My Tourist Hell

A couple of days ago I did something I try never to do. I got a bit “cross in the comments”.

When I was first writing, I did a lot of work for the early Guardian Online. It was one of those deals I seem to have had dropped in my lap an embarrassing number of times. The pay was shite, but you could get away with writing almost anything. The editors who commissioned me and made my stuff look great were, much like me, scrabbling to find rules in a new field… but they loved food and they loved writing.

The Guardian commenters were brutal. As one editor explained it… ‘They all got decent degrees in reasonable Universities in the subject you write about. They love their ‘sections’ and they all think they could do a better job than you. Some of them are right’.

I don’t mind admitting that sometimes it got pretty soul-sapping.

When I moved to the FT the comments dropped away to just a few. All charming, friendly, supportive… the digital equivalent of fountain pen, usually saying ‘thanks for an entertaining piece’. I took this up with my previous editor who explained, of course they were like that. FT readers all had jobs doing something entirely different, they didn’t want your job, they didn’t envy your slot, they just liked it when you entertained them. He was right.

But as I watched colleagues and online friends descending into lifelong emnities over trivial slights, I just swore I’d never rise to the bait. I’d never slap anyone down, take umbrage or score points BTL. Sometimes that meant not reading the comments, but usually I managed to stick to it.

I have a pleasantly quiet life.

Last week, I did something for an American podcast in support of ‘Steak’ and I started getting people popping into my feed.

Most of my audience has grown organically. People bother to follow me because they’ve liked something I’ve done… it’s kind of self-selecting for pleasantness. But when you do something that’s ‘broadcast’ to a much larger audience that has no context for you… you catch flak. A remarkable number of one-line comments basically saying ‘That thing you said - It’s fucking shit’. No discussion, no rationale. Knee-jerk, frat boy aggression.

But I didn’t respond. I didn’t snap-back… There’s no point. But I felt kind of edgy.

And then I ‘grammed something innocuous about drinking a Martini in Harry’s Bar in Venice and a few people commented about Venice being ‘ruined’ and Harry’s being a Tourist Trap and I sort of couldn’t help myself. I feel lousy about it, but I sounded off.

But this wasn’t the first time I’d gone off on this attack line. Here’s something I’d written a few years ago, now buried somewhere in the FT archives, and with a certain amount of Esprit d’escalier, I realised that it said what I’d felt so strongly about, just more elegantly and at length…..

Whenever I travel abroad for work or pleasure, I do some advance research. I might find a place worth reviewing, maybe even somewhere to take the family for a decent meal, but I invariably run into a peculiarity of foodie behaviour. The weird culinary Catch 22 you might call the Tourist Trap Trap.

I think my entire adolescence centred on the ambition of sitting outside Caffé Florian, sipping an espresso with Helena Bonham-Carter. It formed me. What I read, how I dressed, the tastes food and drink I developed, an obsession with art history… and yet, when the chance came… when I told people I was going… it was like I’d suggested walking into a free-fire zone with a target on my back “Are you mad? You’ll be ripped off there, like some kind of tourist”. Then they’d suggest somewhere else… which, when I mentioned it to the next opinionated foodie, would be shot down as a hopeless, fraudulent clip joint and so on, and on until finally it became apparent that, rather than go to Venice at all, I should stay at home and feed £50 notes into a shredder.

A logical human might think it would be fun to go and do the things that are unique to Venice. The things that we can’t do at home. Y’know, gorgeous architecture, museums, gondolas, alfresco eating in sunny squares, local food and great wine. But the minute you get specific, the advice turns toxic. I mean, it’s good to have the tipoff if it’s a ripoff, but is there’s also a kind of engrained dread of actually ‘being a tourist’

It’s illogical. Florian is all about being a tourist. Venice is only there because of tourism. And dammit, I am a tourist. I don’t go to Venice to replicate the experience of a middle-aged Venetian restaurant goer who’s lived there all his life; I am openly and proudly an eager visitor.

We really, really need to stop doing this to ourselves. Let me tell you why.

A friend suggested I try La Cambuse du Saunier in Gruissan, when I was on holiday in Coulliore. “It’s a bit of a drive, she said, maybe a bit touristy, but they filmed Betty Blue near there and the food is really good.”

I was travelling with Tris, my best mate, and longest-serving culinary wing-man. He was ideal for the gig. He speaks French beautifully. He’s an editor, and cineaste which makes him a congenial companion on long car journeys and he can pack away more seafood in half an hour than a Russian trawler.

“Jesus. This is surreal.”

And it was. As we walked past the screaming warnings of a tourist attraction - the carpark, the giftshop, the weird little scooter-hire stand - and in between the sun-bleached shacks, the sky opened up before us. Cloudless, deep lapis lazuli, all the way down to the razor-line of the horizon and then to the endless bubblegum pink of the water. Yep. Salt flats as far as the eye could see, the colour of of a Barbie tricycle. Entirely other-wordly, and on an impossible scale. The very slightly raised banks holding the brine in form an imperceptible false horizon and fool the eye that they represent infinity. We just stared. Immobilised by weird beauty.

We were already late. They wanted to close the kitchen, so we ordered everything at once. Bang, half a dozen oysters, slurped like they were trying to escape. Bang, a big crab, cloven down the centre line so we could get half each and take it like hyenas cleaning out a giraffe.

We hadn’t said a thing since the food arrived. The sun was dappling through the rush matting on to our heads. There was sand and salt underfoot and when we finally paused, we just grinned, big easy happy grins, wiped fish out our beards and jerked the cork out of the wine.

“That was incredible.”

“I know. And I still can’t stop staring at the horizon.”

It was a white. Cold, crisp, a bit fruity… am I imagining a bit salty? Glorious local stuff called ‘La Clape’. Remind me to get a case. Then the mains came. Tris sat and laughed at his for a whole minute.

“It’s about 40 degrees out there and I’m eating cuttlefish cassoulet. And it’s stupendous.”

The beans were soft, smooth with cubes of cephalopod lurking beneath the surface in Lovecraftian threat. In case you missed the point, there was a spare, little cuttlefish, grilled on the side. We found a sausage buried at the bottom. God knows how it got there. Maybe it was some kind of test.

I love salt cod. I love the way the salt tightens the flesh and enhances the flavour. I love the way they do in this part of the world, Catalan-style, in a slow-cooked with tomatoes, onions, capsicums and espelette pepper. But since La Cambuse, I love it best ladled over a mound of chips. Yep. Olive oil fried potatoes, a healthy mound of them, buried under a kind of hot stew, hiding a piece of fish the size of a car battery.

“You know what? The French do ‘Cod and Chips’ better than we do”.

I’m still getting over La Cambuse du Saunier, but not just the company, the food, the wine and the bonkers view. No, what’s waking me up in the small hours right now, startled and shaking, is the realisation that, if I’d listened to most of the people I usually consult, I’d never have gone near the place. I’d have avoided the queues, the autoroute, the carpark and the gift shop and gone to some tight-arsed winery.

I wouldn’t have disgraced myself by being a tourist and I’d have missed one of the most extraordinary, joyous and memorable meals of my life.

What I never mentioned was that, as Tris and I ate that fantastic food, looking at that ludicrous view, we both knew he was dying. Prostate cancer. The same thing that had killed Dad just a few years earlier. It wasn’t germane to the piece and it would have been revoltingly mawkish to mention it. But looking back, I realise this was one of the events in my life that changed my perspective. I resolved that it’s all too nasty, brutish and short to worry about the crap. To worry about somewhere being a ‘tourist trap’. To not go somewhere because of what people might think. To bitch about it to others. Or even belittle them for enjoying it. It’s just so nasty. When what really matters is this…

…and this…

… and definitely this