Come Dine With Me is one of the UK’s great contributions to television. Like Desert Island Discs, it has that interactive aspect to it that makes you think what you would do on the show. What your ideal menu would be. Why you’d pick certain things. Why you wouldn’t pick others. And yet despite this there are few episodes (and I know editing exists, but still) there are few episodes in which the contestants reference the show and the nature of the competition beyond a tactical or compassionate vote. For the most part people seem to get stuck in and at times many of them almost come across like they’ve never seen the show in the first place, which just can’t be possible.
What I’m trying to say is that if I were to ever appear on the show I think it would be impossible for me to not slip into a meta-analysis of mine and everyone else’s actions within the wider CDWM anthropology. Discussing people’s decisions in relation to their own understanding of the show, explaining why I was doing certain things in relation to my own understanding of the show. And then by virtue of doing this having to find a balance between being an enjoyable dinner guest and one who is the antithesis of good TV, the guy who keeps talking about the fact he’s on TV (something, which I maintain is actually good TV, if I’m honest).
So what would I cook?
Well, I have two menus as it stands. One that I would actually end up cooking, one that is hopefully strong enough that people give my whole caged bird talking about its cage thing a pass. One that I stand by the food with and cook for the people I love in my own life.
But then there’s my second menu. The one that would make for, in my opinion, much better TV. One that allows me to be unhinged and make my guests deeply uncomfortable as they’re forced to sit through my evening.
That can wait. First let’s do the nice and respectable menu.
For starters I’d make a cream of chicken and broccoli with bacon and gorgonzola soup, accompanied by some toasted homemade garlic sourdough.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Oof, blue cheese on Come Dine With Me… Risky. Very risky. And you’re right. It is a risky call. There’s always at least one person at the table who turns their nose up and acts like a petulant child over blue cheese (or some other food). But because of this you also get to have that magical moment where they actually end up enjoying your dish. You don’t even have to change their mind about the ingredient entirely, just in your dish. And I think that’s why gorgonzola is the cheese to use here. I’ve made this soup with both that and stilton before, and of the two it was the gorgonzola that was the most subtle and effective. Subtle, but still very much there. And I would hope that if there were any annoying people who don’t like blue cheese at my table, that, first, they’d grow up, and second, they’d knock me an extra point for making them something they didn’t think they’d like but did. And I want to take that risk.
Oh and while I don’t usually make the bread when I do this soup, people are really fucking annoying about this sort of stuff on Come Dine With Me, so I’d begrudgingly bake my own sourdough (and talk about this decision while making it to the poor camera crew that would have to spend the whole week dealing with my constant asides and observations about the anthropology of CDWM, which I’d continue saying as well, as if it was an actual thing).
For my main I’d do something I’ve been working on for a few years now. Fried seabass (so the skin goes crispy but the flesh itself is just barely cooked) with a spicy garlic butter sauce. On the side I’d do stacked black pudding and leak, mashed potato, with tenderstem brocolli that I quickly steam and then finish in the frying pan with some dark soy sauce and garlic. I love this whole dish but I think the black pudding and leak steal the show, and again, given some people’s aversion to black pudding, there is a risk, but there’s also the chance that you might bring them round on something. Perhaps playing this card twice in a row is a bit much, but if you think that’s a bit much just wait for my second menu. This will seem like the most level headed thing a man could do.
Entertainment-wise I don’t think I’d actually bother doing anything. While some of the entertainment choices are insane and hilarious to watch, I personally would hate having to do something like that at my own dinner party, so I’d just keep everyone talking instead.
Right so finally for dessert I would do a Crema Catalan. Only for this I’m undecided whether I’d get a mini blowtorch out and finish everyone’s off at the table, since sometimes people love that sort of showmanship and other times they’re really resentful about it. And I fear that I can only push so many meta buttons before risking disgusting people with my ostentacious blowtorching.
You rarely see coffee courses on Come Dine With Me, and I think this is a shame because an espresso is the perfect way to end a meal. A cigarette too, which even though I’ve quit I’d definitely unquit for the night and provide a pack of Yellow American Spirits (with—optionally—the little plastic tar filter extension things) for the table so we can all indulge in a postprandial smoke and finish the night with a touch of decadance.
And that’s all well and good but it’s not all that different from your average episode. The episode I really want to make, even though I’d never have the gall to actually act like this or serve people this sort of food, would be the following menu. One that I think would push people to their limits, but one that they couldn’t escape since everyone has to stick the night through because that’s the rules.
Ok so one thing you need to know about my flat is that it’s tiny and we don’t have space for a dining table. The result of this is that I eat most of my dinners sat on the floor, using a coffee table as a dinner table. You can also eat sat on the couch with your plate on your knees, as most of my guests and girlfriend do. But this annoying dining setup is key to this terrible menu. Since I’d have to have four other people sitting either across a two seater couch or on the floor of my miniscule living room while they eat my three awful courses.
The first of which would be those little bowls of warm water with lemon slices you get when you’re eating shellfish at a restaurant. Only I wouldn’t serve anyone shellfish. I’d just bring out the little bowls and watch while everyone waits for the clams or mussels or whatever they thought they were getting, then when someone finally asks I tell them that they all already have their starters, and that their soups were going cold.
Also I should mention that I won’t be eating with my guests. I’ll just sit in my armchair chain smoking, ashing onto the floor, and looking past people when I talk to them, which will only be about the minutiae of their childhoods.
The heating will be on full, and by night’s end we’d all be sweating. Oh and also, as I’ve mentioned before, when in winter and the heatings on and I’m cooking large quantitites of food in my windowless kitchen, the flat takes on a sort of rainforest climate, getting really humid and coating everything in a thin film of water, the cupboards and windows dripping. The place soggy all night.
For my main I’d serve borridge. That’s not a typo. It’s something I made for myself when I was sick recently and had no food in the house, was in great pain and knew that I needed something calorically dense in as simple a format as possible to help my body get better.
Just what is borridge?
For anyone who knows me well you’ll know that I am a huge fan of savoury porridge. I just love putting meat and oats together, pork products especially. And am endlessly surprised at how good this is. I don’t do it everyday, but when I do it’s a real event. You can go simple and just fry up some smokey bacon, then dice it and mix it into your oats. Or you can go a little further and actually roast some pork and use the leftovers with breakfast. Chorizo’s good too. But only thick cut. The thinner any cut of cured pork and the less it impacts the flavour of the oats overall, I’ve noticed. But I digress.
Only recently I entered a new realm and mashed up a pan-fried burger patty to mix into some porridge. And it was, well it wasn’t good. Not that I thought it was bad, per se. It certainly wasn’t the tastiest thing, but I was in such a state that I was just happy to be eating something substantial. Which is not to say that I was unaware that I’d hit a new low.
I sent a picture to my friend and he shouted at me. Told me I should be arrested.
And you know, horrible as it was I stand by borridge. Though I do not deny its monstrousness. Nor would I ever serve it to someone. It kind of looked like a caricature of organic dog food in a sitcom. And whil yes, it sorted me out in a time of need, from now on, if or when I do make it again, it’ll be between me and God—no one else need enter into this mess.
So my plan for serving it to my guests would be to fry up a whole bunch of patties, burn them, mash them up and then mix in all the grease to the oats as well. No one would enjoy this. And after about ten or so cigs, at this point I’d be spitting onto the floor while they eat.
Ok so while on my good night I wouldn’t for this night I would 100% provide some entertainment. Entertainment in two forms. The first being a bag of speed that I force everyone to take a line or two of, before bringing in that same friend who insisted I should be arrested for making borridge—the same friend who I regularly watch three or so hours of Come Dine With Me at a time with, commenting on it together, making dinners for us to eat as we watch and slander everyone—a dear friend who also just so happens to have this long running bit where he impersonates Greta Thunberg, only she’s Greek, says innit a lot, loves Family Guy and is best friends with Greg Davies. Also despite being Greek she doesn’t have a Greek accent, it’s this sort of, well, I don’t know what it is but it sounds weird. Basically I’d just have him come out and do the Greta bit for half an hour or so while everyone starts to rattle from the gear as the greasy borridge settles in their stomachs and makes them queasy.
For dessert there’d be more speed and, much like my good menu, coffee and cigarettes. By this point in the night I will have graduated from ashing onto the floor and just start stubbing my cigarettes out in my palms. We’d all be sweating, perhaps even shaking a bit. Someone might have been sick. And my mate would still be there, sat in the corner just talking about Family Guy and the geopolitical opinions of Greg Davies as Greta Thunberg.
It would be terrible.
What would you do for your menus?