At the centre of this post is an academic’s obsession with pastry. Not as damaging as, say, alcohol, womanising or gambling, but …
Bydgosczc, too, has its ageing hippies and they’ve all come out. There is the grimy white-suited dotard with the wild, white beard, wearing a white, plastic Stetson with all sorts of shiny bits suspended from its rim with fishing line in a travesty of the good old Aussie cork hat. And it’s bobbin’, that hat, as Jan Akkerman & Band rock the function room of the Hotel Kuźnia. We are in Poland, by the way.
Earlier that day, the Professor (as he prefers to be described, prizing his anonymity) and I have been on a pleasant, but grueling bike ride, ending up in the village of Fordon.
The idea was to go for a little ride, then have a cappuccino and apfelstrudel and then ride home, shower, catch the tram into town and join the rest of the hippies at the Hotel Kuźnia.
However, apfelstrudel outlets are scarce in Bydgosczc and surrounds. There’s plenty of places that claim to be serving apflestrudel, but one boiled apple doth not necessarily an apfelstrudel make. “Cheap imitations”, says the Professor. I suggest it’s past communism casting its long shadow. The Professor puts it down to the area being “low-class”.
It might be the same thing, because the Stalinist pre-fab concrete apartment blocks are all around us. But whatever it is, even when we move away from these blocks, one restauracja after the other fails the Professor’s apfelstrudel test, either because it’s not on the menu or, when asked, staff have to check first before they are able to confirm, which won’t do.
The Professor has only been in Bydgosczc for a month. His search for a hostelry that serves good apflestrudel has thus far been as relentless as it has been unsuccessful. The idea of a short, light ride has been abandoned in the search for acceptable apfelstrudel. The Professor has become like a gambler trying to recover his losses by ever greater gambles.
But in Bordon he capitulates. No apfelstrudel is to be had in this God forsaken land!
In Bordon, there’s a weekend market and fair in the village, complete with traditional song and dance. I have a lukewarm beer straight from the market stall’s refrigerator. The Professor doesn’t drink anything with alcohol in it and sips morosely from his water bottle.
Then we head home, but as we approach Bydgosczc, the Professor spots a restauracja he has not spotted before. One last throw of the dice! And, yes, they serve apfelstrudel. Positive. It takes a long time to arrive, because it is actually baked when ordered and served fresh, but it does arrive eventually, and it is more than good. It’s excellent, delicious, ravishing.
It’s also unbelievable, because there are Stalinist apartment blocks right across the road and it is just around the corner from where the Professor lives!
With apfelstrudel under our belts we catch the tram into town, a bit late for the concert as a result of having to wait for the apfelstrudel to be baked and having to take our time to savour it, but Polish tram drivers do have lead feet and we get to the Hotel Kuźnia in time for Akkerman’s rendition of Hocus Pocus, complete with a guitar version of the original yodelling by Thijs van Leer.
