Because, in our obsessively image-conscious culture, anyone of such proportions is a fleshy testament to over-indulgence, lack of control and all-purpose gluttony. More tellingly, we all know that (with a few exceptions) someone who weighs 18 stone didn't get there because of a dicky thyroid gland. It is also emblematic of your economic class, your education, your aspirations, your current financial status, your insecurities and obsessions, your self-worth, your sense of personal discipline ... That much- quoted phrase, "You are what you eat," doesn't simply denote the way in which food affects your physical and mental state. Along with shelter and warmth, it is the basic essential of human life If we do not eat, we die If we eat badly, we also die .. early. "If you want a table on demand, then you've got to play the game." At which point, I heard myself saying: "But it's only food." To which my friend tartly replied: "Now that's a silly observation."My friend was right Food is not simply food Food is a symbolic entity.
You'll be on The List before you know it.""My literary agent is there to negotiate book deals, not to get me a table at restaurants," I said."I'm simply telling you how these things work," she said. "What you need to do is call the restaurant's press agent and tell them who you are. Then they'll get you on The List.""What list?""The List," she said, as if I was a social ignoramus. "Better yet, get your literary agent to call the press agent, and inform her about your books. But when it came to obtaining a table for a prime- time slot like 8pm in four month's time ..."Sorry, sir ...
but would you like to join our waiting list?"A few days later, I happened to mention this conversation to a friend - someone who prided herself on being plugged in to le tout Londres. She actually laughed at me."Well, of course, you're not going to get a table there just by calling them up," she said, sounding scornful. though they could fit us in at the unsociable, farm-hand dining hour of 5.30pm. Once again, this establishment informed me that, alas, there was not a table to be had for the night in question ... When I explained that there was no table at this restaurant for her birthday 12 weeks from now, her reaction was very no-nonsense: "Then fuck them."A few weeks later, I got a transatlantic phone call from some American friends, saying that they were coming to London (16 weeks from now), and they'd love to take us out to a much-lauded West End restaurant, which they'd read about in Conde Nast Traveler (or some such publication) Once again, I picked up the phone.
Having heard that tables were hard to come by, I called three months - yes, three months - before the date in question."I'm sorry, sir," said the person taking reservations, "but we're fully booked for that day.""You've got to be kidding," I said."I'm completely serious, sir," the individual said, sounding like he was holding four aces in our little hand of verbal poker, "But we can put you on a waiting list.""I'll get back to you," I said, and phoned my wife at her office. It was a serious, big deal night out kind of place, where the tasting menu would run to a cool pounds 65 per head. My wife - an ardent foodie - dropped a hint that she'd like to try it for her birthday. Because, of course, to mention in conversation that you had actually dined at The Mirabeau was to inform the internecine little world of Dublin that you were, verily, a player.Or a fool.I got thinking about The Mirabeau again quite recently, when I tried to make a reservation at a well-known, highly praised restaurant in London. After all, the entire meal was overshadowed by the fear that, when the bill was presented, an extortionate amount of money would be demanded ... at which point the question arose, would you display parvenu sang-froid and simply pay the thing without flinching? Or would you raise manifold objections, thus potentially incurring the public wrath of the man in charge; a dressing-down which would let everyone else in the restaurant know that, at heart, you were seriously declasse?Any way you looked at it, an evening at The Mirabeau was predicated on a simple philosophy: one way or another, this meal is going to hurt.And yet, the place was constantly packed.