For centuries, as a dinner party guest you ate what you were served. Nobody dreamed of calling up their host in advance demanding what they would like on the menu. This is one\u00a0reason why\u00a0the dinner party somehow made it through the 1980s era of Tom Wolfe\u2019s \u2018Social X Rays\u2019 \u2013 Mid-Atlantic society-types who ate nothing and resembled skeletons.\u00a0Previous\u00a0threats to the dinner party included the first drink driving laws, which\u00a0Bron Waugh claimed ruined\u00a0country\u00a0social life.\u00a0Then came the cocaine diet guest (no food touched), who has been spiritually succeeded by the equally annoying Ozempic-jabber, bragging to their\u00a0hostess\u00a0about how \u2018unhungry\u2019 they feel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yet, having survived the above, the private dinner party is now finally being killed off by the modern curse of the \u2018dietary requirement\u2019.\u00a0For hosts, it\u2019s just no fun catering for whimsical guest\u00a0dietary fads (vegan\/vegetarian\/fibremaxxing) as well as an ever-increasingly eclectic range of religious, cultural, or personal cult diets \u2013 such as the Paleo, or the Stone Age Diet, which\u00a0involves eating only \u2018unprocessed\u2019 foods like a cave man\/woman. Or\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0the \u2018Jain\u2019\u00a0diet\u00a0which is strictly 100 per cent lacto-vegetarian based on\u00a0ahimsa\u00a0(non-violence), designed to minimize harm to all living beings.\u00a0Most are \u2018lifestyle choices\u2019 and have nothing to do with\u00a0medical conditions. When these guests say they \u2018can\u2019t\u2019 eat this or that, what they usually mean is \u2018won\u2019t\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The knock-on effect is that\u00a0hostesses\u00a0now\u00a0have to\u00a0buy three times as much food and prep for hours. (Dietary demands have also led to the decline of the simple\u00a0Table\u00a0d\u2019h\u00f4te\u00a0menu,\u00a0meaning \u2018host\u2019s\u00a0table\u2019.)\u00a0Instead of cooking for ten guests,\u00a0a\u00a0hostess\u00a0might end up cooking for the equivalent of 16, with an extra hour spent making hollandaise sauce for the organic salmon that the pescatarian (vegetarian but also enjoys fish) has requested. \u2018Guests have begun to treat a private dinner party like going out to a restaurant,\u2019 says one friend.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The \u2018Dietary Requirement\u2019 began as a \u2018special meal\u2019 \u2013 usually kosher \u2013 on flights in the 1950s. It slowly developed into an American corporate food \u2018right\u2019.\u00a0But it is now increasingly creeping into British private dinners, lunches and even kitchen suppers, slowly ruining the entire art of private entertaining and hosting. Nicholas Coleridge put it well when I raised the subject at a lunch party (with no choice): \u2018In my day, \u201cdietary\u201d meant leaving what you\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0like on the side of the\u00a0plate\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the rare occasion that I still receive an \u2018At Home\u2019 printed invitation \u2013 usually scanned and sent by email \u2013 for an old-fashioned private dinner party, the email will invariably ask \u2018Any\u00a0dietaries?\u2019.\u00a0This is a hostess code for: \u2018I really don\u2019t want to know about your plant-based or\u00a0gluten-free\/dairy-free preferences, or shellfish, peanut, soy, sesame seed, egg, latex and peanut allergies but I also don\u2019t want you to sit there with an empty plate, looking\u00a0victimised\u00a0and pained, so I will do my best.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I admit it, my annoyance about this new food entitlement is personal. It has become a scourge for myself and my wife, who run a holiday let business at our Elizabethan house in Shropshire (a.k.a. Money Pit Manor) where we offer \u2018fine dining\u2019 for group stays. What\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0learnt is that much of the food intolerance movement is based on a con.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
This dawned on me when we recently had a group of 20\u00a0staying. The man arranging the trip was American food critic but thankfully on holiday not critiquing the place. On the first night, at a small dinner, we served\u00a0filet\u00a0of beef from our local butcher, with much oohing about the quality of the beef. The second night \u2013 with all 20 guests present \u2013 we had a few \u2018dietaries\u2019. When the American asked for a show of hands for those\u00a0who\u00a0required\u00a0the vegetarian\u00a0lasagna, one of them was\u00a0actually the\u00a0red-blooded beefeater woman from the night before who had piled praise on the butcher.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The same happened soon after with an entirely different group when a holiday guest was adamant that they\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0eat our home-made dauphinois potatoes \u2013 which I had spent hours dicing and making \u2013 as he was \u2018dairy-free\u2019.\u00a0Yet the next day, at tea during a house tour, my wife saw him scoffing scones piled with thick clotted cream and Lady Laura\u2019s strawberry jam. He even asked\u00a0for\u00a0seconds.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Many of the self-proclaimed healthy eating acolytes that write to us in advance listing their various food needs are not actually suffering from any serious or real allergies, or food intolerances, such as Celiac disease, which can result in\u00a0hospitalisation, or even death.\u00a0As a\u00a0doctor friend said to me: \u2018Those at risk know exactly who they are and carry around an EpiPen. Mostly\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0just a dietary preference.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
The truth, as a 2024 report into food allergies in the\u00a0Lancet Public Health\u00a0revealed, is that of the 30 per cent of adults who reported an adverse reaction to foods, only 6 per cent were confirmed to have a true food allergy. Falsely claiming to be \u2018food intolerant\u2019 is a\u00a0cash-cow for some.\u00a0The\u00a0Daily Mail\u00a0recently\u00a0reported\u00a0the number of people claiming disability benefits for \u2018food intolerances\u2019 has rocketed 500 per cent in five years. According to the Department of Work and Pensions, food intolerance is now up there now with tennis\u00a0elbow,\u00a0acne\u00a0and writer\u2019s\u00a0cramp\u00a0as an excuse\u00a0to be paid not to work.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back in March, my wife and I went on a family skiing holiday to the Tyrol in Austria and stayed in an old-fashioned family pensione in a small village where we had \u2018half-board\u2019 which included dinner. I was delighted to see that not only was the menu only in German but also offered zero choice. Too much choice is part of the problem with\u00a0the modern\u00a0age.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For centuries, as a dinner party guest you ate what you were served. Nobody dreamed of calling up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4318],"tags":[105,4434,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-952440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116555569446258705","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}