rare here.

But what the English lack in un-cooked roughage, they make up for in spades with dessert. Anything made with cream—pouring cream, custard, or ice cream—is dreamy. I won’t bore you with another song of praise for the creme brûlée I had at the Craven Heifer in Skipton, but will tell you that my new favorite ice cream is the Jersey Double Cream—simply a sweet cream ice cream (no vanilla, no nothin’) made with the thickest cream imaginable. It is a crime that we don’t have this in the States. We’ve also sampled honeycomb (also called cinder toffee) ice cream, and treacle ice cream. All were dreamy, but to be fair, is there such a thing as bad ice cream? Probably not.

Most dessert menus will offer an assortment of “sponge puddings” (cakes) usually doused with some kind of sauce or custard. Here you’ll find your sticky toffee pudding—a generous slab dark with treacle and dates, and smothered with equally dark toffee sauce—a thin type cooked sugar-and-butter caramel, which should really be offered by the mugful. But the star of the puddings for us has hands down been the Yorkshire Parkin. Though the style of parkin can vary slightly from village to village, our favorite to date is the one served at Whitelock’s Ale House in Leeds. This is a dense squodge of gingerbread—with enough ginger in it to make your eyes water—the cake shot through with additional sticky bits of crystallized ginger. It’s all swimming in a moat of buttery toffee sauce, and—at Whitelock’s—is served with a generous scoop of treacle ice cream. When Steve and I start flagging on the trail, we reminisce about the Yorkshire parkins we’ve eaten, and wax poetic about the ones yet to come.

The Yorkshire parkin at Whitelock’s Alehouse in Leeds. What it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in just about every way.

As I finish this post, it occurs to me that we have only two days and 22 miles left on the trail. To date, we’ve walked 78 (okay, maybe 82? 84?) miles in some of the most beautiful country we’ve seen in our lives. Yesterday, while strolling through the tiny hamlet of Flitholme, a friendly couple arriving home from running errands in Appleby invited us in for tea. We sipped and chatted with Elise—an artist—and David—a retired magistrate—for a little over an hour. While we emptied our mugs and cleaned up the last crumbs of fruitcake on our plates, I thought of how much I will miss this place when we leave. Walking so many miles is such an intimate way to communicate with a place. There are no barriers between you the world around you, and you are, by default, no longer just an observer, but rather, very much a participant in the life of a place. Foreign, yes. Different, to be sure. But, if even for just a short time, we are not merely visitors, but denizens of this beautiful country, co-habitants with the sheep and cows and rabbits, and neighbors to all who live here.