bout de papier, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2009) — Winter 2009 // Hiver 2009, pp. 26–27
by Mary Taylor a I
iplomats eat a lot of dinners. So of course do we all but diplomatic dinners are a little different. On these occasions formally dressed people are usually served elaborate food, often in the company of those they barely know and with whom they may even share no common language. Some such events are wonderful. You enjoy gourmet food in beautiful surroundings with fellow guests who make one feel witty and attractive. But many such evenings are not so good and, as Tolstoy so famously observed, it is the unhappy times that are memorable.
Early in our time in Moscow we gave the dinner, which was expected of us, for our ambassador, Robert Ford, and his formidable wife Thereza. As was his custom Robert sat at the head of our table, both his right as our ambassador and a convenience for his disability. Unfortunately I had failed to warn our Russian helper of this change in the arrangements and so she followed her normal procedure serving those at the ends of the table last. In an attempt to correct this I whispered to her, “Serve Mrs. Ford first?’ She looked at me skeptically but I nodded firmly trusting that the situation would be corrected by the second course. Imagine my horror, a few seconds later, to see Vyera appearing with a silver salver on which stood a bottle of beer. Unfortunately I must have pronounced the word for first, “pervaya;’ so badly that it sounded like “piva.” There was worse to come. Later as was the custom the guests were served drinks including orange juice. What was available locally was very poor, and with my fourth child only a few months old, I had not had the time to squeeze sufficient oranges, so made the mistake of mixing the two kinds. The result was no doubt lamentable — as half measures so often are. Thereza took one sip and enquired in her usual drawly voice, “What is this darling, Chanel no 5?” At least the government sofa did not collapse beneath her, something which was to happen, though with a different guest, during our successors’ stay in that Kutusovksky apartment.
The menu at these Moscow dinners was not a big issue. What was available locally was limited. Perishable food could only be obtained by air, and was therefore very expensive. Good filet mignon was available to the diplomats and caviar was still relatively cheap, so we ate a lot of boeuf Wellington and blinis. In the winter some of us would arrange our dinners in the same week, order flowers from Helsinki by air and rush them from one apartment to the other swathed in plastic. The French were blessed in that Air France provided their ambassador with a weekly shipment of cheese, something he generously shared with his staff. At a later dinner for the Fords a French friend nobly lent me her cheese assignment to add lustre to the occasion. There again disaster was narrowly averted when I discovered at the last moment that my Russian treasure was, reasonably enough, preparing to serve this at the beginning of the meal as Zakuski instead of before the dessert.
If no one expected you to produce a gourmet meal in Moscow the same was certainly not true in Belgium where the standard was exceptionally high not only in restaurants but in private homes. But it was not trouble with the food but a slow eater which caused me alarm at the first dinner party I gave in Brussels. Struggling to converse with an Italian general — my Italian was non existent, his English very limited — I longed for the second course to provide a distraction. It never came and as time passed I began to wonder whether something awful had happened in the kitchen and how long I should wait before excusing myself and going to investigate. remembered the tale of a colleague’s wife who in a similar dilemma had finally gone behind the scenes to find her cook chasing the waiter with a knife. Could something like that possibly be happening here? Just as I was about to give up hope the plates were removed and the second course duly appeared. The problem, I later found out, had been a guest at the far end of the table who ate so slowly that the whole procedure had been held up until he finished.
The diplomatic protocol for those who feel they have been misplaced at a table is to turn over one’s plate, sit through the first course, and then leave without giving any explanation. I never actually witnessed this diplomatic myth — I also never saw a maid serve suckling pig holding the apple in her own mouth, though difficulty with the declensions of Russian pronouns made this conceivable — but I had two friends who swore they had seen a plate turned over. One occasion, many years earlier, had been in Moscow where great importance was attached to one’s place in the hierarchy and where the to and fro of ambassadors often made it difficult to know who was a chargé d’affaires. My friend reported that most of the other guests simply assumed the Latin American in question was having a nervous breakdown. I did attend one meal, however, where a guest ate absolutely nothing, though not for reasons of protocol. This was a small dinner given by the Austrian cultural attaché in Moscow for a formerly renowned architect, Melnikov. The regime tolerated him but presumably kept him under surveillance. He himself was charm personified and obviously enjoyed the outing, but not so his wife. Whatever the reason, perhaps fear of what this might lead to, she ate nothing throughout the whole meal.
Because they represent their country, diplomats, especially junior ones, may find themselves seated beside people who are much more prominent than they are. Sometimes the great are charming, sometimes not. I once sat beside a French foreign minister — one who rather to my satisfaction was later taken to court — who obviously found me unutterably boring and barely spoke. Long before in Delhi my husband had attended a dinner where Krishna Menon had clearly indicated that he did not expect to dine in the company of anyone as junior. Others, Maureen Forrester was an example, could be delightful and treated everyone alike. Sometimes one didn’t take on board just how prominent one’s fellow guest might be. A young friend seeing “Ionesco” on the place card beside her assumed it was a common Romanian name and asked her companion what he did. “I write plays,” was the laconic reply. The first time [ met Henryk Szering, at a dinner given by Giles Lefebvre, the founder of the Jeunesses Musicales, I was not sure who he was. I was left in no doubt, however, as to his importance when the young woman next to me, sank to her knees and murmured “Maitre.”
Another problem at these dinners is what to wear and often the simpler and more remote the post the grander the attire. of the most pleasant events I ever attended was given by the president of Dior to celebrate the company’s long association with Holt Renfrew. It was in July and I had bought myself a summer evening dress which, even on sale, strained my budget. I was very pleased with it despite the fact that my teenage daughters had murmured something about mutton dressed as lamb, but the minute I entered our host’s elegant apartment I knew that I was the worst dressed person in the room. Everyone else was sporting Dior, apart from one whose obvious loyalty to another couturier later gave rise to some malicious remarks. There were also the jewels from the bank. But despite the dress it was a wonderful evening. Not only had the jewels come from the bank but so had the plates, a marvellous set of Creil, edged in coral, which proved an ideal subject of conversation with my host.
Many years later at the time of the French Bicentenary I accompanied Maureen McTeer to an outdoor performance of opera at Versailles. The invitation had stated that we should dress warmly which we had interpreted as wearing rather simple dresses under our raincoats. Not so le tout Paris by whom we were surrounded. For them it meant a full-length couturier coat well cut so as to show off the jewels. Our attire did not go unnoticed. When we approached the VIP tent at the intermission the official took one look at us and demanded haughtily, “Where did you find these tickets?” Fortunately a friend of Maureen’s was standing near the door and waved us in.
Diplomatic dinners are sometimes marked by speeches, only too often recitals of banalities about good will and friendship, since no one wishes to offend either the guest or the host. Occasionally, however, things go wrong, and one comes to with a start. It was a French foreign minister, at a time when relations with Quebec were still pretty tense, who remarked at a dinner on the 9th floor of the Pearson Building how glad he was to be in Montreal. The slip almost passed unnoticed, but not so the comment of a Chinese visitor, who remarked, presumably due to a faulty translation, that he looked forward to a third world war.
It is usually the host and hostess who suffer most on these occasions, particularly if they are living in very different cultures and are dependent on staff for whom their ways are a mystery. But the guests can have a hard time too. They may be served food which is at best unappetizing, live seafood, fried grasshoppers, sheep’s eyes. They may be expected to eat far more than they want and to sit or kneel uneasily, embarrassed by the still grace of their hosts. So how to cope with these difficult dinners? Do one’s best and then let things roll. Remember that this too will pass and that even the worst disaster at table is insignificant compared to what is happening in the outside world.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2009) — Winter 2009 // Hiver 2009, pp. 26–27. Read the rest of this issue →
