Soups and Starters

Our TV programme is about menus this year and I would like you to keep the thought of the menu with you at all times whilst reading this book.

The first course is many people’s favourite part of the meal, indeed there was once a highly successful London restaurant that served nothing but starters and puddings. In many ways, the first course is like a TV trail or an advertisement: you want to grab the attention of your guests away from their drinks and their pre-dinner chat and refocus them on to the fact that they are now sitting down to enjoy your food. If you don’t do this you will feel like the chef in the Saki story who ran amok and drowned the bandleader in the soup tureen because everyone was listening to the music and ignoring his efforts!