All around the world people who visit tourist destinations are left with a terrible impression of that country’s cuisine. I remember visiting Paris, years before we started dining Michelin-style, and leaving with the impression that French restaurants are horrible places where steak comes as a scrawny piece of leather and hollandaise sauce is a cold, sour custard.
So I’ll give America the benefit of the doubt, and assume that the piles of awful food we’re sustaining ourselves with and the nasty drinks it’s all sluiced down with are just because we’re visiting touristy areas. The cocktails at Signal Mountain Lodge had quirky names, but could have more honestly been called “Brass-O” and “Floor Cleaner”. Coffee tends to be dishwater weak. Tonight I had pot-roast bison and it was the most chewy lunk of meat I’ve had to choke down in a long while. Dishes seem to be put together without much thought as to what flavours combine. A burger consisting of salmon… with melted cheese on top? And chipotle mayonnaise? And surely cream cheese is an odd ingredient to put in sushi? I had a trout fillet with the special dryness I associate with frozen fish cooked to death. I had an eggs benedict that would have been fine except the bucket of hollandaise hadn’t seen a drop of either lemon or vinegar. I ended up slathering it in mustard just to get something to cut through the eggy butteriness. Tonight my hapless brother had a starter of smoked salmon apparently drizzled with a warm honey sauce.
The duff food is useful, in a way. Because the portions are almost always titanic, so at least I’m not tempted to try finishing any of them.
Of course I haven’t even mentioned some of the arresting geothermal oddities we’ve been exploring today. Old Faithful wasn’t as much of a spectacle as I’d expected, but the simple fact that it spurts water 100ft in the air at such regular intervals is quite brilliant. Most of the other geysers erupt at intervals described as: “anything between a few hours and a couple of decades apart”.
The most beautiful feature of all isn’t a geyser, it’s the Great Prismatic Spring. I won’t try and describe with words, this is definitely a case for just taking a look at the photo. However, my favourite geothermal spot of all was Imperial Geyser. Although just a small affair with a frothing geyser, a crystal blue pool and a mud pot, you can only reach it after an hour of hiking and so (naturally) we had it all to ourselves. There are no “stick to the boardwalk” and “do not cross this barrier” signs either, you’re left to your own common sense. What do you mean? I’m still here, aren’t I?
Addendum: since I didn’t get to post any of this until finishing our holiday, I can now confirm that in various towns across the western states and away from the National Parks we had several good meals and plenty of decent coffee.
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