Let’s redo lunch

As a young sub-editor on the Times in 1926, Graham Greene, future author of The Quiet American and Brighton Rock, had his meals in the office canteen. Elevenpence bought two kippers, a pot of tea and a slice of syrup roll. Plenty to keep a man going through a long subbing shift.

Is that ‘pot’ of tea not civilised, with its suggestion of several cups, of the ceremony of brewing and pouring? With a hot main and a hot pudding eaten away from one’s typewriter?

Today’s office worker eats al desko. Quick dash to Pret, Eat, Itsu, Leon — it’s as if we haven’t time for more than four letters — for the same sandwich, sushi box or wrap as yesterday. Back to wolf down bacon, lettuce and tomato before a one o’clock meeting. What should be a pleasant pause in the working day is a bad-tempered, hiccupy bolting of just enough calories to get you through to the afternoon tea-run.

It’s a depressing way to eat at any time of year, but particularly in September, after two weeks away in la France profonde, Porto or Tuscany. Long lunches under the arbour. New bread, ripe tomatoes, spiced saucisson, juicy peaches. A siesta in the heat of the day. Then, back to lacklustre lunches and crumbs on the keyboard.

Visiting Paris in July, the lunchtime cafés were full of office staff ordering the prix fixe menu over their newspapers (‘La chanteuse Rihanna “inspirée et impressionnée” par Emmanuel Macron’). Carottes rapées to start, then roast chicken, buttered potatoes, endive salad, coffee of your choice — all for ten euros. The Parisienne does not ask her neighbour at midday: ‘Shall we do M&S now before the rush?’ She does not go in pairs, or threes, or fours with the girls from accounts to buy a meal deal from Boots.