Day 121: I Go Out To Lunch

In the olden days, when Polos cost 5p a packet and you could travel anywhere in the United Kingdom for £1 if you had the Correct Travelcard, Proper Italian Restaurants existed. In them, Italian waiters (who were in fact from Dagenham and called Dave), wielded enormous pepper mills the size of Sicily whilst they served food that included Saltimbocca and fire-hazard aniseed booze. On a Saturday night, they ferried in their Welsh uncle, re-christened him Giovanni, and got him to sing Italian love songs by the light of a poorly-executed mural of the Pontevecchio. Sometimes, a rose would be offered "forthelaydee".

Time passed. Elizabeth David came and went, alarming the British with her talk of garlic and seasoning. But still we soldiered on, grating cheddar on our spaghetti bolognese, believing in our cold Anglo-Saxon hearts that a bottle of Chianti encased in raffia was the Last Word In Sophistication and using olive oil (bought in tiny bottles from Boots the Chemist) to put in our ears, but not on our food.

More time passed. Buitoni parmesan could be found in small pots on dusty cornershop shelves. It smelt of sick and tasted of salty sawdust; but use it we would, sprinkling it on our tinned ravioli whilst we considered going to That Abroad for the first time.

Then The River Cafe (run by two women called Rose and Ruth) happened, a few years after Habitat, but some years before the EasyJet. It went on for a bit (and still does). They made big cookbooks full of fancy talk about wood fired ovens and ingredients so expensive that cooking a risotto cost no less than £450. People started spending more money on a bottle of olive oil than they did on their houses, and to Sainsburys came real Parmesan and pasta in over four million different varieties. Italian Food was Fashionable, but only working class Italian food, roughly hewn from Fresh Ingredients and Jamie Oliver's tongue. People went to Tuscany and came back weeping, for they had had The Best Food They Had Ever Had in a tiny little trattoria just outside Siena. And no, they couldn't remember the name; all they knew was that the pasta was fresh, the wine good, the boar angry and the experience genuine.

Today I met two Dear People. Not quite ex-colleagues; but not-quite-not. We went for lunch. We swore not to drink. We went to the last remaining bastion of Old Fashioned Italian Food in That London, where the food was cooked in butter and cream, the owner called Luigi, and the pepper grinder the length of my arm.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but people in Ruislip have been wheeling out virgin olive oil with a bit of balsamic vinegar in it to dip their shop-bought focaccia in since 1991, believing that it is the Last Word In Sophistication. But today a waiter appeared with a saucer, and placed it in front of me and said: "For you, signorina, a Special Treat: it is New. The olive oil, balsamico, and black pepper." I shook my head and rattled my ears. We were in a Time Warp. There were melon and parma ham. Someone had stuffed a mushroom.

Whilst I was chewing mutely on a bread stick out of a packet (last seen in 1974), one of my companions - who is too amusing to try and Explain - got in to a conversation with the table next to us. They were going to a Show (The Sound of Music - "I mean she did terrifically well, the girl on the telly, and then we're going to the South Bank for a drink"), and were Excited about being in That London, eating Genuine Italian Food. We had a long conversation with them and thought they were from Derby, or possibly Nottingham. I could feel myself sneering slightly. One of the men was wearing a leather jacket.

But they were happy. We were in a Themed Restaurant, and it was 1983, with pictures of Anita Dobson, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Brian May with the proprietor on the wall (but not at the same time) and stuffed mushrooms on our plates. And yet still I sneered, because I reckon myself to be a bit Sophisticated. And that, I now see, is a terrible waste of time.

I want to be the sort of person who is excited about going to a show in London, eating the 'House Special', and being a bit pissed on Friday afternoon. Instead, I appear to be the sort of person who would rather eat their own head than go to a 'show', has eaten pretentiously in Italy and Knows It, and knows that actually TASTING wine is a waste of time, because if it's corked, you can smell it a mile off without swilling the glass around and slooshing the wine through your teeth.

I shall spend the rest of the weekend sneering at myself for wasting time being An Awful Snob. It is the most horrific waste of time, and cuts off all kinds of Opportunities to Have Fun. But hold up: I think I have an invitation to see The Sound Of Music next Wednesday. I shall go, and Enjoy It. I will, I tell you. I will. And then I will go in search of Chianti bound in raffia, set fire to the paper around my macaroon, and watch it float lazily up into a ceiling painted like the Sistine Chapel.