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I went to England for the first time in 1994 as a writer for the Berkeley Guides, a student-oriented offshoot of Fodor's travel guides. My assignment was to navigate through the region for six weeks and update a guide to Great Britain. I had a decent daily stipend -- enough to cover hostels, inexpensive B&Bs, tourist sites and cheap food -- and a bright yellow and purple backpack.

Wine Values to make Bad Meals Good

My culinary misadventures began in the town of Dorset. Dorset is Thomas Hardy country, as the tourist bureau will endlessly remind you. Happily the town itself is a lot more cheery than your average Hardy novel. I made my way to a nice-looking restaurant with a sandwich board out front advertising the soup of the day: split pea. I naively thought to myself, if they have a soup of the day, it must be made fresh. I sat down and ordered the split pea soup. What showed up was thick and green, with a congealed top layer and the unmistakable taste of canned soup.

How is this possible? I thought. How can you offer a soup of the day and then shamelessly heat up a can and serve it? I looked down at the chartreuse liquid and became so angry, so frustrated, I actually started to cry right into the offending substance. Finally a waitress approached my table. "That wasn't really what you wanted, was it?" she diplomatically asked. I started to stutter something about "soup of the day ... can ... don't understand." I managed to ask her for some bread and butter.

A week or so later I took a bus to the town of Rye. I arrived late at my B&B, cold, hungry and dead tired. The friendly innkeeper pointed me toward a pub about a half-mile down the road. It must have been about 10 p.m. as I walked in the direction of the pub. No one was around and it was foggy and desolate. American Werewolf in Rye, I thought to myself, just waiting for a hairy lupine creature to come careening out of the woods and make a few undead jokes before devouring me. But soon I saw lights coming from a building up the road. The pub was still open. My spirits perked up and my stomach lurched to attention, with the feeling that it might soon be fed.

The inside of the pub did a little to alleviate my monster-movie fantasies. A few people were standing around the bar and chatting. They seemed like relatives of the pub owner, with a baby in a stroller. I examined the menu scribbled on a little chalkboard. Beef burger with fries, sausage, fisherman's pie. Thank God for food, I thought.

I had been in England long enough to sense that the kitchen of this pub was not buzzing with trained chefs. There were few customers and even fewer were eating. In fact, no one was eating. But I was starving and I figured I had no choice but to take my chances. I took what I thought was the safest route, ordering a burger with fries and mushy peas and a beer to wash it down.

I sat down at a table, arranged the napkin on my lap and sipped my beer. I had a feeling of well-being that comes from sitting somewhere warm and dry and knowing you will soon be fed.

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