All Together Now or One at a Time

With good weather we have the opportunity to eat outside, and our favoured way of doing this is for me to prepare a mezze, that is have a variety of dishes ready to bring to the table in one lot, to avoid traipsing in and out of the kitchen with floor cleaning and atmosphere breaking consequences. Behind that is perhaps the additional motivation that this manner of eating reminds us of Greece, hot sunshine and great simple food.

Yesterday, partly because we were too hungry to wait while the roast chicken rested, we opted for a la Russe, i.e. the more conventional series of dishes: pate on toast starter, stuffed peppers as a vegetable course, then the chicken with rice and mushrooms. The day before we had gone for the mezze, with about eight different things on the table at once, albeit in relatively small quantities, though the beef stiffado (that's posh for stew with peppers, paprika and oregano) was substantial.

So I had the chance to compare. The mezze was by far the more enjoyable meal, even though the chicken with rice was really tasty. It's the exchange of plates and bowls, the sharing aspect, and perhaps the informality that comes perforce with such activity, that makes the difference to mood. Of course that preference probably depends on personality. On business travels in my old career I loved visiting mom and pop and middle range restaurants, where there was no danger of maitre D snobbery and whispered conversations. Phillip's Foote restaurant in Sydney where you not only serve yourself but cook your steak yourself is one of the few places visited in those years whose name I recall.

A la Russe as the norm here only dates from the mid-19th century. It has practical benefits with hot food that you want really hot - if soup, casserole and some steaming baked pudding are all brought out together something will go cold before it's eaten. But if the heat of dishes (something about which we British can be maniacal) is not vitally important as is the case in summer, then for me it's all together now.