Mansion House Tasting

Jenny and I have attended most of the Annual Livery Banquets in recent years but never given much thought to how the fare before us came to be selected. We shall view such occasions in a different light in the future after our visit to Mansion House on 15 December.

Gaye provided me in October with some sample menus with which she had been provided by Searcy’s, the Mansion House caterers, for our Annual livery Banquet the following February. When I commented that we were spoilt for choice she mentioned that we could attend a tasting at Mansion House. Game for anything we said “yes”. We were asked to select two starters, two main courses and two desserts.  We were not sure whether we wanted a savoury course but were allowed to choose two from the selection of six before us. We were also given two dates when the tasting could take place. We selected Monday 15 December. Gaye was due to join us for the tasting but had fallen ill at and was unable to do so. So Jenny and I turned up at the Mansion House at 12.30, to be by the Salon on the first floor. The table, which was big enough to accommodate thirty-six, had been laid up for three – Jenny and I opposite one another at one end, with Brendan between us. (At one stage I had thought that the tasting would involve not just the Arbitrators Company but several others too (and that I would be able to see what we might be missing from the selections made by others). In fact they are conducted on a one-to-one basis, and on a day when there was no other function to distract the chefs).

We were offered something suitably sparkling before getting down to the tasting. Contrary to what I had expected, we were presented with two different dishes for each course, each presented in the way proposed for the Banquet itself. It was not just a small sample of each item chosen. Gaye had made it very clear that we should choose one white and one red wine, but somehow the instructions to Mansion House had got somewhat muddled in their transmission. As Brendan was not entirely clear what wine we wanted to drink, two whites and two reds were duly presented to us. To avoid any further mix-up in the instructions the bottle of one white and one red was marked with an orange sticker, with two of the wine glasses being similarly colour-coded.

Jenny and I rarely have more than a sandwich at lunchtime. The presentation of two four course meals – yes, the savouries must not be forgiven– was therefore quite a challenge which we managed somehow to meet. Indeed Brendan said that he found us admirably decisive! (We had visions of many Masters and their partners enjoying their tasting so much that they were simply unable to make any selection at all during the course of their visit. For the record we concluded ours by 2.15).

Brendan left us to make up our minds what we wanted but the odd hint was dropped. One of the starters was his personal favourite; one beef dish had a particularly pleasing taste and tenderness as a result of five and hours of careful braising; and chocolate fondant would perhaps be a little heavy after what had gone before. And the savouries? Well, the take-up these days was about 30% as most people liked to have time to mingle with one another after the speeches in the Salon over a stirrup cup. (Gaye had told us that we could have a savoury or a stirrup cup, but not both).

We were asked whether the selected dishes had been laid out as we would have wished. I suggested that the rosemary ice cream on the tatin might not melt so quickly if it was placed alongside the nectarine slices rather than on top of them, whereupon Brendan made an appropriate note in his book.

I remembered to ask about the dinners which we had not chosen and whether he thought the meal which we had selected was a popular and well-balanced one. He reassured us on every count. And what about the Lord Mayor and his wife? After all the Company was entertaining them to dinner, albeit in their own dining room? We were told not to worry about their needs as they would be catered for separately. As they eat over 400 public meals in the course of their year in office I suppose that I should not have been surprised at this response.

By the time you read this article the Annual Livery Banquet will have been and gone. We hope that you enjoyed what you ate and drank and did not miss the savoury. For my part I probably drank more at the tasting than I did at the Banquet, as I did not have to propose the Civic Toast in front of Brendan – although my intake was severely curtailed by the thought that I had to read the well known (and difficult) passage from St John’s Gospel later that day at the Company’s Carol Service.

Brendan told us that he had another tasting two days later. For him they must be somewhat tedious, although he was far too polite to give any suggestion that ours was. For Jenny and me it was great fun and very useful – although we missed Gaye’s company.

John Rushton
Master