At the risk of seeming a curmudgeon, I’ve felt an increasing concern that we may be losing the revered fine art of designing a menu for a fête of persons of natures purloinious and felonarial.
In this fast-moving age of bi-cycles and tri-cycles and even carriages whose horses have mysteriously vanished (and yet, somehow, they move; do not the simple see the devilish machinations here? …but that’s another story. We shall leave the discussion of “internal combustion” and “phlogiston” and other such phantasms.
I thought I’d start with the subject of dress. This is one of the most misunderstood areas, and I wanted to jot down just a note or two of encouragement and (I most dearly hope) a dollop of whatever slim wisdom I might be able to add to your existing busy lives of adventure and malcontentment.
This is one of the most misunderstood areas of merrymaking malodorous society, and no wonder. There’s not an immediate, visible difference between formal dress worn for pleasure and formal dress worn for spite. I refer to the fact that formal dress, as a reflection of ability to clothe one’s self in a specific manner involving considerable expense, is an excellent way to brag. That’s not a negative in and of itself; did not Anne Bonney’s ghost put on the most extraordinary fashion show before kidnapping an apparently-willing Queen Victoria? Of course she did. It’s not the fact of the brag but the nature of the braggart. Some scoundrels make you fall in love with their naughty bold ways; others will never provide more than the idle amusement of whether one ought put the fish-fork or the salad-fork through their left eye.
Dress is an enhancement, not a restriction. Certainly, it can be tedious to take a vestry-brush to the marrowbones embedded in the heels of your boots, or to soak the bloodstains from your favorite vestment. And the very few people who wear cloaks for their physical efficiency are called ‘matadors’; for those of us who are dealing with dining-rooms and China, not stadia and nettled kine, they are inconvenient at best, disastrous at worst.
(Who’ll forget the time Harry Flashman accidentally tripped over his and upset Dr. Manchu’s Sui vase, letting loose that Babylonian plague-demon and destroying all of civilization? That was rather the dust-up, eh?)
Those in conventional society are hardly immune from the ability to enjoy themselves. It’s merely that, living in circumstances where the ability to bring about change in accordance with will are frustrated by the constrictions of societal norms, they are often particularly guilty of treating the sartorial requirements of these soirees as if they were obligations alone, and not also opportunities.
We dress up, not because we wish to engage in puffery, nor because we are stuffed shirts (although, most certainly, after The Straw Man turned to transgression, we ought reconsider the disapprobrium associated with that now-elevated phrase). No, we dress to engage in the complicated art of arraying one’s self in a manner designed to utilize dress and fashion to bring pleasure and amusement to one’s self or others. Certainly, there will always be some whose response to fashion is rote; I, myself, shall always be one of those far more comfortable with a garrote than a neck-tie, and, were it not for the splendid company and fine refreshments I’ve known at certain tables, I should go so far as to say I’ve had more enjoyable times wearing the former than the latter.
But, while the imposition of fashion on one such as myself is no joy, I gain the civilized pleasure of knowing that though I have no skill for the thing, I can contribute by following rules, just as I can, were I to somehow gain skill, contribute by bending rules, or creating my own. Dinner parties are an excellent place to practice this philosophy, since, should the noble words start to wear thin, you can always dive into the sherry with both feet.
(Bear in mind that, ultimately, a dinner party ought be a pleasure. There are more than a few individuals who don’t know this particular etiquette, but whose sheer force of personality means we are particularly forgiving of transgression in dress. After all, the idea of a party is to party. If you’re throwing an event purely to look down on others, that’s called “normal society”, and we don’t engage in such practices here.)
You’ll note that, though I have already declaimed both my concerns and my desire to provide useful knowledge for practical application, I have not given a single word of advice on which boutonnière best compliments this season’s look, or whether the half-Windsor is really appropriate after seven p.m.
Rather, what I hope you will take away from this miniscule missive is a note that if you truly want guests who enjoy a marvelous dinner, cuisine in and of itself is not enough. The anxious revenant of Chef Anatole often quotes Escoffier: “So long as people don’t know how to eat they will not have good cooks.” This is a deep truth, although not, I suppose, as deep as Dagon in his watery lair (and wasn’t THAT just the prize dish at Tom Ramsay’s table this New Year’s Eve!) People need to learn how to eat in order to appreciate, understand, co-create with chefs. Likewise, they need to learn that each part of a dinner party is not some noisome test of how many mannerisms and customs one might memorize; but a living, breathing exercise of some of the skills obtained whilst those memorizations (and adding to them, one hopes, pleasant and devilish memories.)
Do stay tuned, dear readers. We’ve many more notes for the aspirant Villain.
Villainy is always best with a dash of flair, a joint of mutton, and a great deal of alcohol. Cheers, my friends!
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“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― There and Never, Ever Back Again
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