‘Tablescaping’ has been on my mind lately. It’s a dreadful word, if you like language. If, like me, your mind easily flirts with word association, ‘manscaping’ often quickly follows, which is unfortunate.
I’ve been thinking about it because I’d been anticipating the usual raft of articles about how to throw a casual Easter lunch for sixteen. These pieces are interchangeable with the ones about festive dinners and alfresco get togethers. You swap out some baubles for fern fronds and switch your colour palette from deep and decadent to pastel. What they all include, however, is how to adorn your table, in a way that allows no space for actual food (unless you like to masticate on rose petals).
Inevitably, you’ll be guided to hosting nirvana by someone called Persephone who will use the words ‘throw together’ and ‘keep it simple’ a lot, ignoring the fact that the styling team have been up since dawn sourcing vintage-hued roses called ‘Mocha latte.’ Persephone wears voluminous dresses that channel Amish vibes, but are handmade by some artisanal community in the Outer Hebrides. Crucially, she never gets them caught in the chair legs like us lesser mortals and they keep her ‘waftability’ rating high. Children Otto and Ottoline are dressed from a Gainsborough painting and would kill for a Burger King rather than another flavourless ice-pop made from crushed violets. They’ve never seen an undressed table.
It seems that for any gathering to be really memorable, your table must be adorned with a small forest. It might even attract a small band of protesters. A hundred single bud vases in differently-jewelled hues will also do, provided people exercise caution when waving their arms around discussing house prices or how bad the snow was in the Alps this year. It doesn’t matter that you need room to plonk down a vat of steaming stew. You thought this was lunch, but actually you’re on the set of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; fairies could appear at any second from underneath the table carpet of evergreen fronds. If you’re lucky, a squirrel might. emerge from the thicket and proffer a nut, given the restricted access to actual food.
What of those for whom pollen is not their friend? Is it really fair for Conrad from Comms to be slurping down his osso bucco through tears? It could play havoc with Abigail’s recovery from her blepharoplasty!
Take the table in the photograph I took from a recent visit to the wonderful Waddesdon Manor. This has shades of Les Liaisons Dangereuses despite hailing from a much later era. It’s ripe for a raised eyebrow and flirtatious flutter of eyelashes between the rose arrangements. No fan needed at all. However, those creeping leafy tendrils make me nervous. Something about dystopian plants going rogue, wrapping around your ankles and binding you to your chair. Imagine, literally not being able to leave a dinner. Oooh, this could be one for the next Bond film.
I’m not at all averse to some flowers in a vase on the table, but they’ll inevitably be relocated; they just get in the way. I need to make space for the sharing of food rather than put my guests in a botanical experiment. If I want to get all Dejeuner Sur l’Herbe, I’ll grab a picnic blanket and sit under a tree. I want them to smell the food, not the flowers. I want to be able to reach forward and jab their arm in hysterics or squeeze their hand in sympathy. If I want an edible flower garnish, it will be deliberate rather than accidental.
My suspicion is that extreme ‘scapers’ don’t really like food all that much. There’s enough going on around a table without the need for a battle between the floral and the edible. You’re also going to get those guests - you know the ones, the wine label peelers, the cheese rind artists, the match burners - who will start idly picking at your petals, so to speak, gradually deconstructing your table pastoral, bringing new meaning to Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal.
Scatter your sprays and sprigs through your hair, in a button hole or pressed between precious pages of favourite books. Showcase your ornate blooms, by all means, but when it comes to the table, let’s escape the tablescape and have food over flowers.
I worked with a lovely lady called Persephone (thespian parents!) who went by Seph - except people always misheard this and called her Steph. The best Chinese whispers version was when we arrived for a work meeting, she gave her name in at reception and after several repetitions was given a name badge with South Kenton written on it, like the tube station. We had to sit solemnly in front of the receptionist whilst trying not to piss ourselves laughing
I’m so glad you have brought this up Em. Tablescaping signifies to me that the ‘scaper’ has no interest in food, along with a ridiculous amount of time on their hands. I’d rather not eat my prawn cocktail while being stared at by a sinister and ravenous-looking Easter rabbit and while unable to see the person opposite because they’re obscured by a 2ft Fabergé egg.