3rd January 2016

Eight Norman courses launched the New Year at Giles Ullerston and Frankie-Doreen’s Norman manoir desmesne. Laura Malcolm arrived from her Norman chateau fragment with a celeriac, leek, turnip and potato puree, traces of which turned up over subsequent days all over the desmesne. Cooks swarmed in the kitchen. It could have been lethal. Percival Cruising arrived from London in a large black Mercedes with various bits of wiring and a travelling organ. Sidney Cruising had Havana coconut creams for the second dessert but Percival carried them in from the vehicle upside down. Mercifully no tragedy. Percival then sat in a chair. He is not known in the kitchen. Central was Matt Driver’s construction of the fish course. He cooks every ten years. His once-a-decade dish was a massively ambitious fish shape moulded from Russian salad and actual white fish flakes, coated in mayo, with cucumber slices for scales, carrot fins and a pea eye. Giles said they’d got a whole book of Cooking with Jello of which Matt’s Fish Shape reminded him. Percival got out of his chair when the fish shape was finished in order to subject it to glaring silence.

So it was that many cooks honed all eight courses and the dinner was underway. Oysters and prawns were brought by the only outside guests who were also the sole actual Norman residents although not Norman but in one case from Iowa, but with some fingers missing owing to a misfortune with a motor mower. Possibly he came over as a boy or baby with the invasion force in ’44 and was then involved in candle-making. The table was riotous with joy already and lifted yet higher by the arrival of Matt’s Shape. But I was deep with Sidney Cruising, explaining Poor Little Rich Gay life. ‘It sounds horrible,’ she exclaimed over the Baroque curls of connection in every direction that I had demonstrated, the cruelty, the brilliance, the blood-stained bickering, the raging humanity and wholeness. ‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘it’s normal for Gays.’ Well, Frankie-Doreen had done a palette cleansing tomato soup with gin in it. Another great wonder was that even at this early stage the dinner was running late so no danger of longeurs until midnight. We were under pressure to get through in time. Slight oven tension arose over the côte de boeuf: cooks in frocks and outfits were seen flitting to the kitchen, determined to get it out or keep it in. Sidney and I enquired about Iowa and in fact the whole history of the man from Iowa which was never completed. Then the côte arrived and was a miracle – so elegant and succulent, with the exquisite mousseline of celeriac, potato, turnip and leek – a pure white fairy presence on the plate. Next Sidney demonstrated her cheeses: she’d been at La Fromagerie, Marylebone branch: the bog-aged pecorino, a washed Ashton-under-Lyme. Then the jellied fruits in sloe gin, the cherry aspect England-picked. Then the coconut Havana creams with Martinique rum which bolted Laura Malcolm across the room. Joy flew up in the air. It’s just food, you say. What about conversation? It flew away too but was ever such a menu whirled out of nowhere without agony? Did Poor Little Rich Gays ever before unite to such festal glory of menu yet light and sparkling? Finally, finally, as the gin-soaked English cherries were reincarnated at the table with a chocolate coating, Percival Cruising left the room. He returned with wires and the portable organ. ‘I’ve got buzzers,’ he growled. His eyes are coal-black, like Jonny Depp. It was a knife-edge of terror and fun, like The Pirates of the Caribbean. First of all there was to be singing: all nine million rounds of ‘Green Grow the Rushes Oh’ and ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, Percival driving us forward with his portable organ which must also be pumped as it is played. ‘Ah-ha!’ Percival bellowed,’ Ah-ha, ah-ha,’ as he plunged for another verse, with additional overtones of Dick Turpin. At last, at last it was the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Guests were sinking back but Percival was aloft: ‘I’ve got buzzers,’ he snarled. ‘We’re going to have a quiz.’ Buzzers! To create the full as-seen-on-TV effect. Wiring up was simple enough but it was nearly 40 minutes before contestants were even beginning to buzz as required. ‘You may think you’ve very clever, Laura Malcolm, but you’re not,’ Percival glared. Laura continued to fail to buzz. ‘Blankety Blank’ was my only answer to any question until I had the brain-wave of ‘Les Dawson,’ neither ever right. Finally nobody was declared the winner but I continued to buzz, feeling ignored, until Percival switched me off at source. ‘We must sing a song of Iowa,’ he announced, turning to the gentleman from Iowa. But there was no song of Iowa and it was time for the revels to dissolve. ‘What an extraordinary evening,’ the only Norman resident lady said as she gathered up her oyster equipment for reuse on another occasion.

The Norman Table Laid for the New Years’ Eve Banquet

Photo in Jacques Pepin Book:Idealised form of Matt Driver’s Fish Shape

Matt Driver’s Fish Shape under Construction

Matt Driver’s Fish Shape: Mayo Coating On

Matt Driver’s Fish Shape Takes Shape

Matt Driver’s Fish Shape: Final Glory