3 The Idea of Dining
W
hat’s your idea of dining?
I’ll tell you what I like to do when I dine out. In a smart dining room, as I seat myself (I find I can’t help myself) I tap the corners of the table. As if to make the point, “this is mine for the night”, and look around the room and at the tables nearest, “this space, for me and my dining partner…” The world for a while has grown so much smaller.
That doesn’t mean events in this small world won’t have their consequences. As Francis Bacon had it “Men seek knowledge in lesser, private worlds, not in the great, common world”. In a confined environment, with intimacy inescapable, our perceptions become sharpened, more attuned to subtlety and nuance. True, sometimes our evening’s insights register unconsciously, but they’re soon re-discovered, leaving their message of shame or hurt or excitement.
In this setting, the most seemingly trite comments or acts will be elevated for – better or worse...
The ritual assists. Fine dining is nothing if not ritual. Every course is an initiation, the evening a sequence of ceremonies. There is a form for everything – every act of service and every acknowledgement and response (if not – then we are merely eating, not dining). In this setting, the most seemingly trite comments or acts will be elevated – for better or worse. Hints of affection, compliments, slights, betrayals, things meant or not – every word or action once made is set, and not so easily erased. Exhilarating, no…?
A night’s dining begins with appetite and taste. And from there it might range almost anywhere. There’s nothing quite like dining out for bringing out the best (and worst)… for exposing human nature in all its shades. It draws from us such a medley of sensation and desire, reflection and intent, candor, subterfuge and insight…
An inspiring idea of dining, I’ll give it that (and this is an altogether different I now). However there are other versions, many others. As many as there are diners to have their own ideas. It’s a personal thing, the idea of dining.
Let me give you a variation.
Recently a newspaper article by a well known columnist and writer caught my eye. It told of a dining experience whose entire focus became a single un-salutary incident. While the writer was holding court, waxing lyrical and in the fullest flow of his considerable raconteur’s skills, about to cap his tale with its eagerly awaited punch line… a waiter abruptly reached across the table, seized a bottle of wine and, having thus totally interrupted speaker and listeners, proceeded to top up everyone’s glass, unsolicited.
This gratuitous practice occurs all too frequently, even in better restaurants. And it was pleasing to see it so exposed in the article, with equal parts wit and vitriol. But just as illuminating, in our present context, was an unintended implication of the anecdote. That evening is now presumably pretty well etched into the writer’s memory – by dint of the article, its preparation, and doubtless its gratifying reception. Would it be as memorable, in a year’s time say, had his story not been interrupted in such a gauche way and had the weight of his recollection fallen solely on the story he had been telling, or others he may have related that evening?
When I recall memorable dining evenings, it’s not those nights that jump to mind...
Many of us would have held our own court at dining tables on countless occasions. If not so entertainingly then with similar verve (wine works wonders that way). Yet how many of those evenings would spring to mind now as especially significant? For my part,when I recall memorable dining evenings, it’s not those nights that jump to mind. There’s a common thread that holds past images in reach of my recollection. But that thread isn’t me (well, except perhaps for the embarrassing incidents). It’s other people, those closest (or made closest that evening) who make dining an event worth remembering.
(Now we’ve both got our own ideas of dining off our chests, we’ll continue with a single voice…)
The offending king of Arcadia
The Greek historian and philosopher Plutarch observed “we
invite each other not to eat and drink, but to eat and drink together.” And the wiliest if not the
greatest hero of history and myth, Odysseus, reflected, “I feel myself there is
nothing more delightful than when the festive mood reigns in the hearts of
people… while the tables before them are laden with bread and meat, and a
steward carries around the wine… This, to my way of thinking, is perfection.” Dining
has always been an essential element in hospitality,
a practice so revered by the ancients that Zeus himself was its patron; and woe
betide any who infringed its strict moral code. The offending king of
In more cynical times it’s not easy to relate to this idea of dining – as a noble act, a sacred symbol of generosity and fellowship.
A more modern example may do it. In the film Babette’s Feast (taken from the story by
Karen Blixen, writing as Isak Dinesen), Babette resides with two elderly sisters
in a small town in
For the hundredth anniversary of the father’s birth, Babette pleads that she be allowed to cook a dinner as celebration. The sisters cannot conscience either the expense or the loosening of their faith’s humble ways, but Babette prevails on them when she insists on covering all costs (out of ten thousand francs she has won in a French lottery).
The townsfolk, to be the guests, are baulked by the steady arrival of exotic produce. Before the dinner they agree to pay no notice to the food and drink – “It will be as if we never had a sense of taste.” (Believable when you consider that their staple diet consisted of split cod, and ale and bread soup.)
They persist in this attitude through the early courses. Finally the worldly and well-travelled General Loewenhielm gives voice to his delight, (Babette has instructed the boy serving to be liberal with wine for the general – the “exquisite” Amontillado, the Veuve Clicquot 1860, the Clos Vougeot 1846…) And it is a sublime, a wondrous drunkenness that calls him to break the room’s muted atmosphere, and speak such a speech that casts illumination and inspiration over all at the table, a paean to fellowship and community, to noble ceremony and to love in all its forms. It is as though the room has been “filled with a heavenly light”. Past scorn and bitterness are forgiven between all, old scores put aside and an unrequited love acknowledged. “Time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and a golden song flowed out into the winter air.”
Afterwards the sisters cannot believe that Babette has spent her entire fortune on the feast. “You should not have given everything you own for us.” To which Babette replies, “I am a great artist.” This is artistry as a gift, given wholly and selflessly and consecrated in the giving – the purest hospitality.
Where’s the moral to all this? As much as dining is a lush and sensuous experience, and we love it for being so, extracting the most from it requires a spirit of sharing.
Being prepared to give and take is intrinsic to our own enjoyment of the dining experience. Failing to do so... will strip the evening of anything of value.
It can’t be otherwise. People will find themselves at table together in all manner of connections: lovers, friends, business associates, acquaintances testing the next level of relationship (as reflected in our four tables), and more. To agree to dine out is to agree to surrender certain antisocial privileges; to mentally check them at the door as it were. Being prepared to give and take is intrinsic to our own enjoyment of the dining experience. Failing to do so may not condemn us to vomited howls – but it will strip the evening of anything of value.
Most of us have experienced a dining occasion that became pleasure-less, thinking we grasped the reason – if not the cause. It may have resulted from no more than doing unto others as we felt they were doing to us. In the magnified world of the table this can lead to a remorseless war of tit for tat. Lost in recriminations is the real idea of dining.
The idea of dining doesn’t lie in the flesh.
A special place in this discussion belongs to the incomparable Mary Kathleen Frances (MFK) Fisher, gourmet and writer extraordinaire. When asked why she wrote about hunger and not wars or love, she famously replied “There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.” And so there is. The idea of dining doesn’t lie in the flesh. It’s an attitude of preparedness we bring to the dining situation – a cast of mind if you like, one that refines and clarifies (sometimes magnifies) our perceptions, and in turn influences our responses to events, and to others. Even without the addition of wine it acts as a benign intoxicant, relaxing, absolving us from outside worries, rooting our time in the present – and ideally, making us better than we are.
It’s within the power of any diner to ruin the most promising evening, for themself and others.
What about where we dine? Does that matter, and what does it matter? Can perfectly prepared dishes and well chosen wines in the welcoming feel of a dining room, can these mollify destructive influences at a table (in the way that the delights of Babette’s feast could overcome the prejudices and ill feelings of the townsfolk)? It’s a question of degree. Not if the dynamics are firmly pushing in the other direction. It might just as easily worsen things. The food and wine and dining room ambience, the radiated pleasure of other tables, all these wonderful things are pointing to what the evening could be. But if the atmosphere of a table is dominated by a cutting remark, a simmering jealousy, an argument stubbornly unresolved, a hope of reconciliation fast fading… then the contrast between the ideal and the actual defeats itself. Instead of hope, one of its opposites is more likely – despondency, anger, resentment. Sure, the magic of the setting is important to the evening, but it doesn’t necessarily always work positive to positive. It’s within the power of any diner to ruin the most promising evening, for themself and others. But it’s equally in a diner’s own hands to make a superb night of something less than perfect, truffles from acorns so to speak. What’s that diner’s idea of dining? That’s the best indicator of how an evening will turn out.
Speaking for ourselves, lay on delicious dishes and well matched wines, an elegant dining room and the most obliging floor staff and we’ll do our damndest to have a time worthy of remembering and recounting.
Our place of dining this evening has all of these things…
… a narrow strip down by the city docks with a site that has seen its share of restaurant incarnations. Once considered the bad end of town, it has since endured a progressive gentrification towards a now-salubrious status.
You could have observed street address number 17 for forty
years without remarking at much exterior change. But inside, the interior has
been variously tarted up and dressed down, fitted this time for novelty and
that for elegance. Sixties love-child beads and bare boards giving way to an
ersatz rococo, then the stark minimalism of the Eighties, replaced in turn by Ni
Arrayed for evening service now, the dining room is a vista in miniature — lighting artfully set just so, immaculate damask, fine Reidel glassware…
This place has passed through numerous hands, and watched many more toil in back and front of house. “The Restaurant” it’s called, and has been through its last three fit-outs. It has patiently witnessed the passing of this style and that taste, then watched them come around again to fashion. It has nursed its own, and seen chefs ascend to celebrity status but (surprising in the times) remain content to get hands dirty most services. As a dining establishment it is renowned — achieving a status that has seen off the ephemeral flare-then-die fame. The Restaurant projects a sense of welcome to its patrons, a happy mix of aestheticism in design, execution of food and manner of service. Arrayed for evening service now, the dining room is a vista in miniature — lighting artfully set just so, immaculate damask, fine Reidel glassware…
Had we brought you here earlier, in the lull say between lunch and dinner, it would have appeared very different – staff working with a steady and single-minded haste, but without the mania of the service to come. Then it would have been preparation and resetting. The chef reviewing the night’s specials, surveying the kitchen’s readiness; kitchen staff at their mise-en-place, ordering their sections; waiters engaged in polishing glasses and cutlery; barmen preparing fresh garnishes and restocking fridges and ice-wells.
The Maitre d’ observing the marshalled troops like a true general, as he prepared the seating plan. An eight down to a six, too many requests for too few choice tables, still a handful of fours and twos to fit. Some names are known, most not. It is up to chance, to fluke and the constraints of floor layout, where diners will spend their night – which other tables will be immediately by them, what smaller ambience they will experience within the dining room’s broader mood.
Seating is just one factor that will impact on the night to be had by our diners. Others they will bring with them. More still are in the hands of The Restaurant itself. This dining room has watched over many tables, seen them come and go and return in different company. It has always held out promise to its patrons, and will continue to do so this evening.
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, French diplomat and crown prince of gourmands (his book The Physiology of Taste written in 1825 has never been out of print) might have had this evening in mind when he said of dining “around a single table (one may find) all the modifications which extreme sociability has introduced into our midst: love, friendship, business, speculation, influence, solicitation, patronage, ambition, intrigue”. (Truly a hothouse of motives, and we’ll see more of that in the following episode.)
Human beings and their relationships, their virtues and vices, fads and foibles, on display for the diversion of all, including complete strangers. Come to dine, and be both voyeur and victim of others’ curiosity. Any wonder that what unfolds is so unpredictable?
It’s an arresting proposition: that dining out changes people’s lives... But that’s the reality behind our idea of dining...
It’s an arresting proposition: that dining out changes people’s lives – that dining can be a catalyst for transformations in the psyche. But that’s the reality behind our idea of dining, one we want to explore with you. Dining is, as the Gestalt psychologists might put it (and we’ll have cause to cross their paths again), dining is an experience that offers far more than the sum of its parts.
As you observe our tables you could do well to consider which of our diners grasps this elusive fact (while bearing it in mind yourself)…
Now back to our evening… a night that began in the minds of our diners, each with their own mixed bag of motives that have brought them here, to “The Restaurant”…
(In our next episode – A Psychological Romance – coming on August 31, we’ll look at what takes people out to dine, and the inevitability of ambiguous motives. “All that we do is done with an eye to something else” observed Aristotle. And so it is with dining...)
SOURCES
Francis Bacon, The
Essays, Penguin,
Christopher Hitchens, “Raconteur interruptus, seeing red
over rudeness”, The Weekend Australian,
May 31-June 1, 2008
Homer, The Odyssey,
Penguin,
Ted Hughes, Tales
from Ovid, Faber and Faber,
“Babette’s Feast” from Isak Dinesen, Anecdotes of Destiny, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1988
Babette’s
Feast, Screenplay adapted and
Directed by Gabriel Axel, Produced by Betzer and Christensen, 1987
M F K Fisher, The Art
of Eating, Wiley, NJ, 2004
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, Penguin,
