FOOD
two-line head
John Morgan
IN the Sixties, when I was a small child, it became a tradition in our family that the first strawberries of the season were always served on my birthday. Sliced into meringues, piled into cakes and offered simply but most deliciously with vanilla sugar and cream, these small, dark and flavoursome berries, infinitely superior to the sad Euroberries of today, became the annual signal that summer had started. So great an impression did this little ritual make on my culinary psyche that I carefully nurtured it well into adulthood. It was only after the offer, a few years ago at a dinner party in France, of perfect, heart-shaped cremets nantais served with irresistible little strawberries, two weeks before the 28 May watershed, that greed finally triumphed over convention.
I was reminded of my strange cult of the strawberry recently at the Hurlingham Club as I spied a Junoesque woman, clad in a red and white draped number that made her look like a member of an ancient Dionysian cult, ceremoniously carrying a vast bowl of strawberries towards her picnicking chums. This arresting sight was one of many visual diversions at the Louis Vuitton Classic, an annual parade of vintage cars and motorcy- cles sponsored by the luxury product brand, to which the firm invites 850 guests.
This year's theme was 'Roaring Racing', an entirely suitable sobriquet considering the sheer volume of noise and fumes caused by the cavalcade of immaculate Bugattis, Fer- raris, Alfas and Bentleys, as well as a post- war motorcycle rejoicing in the name of Rol- lie Free Vincent Black Lightning, hurtling around the normally sylvan setting of Hurlingham. The onlooker could not fail to be amused by the sheer dottiness of how we enjoy ourselves. Here was the usual expec- tant crowd of socialites, business people, opinion-formers and It girls who cluster round the big corporate events of the sum- mer: people who normally would decry the pollution of our environment, but were happy to endure a gentle gassing in return for a glimpse of motoring glamour. But then, as a friend pointed out, 'These are antique cars, and that makes all the difference.'
She was right. This party, like all the strawberry-heavy set pieces of what is loosely called the Season, from Royal Ascot to Goodwood via Glyndebourne, are fun- damentally exercises in nostalgia: evoca- tions of a Rosenkavalier-style 18th century, untainted by the twin Titian-haired terrors of Ginger Spice and Gazza, a landscape where guests can disport themselves like figures in a Gainsborough painting. Had Britain produced a Proust, these would have been his times remembered. It is thus no coincidence that in culinary terms these events tend to be glorified pic- nics, a type of entertainment that was a cre- ation of the 18th century. Then spelt 'Pick- Nick', it denoted a fashionable party usual- ly, but not invariably, given outside. Lord Chesterfield, in his famous letters to his son, writes in 1748 that although this type of entertainment had been popular for some time, the name Pick-Nick was a new term. Sadly, Lord C. throws no light on the origin of the word. These al fresco feasts became increasingly popular as the century progressed, and were even held by the British contingent in Belgium on the eve of the battle of Waterloo. One can only specu- late on the thoughts of Continental onlook- ers as they gazed at this characteristic British activity that then, as now, tempered gastronomic satiation with a little culinary and climatic adversity.
However, it must be said that at the Louis Vuitton Classic adversity was in short supply. The weather was ready for Gains- borough's brush and guests were fed in a large marquee to avoid the ritual drench- ings that have blighted previous years. Anton Mossiman, the maestro of massive catering, was in charge of the food. Mossi- man, who first earned my respect when he successfully fed 1,400 guests at the Duke of Edinburgh's 70th birthday celebrations at Windsor only days after a particularly nasty food scare, ably rose to the Roaring Racing leitmotif with table centrepieces set in tyres, napkins like chequered black and white finishing flags and seat cushions in alternating black and white. Even the glass- es had been specially chosen because of their pattern, which imitated a winner's lau- rel. Strawberries were in short supply, but then Monsieur M. had probably concluded that many of the guests would be more impressed by novelty than nostalgia. Instead we dined on a fashionably cos- mopolitan menu that included chicken salad with coconut dressing, saffron cous- cous salad with toasted pine kernels, and monkfish twister with citrus dressing. The plate of puddings included a particularly delicious pear and chocolate terrine.
Throughout dinner the occasional vin- tage car roared past outside the tent, prompting my American dining companion to say that the whole thing reminded her of her first visit to Kew Gardens, when she discovered that it was under the flight path to Heathrow. The evening concluded in characteristic fashion with dancing and the edifying spectacle of the strawberry goddess miming to 'YMCA'. As our car sped into the Fulham night I was already thinking about ordering more strawberries.
John Morgan is associate editor of GO and a columnist for the Times.
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