Autumn being the season of fruitfulness, we set out on a mission to find the
best of American foods and flavours along the roads of New England.
The roadtrip was an attempt to get away from trendy urban American restaurants
that think a sixteen-flavour implosion as a good thing. Instead ours was a
journey in search of great diners, fantastic farmstands and the best of
local produce, and, most importantly, a search for great pies.
It was early in the journey when we first began to realise the importance of
pie to the American culture. Pies began to crop up on signs along the
roadsides with increasing regularity. There were "homemade pies", "hot-from-the-oven
pie" and "apple pie". Pies, it seemed, could not to be
ignored.
While you can tuck into a hearty breakfast of eggs, toast and hash browns in
an American diner for $2.99, a homemade pie is a premium product, on sale,
even on farmstands, for around $12-$15. That's how important they are.
Americans are prepared to pay top dollar for them.
So while crowds of tourists headed for New England countryside to view "the
fall foliage", we set our GPS for a less remarked upon by-product of
the season, the fine autumnal produce that presents itself along New
England's roads.
Stage one: Boston to New Haven
By the time we had settled into driving an automatic, found the GPS in the
glove compartment and declared it the best gadget in the world, we had taken
a left out of Massachusetts and into Connecticut, and were speeding down the
Interstate 395. Too late we realised that interstates are rubbish. They are
dull, everyone drives very fast (well, 65 mph) and there are no farmstands.
Two days later we were informed that running parallel to the Interstate 395
is a beautiful rolling road, the 169. My advice is: take it.
With this in mind we hopped on to Route 1 as we approached the coastline of
the Long Island Sound, and soon found the requisite amount of quirky
Americana that had been missing on the big highways. Signs promised "apple
picking" - my friend Lisa tells me apple picking is popular with her
California cousins when they visit New England as "they don't have
apples over there". As we pottered through villages past cafes with
names like Pat's Kountry Kitchen and Cosy Corner, we debated where our first
stop would be.
We pulled over at Scott's Yankee Farmer (East Lyme, Route 1, Conn), where the
parking lot was crammed with bright orange pumpkins. From as early as mid
September, Americans begin planning for Halloween, with orange and black
decorations festooning the shops, and the ever-present pumpkins along the
roadsides. But decoration apart, most people buy them to make pumpkin pie.
Scott's lived up to our hopes. We wandered around the shop and weaved around
the pumpkins, negotiated a trail through large tubs of chrysanthemums, while
munching on delicious warm cinnamon doughnuts. Inside the shop there was a
table overflowing with pies of every size and fruit; peach pies, rhubarb
pies and even more. We picked up half a peach pie for $6 and couldn't resist
a handful of ripe peaches to take on our first picnic. A few miles down
further south down Route 1 in Old Lyme we filled the picnic basket further
with with bread and muffins from the Cloud Nine Bakery, before heading on
down the coast.
Connecticut's seashore is not a well-known tourist trail, but has charm and
loads of history. Many of the instigators of the US revolution and the early
heroes of the US hailed from this part of the country. It is easy to sink
into reverie about the past as you cruise along Route 1. The road is
decorated by woods, tiny beaches, salt marshes and picturebook-pretty
villages with white wooden churches, village greens and grand old libraries,
not much changed from when the first settlers established their carpentry
and leatherworking shops. Even the big draw of the area, Mystic Seaport, a
reconstruction of a seaport of the 18th Century, attracts domestic tourists,
rather than the international kind.
We had an insider's tip, and stopped for lunch at an off-the-beaten track
locals' haunt, Lenny's (203 488-1500, Route 146, Branford, CT
www.lennysnow.com), a cocktail bar/seafood café, with stunning views across
the salt marshes from its wooden deck. Lenny's is a relatively grand clam
shack, a Connecticut staple for fast fresh local seafood. We ordered a
seafood platter (a huge plate of fried clams, fish and shrimp) and a whole
lobster, and there was, as always in America, plenty to go around. The
lobster was steamed whole, and came with a pair of crackers, so you could
attack it from all sides. The meal was simply done and service was
excellent. Also to be recommended are the Bloody Mary's, which come with all
the trimmings, and plenty of horseradish. Lenny's is a little hard to find,
but worth the effort.
For a eating place with a little bit more urban bustle, locals love Frank
Pepe's (157 Wooster Street, 203 865-5762), a legendary place to eat pizza in
New Haven, and top of the charts for students at the city's Yale University.
Expect to queue for a table, even if you arrive early in the evening. The
décor is basic moving towards shabby, and service is slick, almost brusque,
but it has a certain something. Pizzas are, of course, huge. The list is
divided into white pizzas, which come without tomato sauce, and red, with
the sauce. The clam pizza is a local speciality, and a creamy delight. This
place is run by a family of Italian-Americans who started up the business in
1925, and has loads of atmosphere. You'll feel like an insider when you
manage to get a table.
Stage two: New Haven to the Berkshires
If the Connecticut coast is not high on the list of international tourist
haunts, then the wooded interior of the state is close to the bottom. Even
our friends who have lived in the state for 10 years had no idea what was
out there. We found wonderful winding roads through woods, tracing a route
alongside rivers and hills. From New Haven, the gorgeous Route 34 takes a
meandering trail into the hills, and past some interesting looking riverside
cafes and summer homes.
We'd heard about a recreation of the Lourdes shrine in the Connecticut
countryside, so we headed to Litchfield to find out if it was intriguing as
it sounded. We diverted through the gorgeous village of Waterbury, which had
white clapperboard houses scattered along an old main street, history-book
style, as well as an ancient churchyard, next an old white wooden church.
Pushing on to Litchfield to the Lourdes shrine, we pulled into a long
winding driveway and into a parking lot where we were the only vehicle. The
Lourdes recreation was huge, and included a massive shop selling tiny
plastic Virgin Mary's and a selection of saints' memorabilia, including a St
Joseph homesellers' pack, offering protection for anyone about to move
house. St Joseph was the patron saint of homeselling, it seemed. The shop
was staffed by two women, who were engrossed in a chat and didn't seem
interested in these two odd looking foreign visitors, so we had plenty of
time to browse through the souvenirs before heading up the hillside to the
altar and grotto, where we were all alone, with not another visitor for
miles.
After a trip around such outlandish Americana, we headed back into Litchfield,
another beautiful New England village, with a main street of little shops
selling everything from cookware to "preppy" fashion, and decided
to stay the night, while trying to work out who lived in this obviously
wealthy, but remote village.
For dinner, we checked out a local recommendation, the Village Restaurant (25
West Street, 860 567-8307), and it turned out to be a good move. It was the
busiest place in town, and had a great atmosphere. We managed to get a
wooden booth to ourselves, and unlike in so many US restaurants, were not
rushed through our meal. Pies were on our minds, of course, and they were
homemade in the village and delivered every day.
The menu was full of sterling stuff like good old-fashioned mashed potatoes,
steaks with all the trimmings and steaming cups of clam chowder. Main
courses were around $20 but included either a salad or a cup of soup in the
price. Portion size was huge, but we forgot the golden rule and didn't order
the smallest item on the menu, and were offered a takeaway box for the
unfinished plateful. The inn looked out across a village green, which you
could imagine highwaymen galloping by in the 18th century, and changed much
since. In fact, the whole village looked more like a film set than somewhere
that real people lived and worked.
Day two of this section of our journey and we headed towards the scenic Route
7 and in Massachussets' Berkshires, a famously pretty region in the west of
the state. We had a coffee stop planned for Great Barrington, a few miles
from both the New York state border and the Appalachian Trail. For anyone
needing some carbs after a mountain trek, the Neighbourhood Diner on Main
Street is the place to stock up. It's a classic, with booths you can slide
into on shiny seats, a black and white tiled floor and a big window out onto
the world that is Main Street.
Despite having enjoying one breakfast at 8am we couldn't resist the allure of
a breakfast classic, and decided to gear up for another one - two eggs,
sunnyside up, homefries and toast, plus blueberry pancakes. It did more than
hit the spot, it was a discovery. There was simple American food at its
finest, and all for a miniscule price of $2.99 for two enormous pancakes
with maple syrup, and $3.99 for the breakfast. A wander down Main Street
revealed arty shops, bakeries and a great present hunting ground on Little
Railroad Street.
For a bit of exercise, plus an infusion of history, we stopped at the Hancock
Shaker Village, just outside Pittsfield (413 443-0188,
www.hancockshakervillage.org), and walked admiringly around this outside
museum about shaker life, filled with reinactments of shaker music, farming
and living. The shakers appreciated their food, and had large gardens
growing vegetables and herbs, as well as raising their own livestock. In
fact well before Tom and Barbara, they had decided on complete
self-sufficiency. Unfortunately for the future of the movement, the shakers
also believed in celibacy, so they have almost disappeared in New England,
with only a few clusters remaining. Lucky for us the shaker village also had
a café, and served traditional oatmeal and raisin cookies, excellent for
keeping us fired up for the journey north.
Back on Route 7 we headed north again, this time for the college town of
Williamstown, right on the Vermont border, home to an exclusive private
liberal arts college which dominates the place with its mock classic campus
buildings scattered across a few miles. Apart from its academic atmosphere,
Williamstown is also famous for its art museum, the Clark (413 458-9545,
www.clarkart.edu), with its halls of American and European art, particularly
Impressionists, as well as several miles of hiking trails. More importantly
we found a top-of-the-range coffee shop on Spring Street, with all the
necessary characteristics, comfy sofas and tables, free wi-fi, free
newspapers and an excellent range of teas and coffees.
After settling in for the night at the River Bend Farm just outside
Williamstown, a 1770 Colonial home of a US revolutionary leader, we were
treated to a pot of tea and a slice of homemade carrot cake by the owner
Dave Loomis. Dave and his wife Judy have restored the farmhouse to its
former shape and stocked it with period antiques. The rooms have fireplaces,
all used in the winter. There's four rooms, and two bathrooms to share
between them, but as the only guests that night we had free run of the
place, including the shared living room and kitchen. That evening at Dave's
recommendation we headed for a local restaurant within walking distance,
still on R7, the Cozy Corner (413 458-0237, 284 Sand Springs Road). It was
nothing grand, but good quality and good value: two salads, two main
courses, two Margaritas, and a chocolate dessert, added up to $30.
Next morning breakfast was served next to a flickering wood fire in the large
farm kitchen, and Dave had baked tiny muffins served with a piping hot pot
of tea (a rare thing in the US where they don't understand about boiling
water), and juice.
Stage 3: Vermont to Boston
Dave Loomis recommended a farm shop just a few miles up Route 7, close to
Bennington. The Apple Barn was on the right just before we hit the outskirts
of Bennington, and was another exceptional farmstand, ringed by a display of
pumpkins. Inside were Vermont's finest products, a range of maple syrup,
Vermont honeys, breads, cakes, jams and jellies, apples and of course, pies.
Everything was local and smelt good. We stocked up on thick honey, a tiny
jug of maple syrup, a half peck of local apples (a measurement that surely
has died out in the UK?), a loaf of bread and an apple pie. All the produce
turned out to be a good investment and was a stalwart part of our breakfasts
and dinners in the week ahead as we settled into our rented home in
Shaftsbury, north of Bennington, ringed by mountains. The maple syrup was
dark and gooey, the honey was thick and creamy, and the apples tart and
crisp, and the pie was saved for a special evening.
Vermont prides itself on its produce, and was a great base for a foodie foray
into New England. With our own kitchen we were able to be more adventurous
in our farmshop purchasing. Our home for the week was in a tiny hamlet with
little more than a country store, but a mile away on Route 7 was Clear Brook
Farm, which sold the sweetest corn on the cob I have ever tasted. The
farmstand itself was surrounded by fields where much of the produce was
grown organically and all other goods were local. Everything we tasted was
excellent: tomatoes, local ham, apples of all varieties (in half and whole
pecks), herbs, pies, potatoes, carrot cake and the discovery of the week,
apple cider, a non-alcoholic spiced apple juice. We never went back to the
supermarket, and in evenings as the sun went down, we jogged around the
fields where the corn grew, finishing up at the Chocolate Barn, opposite
Clear Brook, for rich hot chocolate.
About 10 miles north of Shaftsbury, the village of Manchester has more
perfectly manicured white clapperboard houses, manicured lawns, and very
expensive shops, hence the abundance of New Yorkers on weekend breaks.
Further down the road is Manchester Centre, a bit more down to earth, with
more ordinary places; a bookshop, a cinema, a liquor store, bakery and
supermarket and a Ben and Jerry's. Manchester has a few noteable foodie
stops, including Mrs Murphy's Donuts (Depot Street/Route 11), which opens at
5am to serve warm baked dough of all flavours. Lovers of all things
deliciously Italian head for Al Ducci's take out, (Elm Street, Manchester
Center), where all sorts of pastas and sauces are sold.
Vermont has offers an array of foodie events. During autumn there's usually a
cider pressing or apple festival, while maple syrup tapping brings visitors
at other times of year. We were promised food, farm and folk art at a
country fair we visited just outside Manchester in a green valley surrounded
by mountains, and arrived just in time for the baking contest, where a
gaggle of serious-faced judges were munching on spoonfuls of homebaked pies,
before the winner was announced over the Tannoy. Demonstrations by
lumberjacks and a sheep shearer kept us entertained, and a farmer with a
large hat perched on a tiny tractor pulling kids around the field in
hollowed out barrels - it mwas like we had strayed into an episode of the
Waltons.
Not all our trips in search of excellence were successful. We set off on the
scenic route 9 from Bennington to Brattleboro, on the east side of the
state. The place that we planned to hit for lunch, the recommended Skyline
Restaurant, had closed down, and on the mountainous return journey from
Brattleboro to Bennington we visited a couple of Vermont's famous covered
bridges, and discover them to be just bridges with roofs, and not very
exciting at all.
Vermont's most famous tourist attraction these days is the Ben and Jerry's
factory where the world famous ice cream is made. But it's not the only ice
cream maker in the state. It's worth pulling over at the Silver Scoops hut,
off Route 7 north between Arlington and Manchester. We followed a bevy of
Harley Davidson riders in to the layby. They serve homemade ice cream
straight from the farm for $3 a scoop to eat it at the picnic table nearby.
To finish off our trip we drove back to Boston. And for a final infusion of
Americana went to the great Paramount coffee shop, which opened on pretty
Beacon Street in 1937. Despite its swanky location, this old-fashioned cafe
serves up classic breakfasts all day and sterling sandwiches made up on
demand such as melty grilled cheese for just $3.25.
We finish our New England roadtrip, full up on good old-fashioned diner food
and pies, and US food culture. Our final tip for foodies on holiday is
always look for the oldest café in town. They don't stay around that long if
they can't stand the pace.
Where to stay
Westbrook Inn, Westbrook, Connecticut (860 399 4777, www.westbrookinn.com,
Route 1, near New Haven)
A classic New England inn with a large porch, close to the coast and near a
pretty 1648 village. Rooms: $100-$209.
Abel Darling B&B (860 567-0384, 102 West Street, Litchfield, Conn.)
Rooms in a 1783 Colonial Home with old beams and wooden floors, overlooking
the village green in Litchfield. Close to shops and restaurants. Rooms
$85-$150
Curtis House, (203 263-2101, 506 Main Street, Woodbury, Conn)
There's just 14 rooms in Connecticut's oldest inn (1754). Curtis House still
operates a tavern and is in the centre of a pretty, traditional village.
Rooms from $89.
River Bend Farm (413 458-312164, www.riverbendfarmbb.com,
3 Simonds Road, Williamstown, Mass)
A restored 1770 house filled with museum pieces, and run by laidback folks
serving a great breakfast. Rooms $120.
The Weathervane Motel (802 362-2444, www.weathervanemotel.com
, Route 7A, Manchester, Vermont)
Better than average independently-run motel with free Wi-fi and great views.
Rooms $75-$130
