Party Food

Appears in

#15How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food
How To Eat

By Nigella Lawson

Published 1998

  • About
I am unhelpfully obsessive about children’s parties: by that I mean I like to cook all the food myself. It gives me pleasure: it feels important. I say ‘unhelpfully’ because I am not as well organised as I am obsessed, so I am inevitably exhausted by the time I have to face 20 over-excited, screaming children.
I have now got wise to the general set-up, though, and there are some things you should know before you get started in this game. My comments concern themselves with small children.
  1. They will be too excited to eat much. Concentrate on one or two star items – the cake, some special biscuits.
  2. Your child will be more interested in the cake’s icing than in the texture or taste of the sponge itself. Reserve your energies: make an all-in-one Victoria sponge, flavoured or coloured as required. And buy roll-out marzipan and roll-out icing.
  3. Build a party repertoire for yourself. I now do the same biscuits party after party, but change their shape and their icing. I do the same sandwiches, provide the same sort of sausages and buy the same sort of crisps. The routine is reassuring to your children (just like the same old Christmas tree decorations coming out year after year) and helpful for you. Add to this repertoire – and see below – but keep it to provide a solid foundation.
  4. Don’t try to please other parents. The party is for your child.
  5. Don’t get agitated about the amount of sugar, food colour, salt, cream or butter. This is not the time.