Afterthought
I can understand how women came to con- fuse the offering of affection with the provision of nourishment. The monster ingratitude reveals Itself not so much in biting the hand, but in refusing to bite the breast, that feeds you. Even Young and inexperienced girls, who have never borne a man much less given birth to a child, grow up conditioned to sec their role as milky fountains jetting ambrosia bromides into the rude Mouths of hungry males. As mothers of growing families, they often find that training as a wait- ress seems more immediately useful to them than training as a mistress. And I defy any man to Cook dinner for half a dozen friends or relatives and not discover that he is soon passionately, if unconsciously, preferring those who arrive at table while the plates are hot and resenting those who loaf about with glasses in their hands and barely notice what is dished up before them. As one who first married at the age of twenty-two, 1 learned early that the way to a wife's heart is through your own stomach. I believe that many More marriages have been soured by thc husband Who comes home late too tired to make a meal than to make love.
Boys and men quickly adapt themselves to the Pattern. Schoolfriends' mothers are judged by the Way they cook, not the way they look. Husbands nnpress their colleagues by their wives' versatility at the groaning board rather than the groaning bed. And the hopeful bachelor attempts to woo his girl by wasting time picking the little restaurant he knows with candles in Soho instead of doing something about his gamey breath, his grubby finger-nails and his habit of saying 'you know' between words.
The truth is that most women care little about food except as a substance to watch being eaten
b. i by some loved one. When they eat alone at home, n is a pot of cottage cheese and a banana. When they cat out with another woman, it is an omelette and green salad. Even when taken out to dine among the candles, they enjoy the idea of eating rather than the fact and choose the dishes to please the man not to indulge themselves. The true gourmet, who relishes the joy of choosing his dishes as a painter picks his colours, will tell you that he finds far more satisfaction ordering for his accountant than for his sweetheart.
I may seem to have wandered off a little from eating and talking as two incongruous activities iooccur together but not really. Love and friend- shit), in my view, depend upon communication.
The more equal, revivifying and stimulating the mutual flow of conversation, the deeper and more secure the relationship. And how many couples can honestly claim that meal times pro- vide the most satisfactory opportunity for mental and emotional contact? The lover and his lass, even more the husband and wife, and most of all the father and mother of a young horde, talk most freely and fruitfully in bed. A pair of women relax and put out tendrils over coffee or a cocktail. A pair of men expand and unbutton over a string of whiskies or a chain of beers.
I would like to free breakfast, lunch and din- ner from automatic association with com- municating with other people not because I undervalue food but because I rate it highly. (After all, as Cyril Ray is no doubt still saying to anyone who is listening, what other physical pleasure could you be sure of indulging three times a day, even if you lived to be eighty?) Those famous, memorable, endless meals, re- corded for posterity in journals and diaries, where the conversation took wings and the angels eaves- dropped, are unforgettable just because they are so rare. (And I'll bet the food was barely eatable.) But most meals are beset with minor tensions which inhibit genuine intercourse until the table is cleared.
At home, if it is not the children, the au pair or the mother-in-law, then the wife is aching to be reassured that the meat is not tough and the husband is terrified that he will be asked to identify the brilliant and original ingredient in the sauce. In a restaurant, there is more acting over the menu, than is to be found in most theatres. There is something about the way the waiter (even worse the proprietor) hams his role which brings out the histrionics in everybody. Your friends fuss on as though the choice of a vegetable were to be held agains't them for life and they would never be allowed another. They say things like 'Just a few little, tiny new potatoes tossed in butter then. Mario. What a good idea. Bless you.' Reciting the litany of the hors-d'oeuvre is one of the most potent con- versation-stoppers ever invented, and just as the contact has been re-made, you are interrupted by a broadside from the sweet trolley.
Eating at other people's houses is notoriously destructive of any normal human intimacy. The food is almost always just bearable, with a strong tendency to centre round gobbets of grey leather in a custardy sauce served on either glutinous or gravelly rice. Something is always either burned at the beginning or has gone flat by the end. The host and hostess are in a state of touchy insecurity and have just had a flaming row before the guests arrived. She conceals it by forcing second help- ings on people who are already aghast at the way they seem to have been forcing down inedible matter for an hour and still have more on their plates than when they Aarted. He punishes every- body by distributing the wine in a haphazard and grossly inequitable fashion. The only talk worth having here is between the pair of trusties who stay behind with the host and hostess and in- form on their fellow guests, or the guests who clear off as soon as the hard liquor runs out and adjourn to the Cypriot café to denounce the host and hostess.
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