Food
Michele Roberts thinks dining out costs too much
Published 05 April 2004
£50 for lunch for two? What a waste of hard-earned money
When I was young, I did not go to restaurants because I could not afford them. Nor did we commune-dwellers really approve of such bourgeois luxuries. Some communards did not even countenance conventional cooking. Once, to fortify us before a demonstration, we were served scrambled eggs heavy with bran. On another occasion, we had bean-filled quiche (wholemeal pastry, of course). In my late twenties, the garret in which I cheerfully starved was an illegally sublet housing-association studio flat in west London, damp, with no hot water. Two kindly, better-off men friends used to take me out for lunch from time to time; I couldn't get over the idea that, for them, eating in restaurants was normal.
Even though I am better off these days, I still think eating out costs too much. However, if my publisher wants to take me somewhere posh, or if kindly, rich friends invite me to join them, then the hypocrite gourmet swiftly replaces the puritan. And I have been known to take people out myself. But £50 for lunch (with a bottle of wine) for two in central London? Crazy. Immoral. A waste of hard-earned money.
When Jim and I first got together we zoomed off to Italy in his blue MGB. There, we found plenty of cheap and cheerful restaurants employing local cooks using local produce. Jim was a vegetarian at the time, but that presented no problem. I remember one tiny place in the hills above Genoa where a team of eager women in the kitchen produced a stream of delicacies for him. They rushed into the courtyard bearing dish after dish: roasted peppers, courgettes fried with mint and garlic, pasta with broccoli, raw mushrooms with parmesan shavings, tomato salad. He was a challenge and they rose to him with gusto.
One of our treats, driving in France, was to stop off at a routier, such as the one in Domfront in Normandy. Long tables, covered with red-checked cloths, were set with baskets of bread. Hors d'oeuvres of crudites and saucisson, meat course, bit of cheese, pudding and coffee, with a quarter-litre of vin rouge, all for less than a tenner. Madame served the hungry lorry drivers while le patron with his enormous moustache whirled pots in the kitchen. The eccentric decor - ancient metal urns interspersed with football posters - was part of the charm.
What I loathe about fancy restaurants is their poky tables, uncomfortable chairs, tolerance of mobile phones, and pretentious language in menus. Why call a slice of celeriac an open ravioli? Why call a steamed heap of non-risotto rice a risotto? Even bad poetry is tolerable, however, if you are eating with someone you like, love, fancy. Someone who loves talking with you. Never share food with an enemy. That way indigestion lies - and probably murder.
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