Work Lunches - An Introduction

Lunch is an awkward meal for me. Sometimes it’s early, sometimes late and while it’s true that I get quite grumpy if I don’t eat, sometimes I don’t manage lunch at all. My European colleagues always seem to eat later than I would hope, even though they are already an hour ahead of us. Lunch seems to be the meal that is most often compromised, passed over in favour of finishing that report or catching the next train. I often think to myself, ‘it’s OK, I’ll just have a big dinner’, but then I get home and haven’t got the energy to cook and end up stuffing my face with a Dirty Burger. Bad times.

So, when I do manage to get lunch, is life hunky-dory? Does the world swim into focus through a rainbow of love? Not quite. I hate to break it to you but motorway service stations are not nice places to eat on a regular basis. Looking past the standard pre-packed sandwich and Ginsters ensemble to the trays of canteen style piles of what I am legally forced to call bacon, eggs and *shudder* baked beans, do I think 'mmm, that looks tasty?' No. No, I do not.

So, instead I try to broaden my horizons. Recently I have dabbled in sushi. Tesco, Waitrose, M&S Food  And even Wasabi have all featured and I think that might be the subject of a future post. But today I want to talk about office food; the lunch meeting can be depressing at best and bloody depressing at worst. 

First up Germany; a meaty stew/soup with a (amusingly) French stick, along with gherkins and a variety of open finger sandwiches. Some with salami or smoked ham on a bed of lattice and a circle of horrid rye pulse type nastiness. Needless to say, I liked some of them better than others. The stew was great but the one thing you should know about German food is that it is crazy salty. Every bit is chock full of sodium, which isn't too bad but it means that I couldn't eat more than two bowls without my mouth puckering up like a ducks bum hole.

Next is Italy, a choice of two different pastas, a couple of plates of salad and beer or coke. Putting aside the very dubious nature of allowing factory workers unlimited free lager before operating heavy machinery, what we have is a plate of heavy carbotastic energy alongside some light leaves and the ubiquitous carrot shavings that seem to be the unfortunately constant mainstay of salad bars across Europe. When I sampled this particular meal, I looked at the menu for the week and I noticed that a day earlier, staff were being treated to Speck ham. Missed it by a day, damn it.

I round off the trilogy with the UK. I think this probably sums up my opinion about what is wrong with  the British attitude to food.

I rest my case.