Vacation Object: Gain Weight
[img_assist|nid=620|title=Equinox|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=250|height=231]By Susann Washburn
One needn’t go back to early-18th-century Flanders to find admiration for the kind of well-padded body the name Peter Paul Rubens conjures up. In Vermont in the last third of the 19th century the Equinox Hotel drew representatives of the moneyed class from eastern and mid-west cities to its elegant mountain venue. Paramount was its sumptuous-if archaic-resort program. A world away from what a Vermont vacation means today, the agenda was long on sedentary activity. Vintage photographs show Equinox guests being driven about in horse-drawn carriages or occupying rockers on the front porches and lawns. (Golf didn’t come until later.) And at the same time, the program was notably heavy on eating. In the hotel dining room, the menu presented four meals each day: breakfast, luncheon, dinner, supper (probably a choice of three). Teatime provided another round of sustenance. The main meal ran to multiple courses: soup; fish; boiled or roasted meat with numerous side dishes of vegetables and relishes. For dessert, of course: pies, puddings, nuts, dried fruits. At breakfast one could be served beef steak or another equally hearty cut of meat-among other things. The gustatory overload smacks of the classic shipboard regimen that plied oceangoing travelers with food all day long…..