We are all individuals (except for that chap in Monty Python’s Life of Brian who insisted he wasn’t) and that is a good thing. Imagine if all your friends liked the same kind of music. How boring life would be if you couldn’t argue about Dylan versus Marley, or Bieber versus music.
Dinner parties, however, would be ever so much easier to plan if everyone liked the same food. But they don’t. And they don’t always tell you what they do and don’t eat, which leads to the situation I was in some years ago, with a glorious pot of lamb stew, a bowl of rice (who needs salad in winter) and a guest who arrived without telling me she was a vegetarian.
There weren’t as many of them back then, so I hadn’t thought to ask. She thought I knew. To be fair, she had told me, but we were arguing about Norah Jones at the time so it didn’t really sink in. She ate rice and peanuts, and had to be rushed to hospital when she developed a sudden allergy. It was not the most successful dinner.
I know better now. I keep the meat dishes minimal and make sure there is substantial other stuff, just in case any of my carnivorous friends have suddenly developed a conscience and stopped eating anything with a face. And I lock the nuts in the cupboard.
That, however, is no longer enough. Now that half the world has taken against carbohydrates, there is bound to be someone at the table who won’t touch bread or potatoes. The extremists even refuse to pick up starched napkins in case some of the forbidden substance transmits itself into their bloodstream.
The balance here is to fall back on legume dishes and mushrooms and interesting ways with beetroot. At least it has forced us to look at food in a new way.
Finding food that pleases both meat-avoiders and carb-haters is one thing, but the other day someone asked me for advice on planning a menu for some of her colleagues. Among the people she had invited were a Hindu, a Jew, a Muslim and a Buddhist.
How wonderful that we live in a world where we can all get along and break bread together (except for the Banters). How terrifying when you have to cook for them all.
We approached this in a logical manner, which means we sat down with a bottle of wine and wrote down all the things my friend could cook, then crossed out the ones that might cause offence or unhappiness. Shellfish and pork were first to go, obviously. Beef was out too, because Hindus don’t eat it. The Buddhist was vegan, so we reasoned the best thing to do was start with the non-meat options.
I suggested a risotto, which is much easier to make than one might think, but you have to put wine, butter and cheese in it, which would create difficulties for the teetotal Muslim friend as well as for the Jewish friend, who was not kosher but still followed the don’t-mix-meat-and-dairy rule.
This also meant no panna cotta (gelatine and milk) and no pastries in case they contained animal lard as well as dairy products.
Going vegetarian might have been easiest, but we had to include some animal protein because two guests were dyed-in-the-wool meat eaters who would feel hard done by if there was nothing fleshy to chew on. We still had fish and kosher/halaal chicken to discuss, but the cooking methods presented problems.
By the time we got to our second bottle of wine, the only thing we could agree on was fruit salad for dessert. My friend was becoming tearful. I suggested she forget lunch and have a mid-afternoon fruit salad party instead. They could drink sparkling water with it and listen to music.
That would be no good, she said. They all had different musical tastes and would fight over what to play.
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