The pubs of Oxford

I had the opportunity to study in Oxford for six months this past year. What I miss most - and there are many things to miss - is meeting for a pint with my friends after a long day at the library.

And the pub quizzes at the Turf (Thursdays) or the Bear (Mondays) are not to be missed - our American team won an Imperial gallon of ale, and a free dinner, respectively. Though, if you want to do well, you ought to pick up a local for the cricket, football, and British television questions.

I would expect that however "Inklingesque" the decor, the people sitting inside would generally have their finds shaped by and their talk marked by the same stuff we are all too fmailiar with outside such pubs.

I spent an absolutely glorious day in Oxford last summer during my very first trip abroad ever. I found the Eagle and Child to be quite enjoyable -- no Eurodisco to be found, the fish, chips and ale were very good, and I even liked the mushy peas.

One thing that was kind of funny was a group of three or four Canadian twentysomething women who seemed to be there on something of a C. S. Lewis pilgrimage based on what I overheard, and who only ordered water to drink. I ran into them again at Evensong at Christ Church, and they looked extremely confused through much of the service. Draw your own conclusions.

Anyway, Oxford became my favorite place in the universe that day. I want to go back ASAP, and if there's some way I can find to actually be a student there, so much the better.

Richard

For those of us who aren't going to the UK any time soon, I think the American equivalent, at least in function [definitely not in form] is the dive/roadhouse/diner in little towns all over the country. There's no franchising, just a lot of authentic localism. I offer these off the top of my head:

Doe's Eat Place--Greenville, MS [Oh the tamales!][And steak!]
Susie's Roadhouse--Ostrander, MN [oh, the ribs!]
The Dam Bar--Marshall, IA [Fireworks in the adjoining city park over the Cedar River every July 3rd.]
Charlie's Cafe--Freeport, MN [often cited as a source for Garrison Keillor on Prairie Home Companion][softball sized sweet rolls]
Myrtle Beach-- Myrtle, MN [Pork chops and Guinness with sand volleyball in the back]
Al's Breakfast--Dinkytown in Minneapolis [okay, not so small a town but the dude is a James Beard winner and the place is a literal hole in the wall].
Bartoletti's--Aurora, WI [steak au poivre in northeastern Wisconsin, and a great Italian menu to boot. Whooda thunkit?]

English pubs are great, yeah, but I'll take the conviviality of a Bavarian biergarten any day. Weisswurst and fresh spargel, with a stein of Augustiner Brau. That's heaven on earth.

Kevin Divine brings up an interesting point: what exactly *is* the American pub?

One is tempted at first flush to simply write off the project. There's something about the temperament, or the history, or the landscape that makes the pub impossible over here. Our best attempts at emulation--even the fine "Irish Pub" that I frequent here in my town, where I know the publican by name--always come up short, for the very reason that they are emulations, and a pub is fundamentally nothing but itself.

But perhaps Mr. Divine is right, and the essence of the pub lies not in its form but in its character: a welcoming house, where the regular will find friendship and the stranger will find hospitality. Perhaps the diner does, after all, offer the American analogue, with the accidents of British culture replaced by American idioms. While we may lament some of the differences--cheap coffee can't replace mellow ale as a social catalyst--we needn't despair that the New World has lost one of the West's vital organs.

It may take us another hundred years to see the reflowering of true pubs in America--we had the genuine article at least up though the late 19th century, before the ravages of prohibition and late modernity--but the seed still remains, transplanted, regrafted, but waiting only the black furrow and the farmer's gentle hand.

It was Italy last month, Rod, is England your favourite European country now?!

A pub, I think, is closer to a cafe than to a bar or restaurant. Bars are places where people go for a #night out# or to pick up men/women. Restaurants are places where people eat, and you can't talk to people in another group. Pubs combine beer, food and conversation. The beer must be good, the food, if you want any, must be at least passable (you can't expect wonders in England!!), and you must be able to chat to the barman or to anyone who comes in - in a bar, you can only talk for sexual reasons. The conversation should have a self-mocking edge, and there should be no forced anti-intellectual concentration on sport or sex. It's crucial that the beer is served from a pump rather than a bottle, and that you have to go to the bar rather than having a waiter come to the table. You have to be able to hang about, spending an hour to drink a pint, without any pressure to move on or buy more. The building and decor should be olde-worlde, even if fake.

I've never seen anything resembling a pub in the USA, Asia, or most of Europe. Even Scotland doesn't really have proper pubs - something to do with hyper-Protestantism and drinking whisky instead of beer. French village cafes are fairly similar, though, especially in the north, where people drink more beer than wine. Irish pubs are maybe better than English ones. Japan has bars, which are stylish places; hostess bars, where pretty women serve you beer and flatter you, and you get charged a week's wages; and izakaya, where you have to sit down and eat, and you'd be thought a lunatic for talking to someone at the next table.

I spent 3 of the best months of my life in Oxford, studying abroad there as an undergrad. Love the Turf--tradition was never to have the same beer there twice, given the vast selection. There wasn't any Europop when I visited the Eagle and Child, but it was only the afternoon, so what do I know?

Some other gems from my time there are (or were--I haven't been back yet) The Grapes and Rosie O'Grady's. There were more I visited, but I'm afraid time and a few too many pints whilst in the pubs themselves have softened my memories.