The long lunch
"Civilisation is measured not by what we produce but by how elegantly we pause." Kenton Allen/Spectator Australia
A long time ago now I proposed to myself a series of posts on lunch - because there are so many different kinds of lunch - a long list in fact. A browse through my Ideas and also a post on Instagram from Ottolenghi advertising a fund-raising lunch in the Wolves Lane gardens where produce for his restaurants and delis is grown, reminded me of the notion of the long lunch. Or should I say longest?
Not that long lunch just refers to the notion of people sitting at a long table having lunch somewhere beautiful or at least interesting. There are other long lunches too - the business lunch, the convivial lazy afternoon with friends and/or family, and dare I say the long lunches that roadside workers seem to take. All of which I shall come to.
At the top of the page is a section of that long Christmas lunch ad that Coles made a few years ago, in which a young lady walked for miles looking for a seat, along tables at which people were eating their Christmas lunch, to end up at home - or at least in a home - where she was served a whopping great ham - a Coles one of course - by Curtis Stone - their ambassador. I think that's possibly the longest lunch that I have ever seen, and I am now wondering if in fact it might even have been real in the sense that there were real people having lunch across the Victorian countryside.
At the time I just thought it had been somehow CGI generated, and maybe it had, or at least some of it, but whilst looking for pictures today I found that this section at least must have been real because one of the owners of one of those beach shacks accused Coles of filming on her property without permission. I don't know whether she took them to court, or they paid her, or it just fizzled out, but it does demonstrate that this section was real - in the sense that real people were sitting at real tables. Whether they were eating real food is another question. However, you only actually see a relatively short length of tables. And now that I've looked at the ad again I see that the sections in which you see real people, are relatively short - those tables on the distant hills are CGI. But enough of how you make an ad, intriguing though it is.
This kind of humungous event has however been around in Melbourne since 1993, when the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival introduced it's first long lunch. They are mostly held in picturesque parklands, but the one on the left was obviously held in a street - Lyon Street I think. It was so popular that it then spread to regional longest lunches - the one on the bridge was in a town called Noojee in the Victorian countryside - and today I discovered the third one below was actually here in Eltham in March this year. I had no idea. The 'long' part of this particular event would not have been as long as those held in Melbourne, for I recognise the location as our town square - well that's what they call it.
I wish I had known about it because the romantic part of me just loves the idea of this. The settings are usually carefully chosen for impact, the food is of the highest quality from local providers. The Eltham one apparently had wine from local vineyards, a first course of deli wonders from the local deli, a series of Turkish main dishes from a local restaurant and a dessert of pastries that people queue for from our Artisan bakery in town. In Melbourne, many of Melbourne's top chefs and caterers have provided the food. It changes every year.
Back in 1993 there were a mere 400 guests, this year it was 1600. Can you imagine the logistics? Backpackers rejoice perhaps, and I gather students from the William Angliss Institute - our prime hospitality training institution also help out. I think I read somewhere that there are 'kitchens' set up at appropriate points along the tables, from where the food is served to the immaculately decorated tables and the thousands of guests. Its very expensive and so the 'ordinary' people don't get to go although I think there are usually competititons and probably raffles that can be entered. Is it good value? Well I did see somebody who had indeed won a ticket say that from a purely economic value point of view - probably not. But that's not what you are paying for is it? I would love to go. I should look to see if Eltham does it again next year. There are lots of beautiful spots they could stage it here. And I'm guessing it was not nearly as professional as the Melbourne one. Which is not, necessarily a bad thing.
Is it just a Melbourne - well Victorian thing? - I don't know. Does it make a profit? Is it intended to make a profit or do the profits go to charity? I know there are always sponsors and I'm guessing it's a Tourist Ministry thing. Again I do not know. I do know that the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival is huge, and I do know that these longest lunches are the star attraction of the whole thing. Odd isn't it, that even if we can't afford to go, we somehow bask in the glamour of it all. We pat ourselves on the back for living in such a civilised and elegant society. Something to dream about? To aspire to? To be proud that our homeland can do something so mindblowing. In spite of Melbourne weather too.
Then there's the business long lunch which was in its heyday in the 80s, until the government introduced the fringe benefits tax.
My husband attended many of these. He did not enjoy them - or so he tells me - and it perhaps contributed to his reluctance, not only to lunch, but also to dine out. I imagine they were stressful in that theoretically - mostly anyway - one was there to - at the very least - impart a feeling of commitment, expertise and professionalism to one's customers. Maybe even clinch a deal or two. It seems to me that they were always held in relatively expensive establishments and because somebody else was paying the guests at least would not have considered the cost of what they were eating. Or the time that they were spending doing this. For because they were 'proper' restaurants, they were long lunches - at least a couple of hours.
A couple of hours. These days, due to economics, some restaurants won't actually let you linger for more than two hours over lunch. They want you in and out of the door so that they can fill the table with another lot of customers. Maybe two hours is enough though. I guess that largely depends upon the company. This photograph is of other people lunching at Afloat beside Melbourne's river last summer. I'm guessing that some are just there for a quick lunch - this is a casual - almost pub-like place at least in terms of how the service works, but some of them are there for much longer. I don't remember being asked to move on and we were certainly in no hurry to. The table in the forefront for example was a family I think getting together.
When you have friends for lunch at home however - or when you are on holiday with friends and lunching in your temporary wonderful holiday home - then lunch can linger until the evening. After all what better way to spend time than in the company of great people, over delicious if simple food, with a view of the Medieterranean or some equally unrivalled spot. Tell me of a more memorable way to spend one's time?
And even the poor can do this as Henri Cartier-Bresson's iconic photograph shows. A beautiful day, wrap up some bits of this and that in a basket and take them with your friends to your nearest beauty spot - and while away a Saturday afternoon leaving the cares of the world behind.
Is the boat theirs do you think - there is nobody on it after all? Maybe a spot of fishing - for dinner - after lunch. Maybe a short ride on the boat down the river as well.
Yes - I rather long for a long lunch. It's been raining all night, and is still threatening to rain some more. Hence the longing.
I almost forgot the roadside workers - almost all of us I think get frustrated by roadworks and the fact that even though we have to slow down nothing seems to be going on. And often the workers just seem to be sitting down having lunch. How long is their lunch? Are they in fact having lunch? It's a question I cannot answer, and probably one that should probably be just left as a mystery.
YEARS GONE BY
October 2
2025 - Old-fashioned asparagus
2024 - Spätzle
2023 - Stephanie at lunch in WA - double coincidence - Stephanie yesterday, lunch today
2022 - Summertime - more please
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2019 - A guilty purchase
2018 - Nothing
2017 - Am I back to the beginning?
2016 - Fashionable salt
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