Nothing to shout about, including the food

WE'VE had American visitors for a few days, the sort who if they ever stopped talking for two successive seconds, you'd ring the Co-op on the assumption that they'd passed away.

It was like Times Square at turning out time, and with the amplifiers on mega. When he had nothing to say, he'd talk distractedly to himself; when she had nothing to say, she was asleep.

As well as the width there was the volume, a perpetually high-pitched cacophony into which the words "Yawlz" (as in "What yawlz doing today?") and "sucks" (as in "Yawlz sucks") were blasted like a Howitzer on heat.

If they had cuddies back in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, they sure as hell wouldn't have any hind legs.

Last Wednesday lunchtime, whisper it from the roof tops, they returned to Noisy City, USA. Last Wednesday evening, we were desperate for a quiet night out.

For several years, there's been a book on these shelves called The Quiet Pint, strictly a guide to pubs without piped music but - still small voice of calm - a subdued enough place to start.

George Bernard Shaw, it recalls, was once asked by a fawning restaurant greeter what he'd like the band to play.

"Dominoes," replied Shaw.

The Yorkshire Dales, of course, have a tranquility of their own, though probably quieter this summer than those dependent on tourism would prefer. Hush money gathered up, we headed for the Red Lion at Langthwaite, Arkengarthdale, described in The Quiet Pint as "an oasis in a desert".

It's a delightful little pub - unchanging, ordered, manifestly and immaculately cared for - and still with Mrs Rowena Hutchinson's hand-written injunction by the door that caps and hats must not be worn in the bar.

We wrote about it many years ago, caused a bit of a country folks' kerfuffle at the time, but last Wednesday was definitely not the time for a row. Besides, there wasn't another soul in.

It was partly because things really are a bit thin up there, partly because the quoits team were throwing their weights about at the Punch Bowl in Low Row, and partly because poor Mrs Hutchinson was badly hurt in a car crash a few weeks ago and is still recuperating.

Though there are still sandwiches and things at lunchtime, there's no food at night save for the array of crisps, biscuits, snacks and chocolate eggs each in their appointed place on the bar top. Since man shall not live by Pringles alone - though teenage sons appear to try - we turned again to The Quiet Pint.

The Tan Hill Inn's included, but with a caveat about the resident Jack Russell. The Kings Arms at Redmire is also there - a bit too much commotion about that one, just now - and the Farmers Arms at Muker, at the far end of Swaledale and one of the most serene villages in all England.

Past the old Surrender lead mines and over the tops, the drive on a summer evening is unequivocally stupendous, the colours quietly coruscating, the peace like the peace of God, which - says the Book of Common Prayer -passeth all understanding.

Correctly in every respect, the Farmers is described as an "unspoiled, popular village pub" and one in which the noise is of restrained conversation alone - so civilising that when some foreign fields philistine ordered a pint of lager and lime we said not a word to abuse, or disabuse, him.

The more discerning can drink Nimmo's or Theakston's, food not perhaps the number one drawing card - nothing to shout about, as probably they've never once said in Baton Rouge, Louisiana - though entirely adequate for the purpose.

The Boss had liver and onions ("very tasty"), we lamb shank with minted gravy, both with vegetables cooked a long time previously. Together they cost £14. The setting was magnificent, the calm conspicuous and compelling.

The Quiet Pint makes the point that the more people have to compete with music, the louder they talk. Noise simply begets more noise.

Outside, the church clock told 20 to ten, and it was still light. Tractors worked unheard in high distant fields, a walker had a jumper over his head ("midges", he muttered) and a few sheep essayed a little twilight bleating - permissible, because they live there.

Nothing further serried the stillness. We exulted in the sound of silence.

SEEKING to turn up the volume a little, Mr Arthur Pickering in Hartlepool raises the subject of growlers. We mentioned them last week.

A growler is a pork pie in these parts, and also in Hartlepool where Arthur may be Morrell's best customer. But how, he wonders, did they come by the name?

The Oxford English Dictionary offers seven different definitions for growler, none faintly farinaceous. The first and seventh - "one who or something which growls"; "a dog" - may have been assumed. The others are more obscure.

A growler, says the Oxford, may be a four wheeled cab, a species of fish ("a grunt or pig-fish"), a vessel in which beer is fetched, a small iceberg or an electromagnet. Nothing so perfect as a pork pie.

"I've heard a lot of people talk about growlers but I've honestly no idea where it comes from," says Stuart Taylor-Garthwaite of the Darlington family firm which bakes "a couple of thousand dozen" - an awful lot, anyway - each week.

They even owned a racehorse called Pies R Us. "He wasn't really built for winning. He's now in a field and much happier," says Stuart.

He has promised to consult colleagues in the pork pie Politburo in the hope of enlightenment. And so things rumble on.

ANOTHER bit of unsung etymology. The Quiet Pint reckons that the first recorded use of the word "tavern" was by an eighth century Archbishop of York. "Priests," he decreed, "were not to eat or drink in taverns." If only it were the greatest of the Church's problems today.

AFTER the half past ten train up to Leyburn - a railwayman would probably argue that it's "down" to Leyburn, but it's 50 years since you could have travelled the Wensleydale Railway, either way - a spot of lunch at Sam's.

Officially, it's Sam Corr's Coffee House, apparently named after a Victorian gentleman who made coffee and pepper mills.

The room's spacious and casually furnished, the menu lengthy and with a taste of Italy, though there are burgers, butties, melts and all manner of other things.

The tomato soup was excellent - good croutons, huge bowl, £3.50 - the salad nicoise (£6.50) encountered a problem because the waiter had either never heard of it or had spent his young life pronouncing it like "knickers".

Without wishing to sound smarty pants about this, it's pronounced nee-swarz and in French has a little tadpole tail beneath the c. This computer doesn't speak French, only American.

In the event the salad, though attractively presented, was altogether unexceptional and almost shamefully underdressed.

Again Sam's? Well yes, but not for a salad nicoise.

....and finally, the bairns wondered what you call a bespectacled young wizard who becomes a journalist.

A reporter.

Published: 15/07/2003