None of us need a fancy dining room

AFTER Mary Berry announced that “it’s easier” to eat in the kitchen the death knell has been sounded for the dining room. If Mary’s not carting chafing dishes, soup tureens and hostess trollies about for formal eating purposes why on earth should the rest of us bother? It’s official. The dining room is dead and the floodgates are flung open for pundits to hold forth about what a dreadful downward turn this marks for the nation’s claims to civilisation.

Let’s get real for just a second before we waft off on a Downton-esque flight of fancy about how much more elegant life was when we ate in state, rinsing our digits in crystal finger bowls and making polite conversation about climate change with our elders.

For starters, most people these days live in abodes so cramped and crushed cat-swinging would be a technical impossibility. We don’t have airing cupboards. We don’t have utility rooms. We sure as heck don’t have dining rooms!

Secondly, huge swathes of us cook in kitchens so constricted the word “galley” is a far-fetched extravagance. We can’t squeeze in breakfast bars, or even card tables, so the enduring middle class fantasy about chomping pasta en famille around a vast plank of oak reclaimed from a local refectory is massively wide of the mark.

Thirdly – don’t collapse with shock here – none of this stuff matters a jot.

Far too much stock – and more on stock elsewhere in this column – is invested in where we eat and far too little on what we munch, with whom we share it and the quality of conversation we enjoy along the way. Consuming nourishing fare off trays on knees in front of the telly can be convivial, cosy and a bonding experience. Sandwiches shared while sitting cross-legged on the floor can help cement and unite a family. There’s nothing sacrosanct about tables and chairs.