RESTAURANTS:Institutional food, served with good grace
IN MY TIME at Trinity College Dublin, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I wasted a great deal of my time by being involved in the College Historical Society, the world's oldest university debating society. It was time that I could have spent in the Lincoln, in bed (ideally not alone) or, God forbid, studying. But the Hist had a certain fascination, especially for its Machiavellian politics, and I met a lot of important and distinguished people who very kindly came along to speak at or chair debates to which we undergraduates would make contributions of varying degrees of pomposity, I being one of the worst offenders.
It was a tradition that the Hist committee and guests would attend commons, as the evening meal at Trinity is known, in the dining hall, before getting out the ballot box and trying our hands at public speaking. In those days commons was something of an ordeal. One of the porters, a former Irish Guardsman, had taken it on himself to conduct this formal evening meal with a military formality that we all took to be ancient tradition. It involved him marching about, clicking his heels and closing the dining-hall doors with a resounding crash.
After the doors were slammed and locked, one of the scholars would intone the grace. Oculi omnium in te sperant, Domine, it would start. Whatever pious hopes were being expressed on our behalf certainly didn't extend to a good meal. Commons in those days was pretty vile. I distinctly remember two fellow students dissecting their corned beef and claiming to have found a superior vena cava or something equally unpleasant.
How times have changed. I returned recently, on a frosty Monday evening, in the company of a man who had the misfortune to teach me British medieval history - and who seems to have recovered remarkably well. He is now a fellow and thus qualifies, as do scholars, for free commons, unlike the rest of Trinity, who pay a modest €17, which includes a glass of Guinness.
We prefaced the meal with a glass apiece of dry sherry, served at room temperature, according to a tradition unknown in its native land, at an equally modest €2.50. When the bell in the campanile started tolling, at 6.15pm, we adjourned to the dining hall, where, our guardsman being long retired, things are conducted rather more serenely. But grace is still said by a student, in this instance with a rather Italianate inflection. Apparently there is some concern among the classicists that Latin pronunciation ain't what it used to be.
We ate at the high table, where conversation flowed on a vast range of subjects as the three courses were served without rush but promptly and very efficiently - so much so that we were done and dusted by a little after 7pm.
The soup was as unlike anything I tasted in my undergraduate days as I can imagine - a home-made combination of tomatoes and herbs, well blended but still with a bit of bite. (I think there was probably some celery in there).
And then on to bacon - not too salty, thickly sliced and anointed with a pleasant and perfectly smooth parsley sauce. There were potatoes in their skins and, amazing as it may seem in what is, let's face it, an institution, exceptional cabbage: retaining a bit of crunch, nicely buttered, exhaling no sulphurous fumes. This was a fine plain plate of well-cooked food, simple and very tasty.
Pudding brought me back to the days when apple sponge was cut in squares and had the consistency of tepid glue strewn with toasted sawdust. But this apple sponge was similar only in name and constituents. It was light, crisp on the outside, nicely tart within, impeccably fresh and served with just enough whipped cream.
After grace, with a mention of Regina Elizabetha, huius Collegii conditrice, we adjourned to the senior common room once more, for coffee that we agreed was execrable, although it was poured from a very fine silver pot.
The wine list:In my time the TCD cellar was overseen with great joviality by a toxicologist, the late Philip Chambers, whose portrait now hangs in the college. His successor, Edward Arnold, has a very shrewd palate, and prices are usually a shade less than what you would pay in a shop. Some older wines offer the fortunate Trinity staff fantastic value, such as Bouchard Père et Fils fully mature Corton-Charlemagne 1988 for a barely believable €38.10, and Domaine de Trévallon 1999, a new classic, for €45. At high table the wines included in the price of commons are both from the dependable Chilean stable of Errazuriz. E Guigal Côtes du Rhone weighs in at €11.