I lived and worked in Bahrain, Dubai (and briefly the USA) for almost 13 years, between 1985 and 1998. Life as an expat in the Middle East can be comfortable but there is not much to entertain you. Hence expat dinner parties were a weekly event at each other’s houses. I was inspired to write this guide for an expat magazine by the experiences gained from various dinner parties. If whilst reading this, you think I may be exaggerating, I can assure you I am not. It is all a record of actual people and events. TEACH YOURSELF
THE ART OF DINNER PARTY ETIQUETTE ON A BUDGET
INTRODUCTION
We all have an in-built desire to impress our friends, not least when giving dinner parties at home. This can be a very expensive and stressful activity if you do not :-
This guide to dinner party etiquette is based upon real life experiences – both at home in the UK and whilst working abroad in the Middle East. The author wishes to thank all those who inspired the work by their actions, appallingly poor taste, total lack of basic social skills, pig ignorance and unbelievable habits - without which this guide could never have been written. Dinner parties are an exercise in “one up-man-ship” - giving you the opportunity to show off your connoisseur’s knowledge of good food, fine wines and a mastery of dining etiquette. Good eating and drinking habits extend far beyond the correct use of the fork for stabbing, scooping and cutting food or the art of drinking tea from a mug with your left pinkie sticking out - it is a symphony of manual dexterity and body language. Due attention should also be paid to the cultural aspect. For example, eating with one’s hands is perfectly OK in certain Eastern cultures but would be frowned upon elsewhere. At an Arabic ‘grab a goat’ dinner, care should be taken not to use the left hand on the food - this is used by Arabs for other unspeakable purposes. It therefore follows that inviting a handicapped person to your Arabic theme night who has only one arm is just not on.
Another example is belching and passing wind - which in some cultures is used to indicate that one has enjoyed the food. Extreme care should be exercised in such activities, especially when the menu includes beans in the main course and prunes and custard for afters. If you do indulge, beware the proximity of anyone smoking for fear of spontaneous combustion.
This brief guide provides you with a few tried and tested methods, a guide to dinner party etiquette and some short cuts to achieving an impressive dinner party which hopefully your guests will find memorable and the subject of conversation for months to come. It is based upon true stories and factual examples from various “expatriate” dinner parties held or attended by the author.
THE SETTING
You must create the required ambiance with appropriate background music and pre-dinner drinks to relax your guests. Big Ben’s Banjo Band, Mahler, Pavrotti or The Last Night of the Proms are good choices played at a high volume - because it drowns the idle conversation that guests would otherwise indulge in. It also drowns the noise of the microwave and thus maintains the illusion that the food has been freshly cooked - rather than being a concoction of left-overs and frozen dishes prepared well in advance to take advantage of special offers available at the supermarket.
Most people consider it vital to buy leading brands of beer, wine and spirits. It is obviously not well known that some of the cheaper brands from third World Countries such as Korea and India are just as good - if not better - and are a fraction of the cost. The trick is to store premium brand bottles remotely and pour drinks in the kitchen so that guests are unaware of the brands. Let the taste speak for itself. Wine should be put into carafes (jugs) so that the origin is anonymous. Minimise the use of ice cubes in mixer drinks - one cube per glass is plenty for most people.
The layout of the dinner table is of course quite important. For a modern table layout appearance use a miscellany of glassware and tableware – the Bohemian look is the current fashion – matching sets can look stilted and boring. Keep the lighting low to mask any greasy marks or lipstick stains on the wine glasses. Always run your fingers around the rim of the wine glasses when laying the table to feel for any dried food particles - these should be flicked off. Though not necessary if the lighting is sufficiently dimmed, it is a nice touch to polish the glasses, hearty breathing on them coupled with the vigorous use of a clean handkerchief (or if used - a dry one) helps to get a good finish. Spit will remove the most stubborn stain.
Provide paper serviettes (or as a substitute, pieces of toilet roll) - reusable cloth napkins are so unhygienic - especially when not washed from time to time. An exception to the rule is the use of lace cotton serviettes – there is too little material in them to collect much dirt or food particles and lipstick stains are not so obvious. Always inspect forks for debris between the prongs before putting out the place settings. Samples of fish and chips clinging to them from the previous evening are most unwelcome. If problems are found - scrub them with your tooth brush or a similar stiff bristle brush. If you use the toilet brush - best keep it to yourself.
If your dining room is adjacent to the kitchen, try not to place guests where they can see into the kitchen. In the interests of speed it is frequently necessary to place food on the plates or scrape it from a bowl with your fingers - making it necessary to suck or lick them clean between each serving. In addition, it is difficult to retrieve dropped food from the floor if being watched. These are superficially unhygienic activities that your guests would not appreciate seeing. Neither should they see that the family dogs are recruited to eat left-over scraps and lick the plates returned from the dinner table - they might start imagining that you do this regularly and be given to wonder how many canine germs they had just consumed.
As a point of etiquette, it’s OK to wipe your nose on the napkin - but a full blow followed by holding up the napkin to inspect the result can be off-putting to the squeamish.
Regarding salad cream, tomato and brown sauce bottles, it is a good idea to wash the gunge from off the bottle top and to warm them up in the microwave before placing them out on the table. This will make them easier to open and because the sauce is warm and runny, guests will not need to bang the bottle to dispense tomato sauce on their dinner.
When you are a guest at a dinner party remember that first impressions count. Never arrive early and try not to arrive on time - punctuality creates the impression of being too eager to get fed and watered. Being last to arrive means that you can make a grand entrance and get noticed.
Bring a bottle of wine, chocolates or flowers - whichever is the least expensive - but remember to remove the price tag and duty free labels. You do not want your host to know how much you paid on their behalf. If you take a bottle previously donated by a guest to one of your own parties - take care that you are not giving it back to the same person.
If it is your habit to remove your shoes when entering someone’s house - ensure that at least the tops of your feet are relatively clean and shake out any debris from between your toes. Ladies should ensure that toe nail polish gives the impression of being applied within the past month. Gents should wear darned socks. If you keep your shoes on, wipe them upon entering, but not on the host’s carpet. Do not wear your Company safety shoes or boots.
STARTERS
The first course should be light but tasty - the stronger the taste the better. Smoked fish in a watery garlic sauce is a good choice served with limp lettuce. Crisp lettuce used to be the fashion but has now been superseded by slightly limp varieties thanks to the example set by the UK motorway cafes. Tinned smoked fish is readily available in grocery stores at very attractive prices. Look for dented or bulging tins upon which you can usually get a good discount.
An alternative is of course that good old standby - soup - which is so easy to make from almost any relatively edible matter. Packet or tinned varieties are suitable but give them the home-made appearance by plenty of dilution and dropping in a few peas, potato peelings (chopped fine) or left-overs from a previous meal. The advantage of providing soup is that the used spoons are readily available, without the need for washing, for re-use as serving spoons for the main course dishes. The transfer of the spoons should of course take place in the privacy of your kitchen.
If you find that there is soup left in the tureen after everyone has finished their soup – it is good manners to offer a second helping to fellow guests before picking up the tureen and drinking from it to ensure that not a drop is wasted. Your host will be pleased at your thoughtfulness.
Good etiquette dictates that you do not break up your bread roll and dip it in the soup - you should put the whole roll in the soup bowl and cut it with your spoon when it is sufficiently soggy.
If you happen to finish your soup and have some bread roll left you do not wish to waste – lean across the table and dunk it in a fellow guest’s soup bowl – but do take care to avoid knocking over the floral display decorating the table.
One final tip about the soup course. If there is soup left in the serving tureen after everyone has finished their soup - it is considered polite to first ask your fellow guests whether they would like some more - before picking up the tureen by both handles and quaffing it down to finish it to the last drop. Thus showing a commendable attitude to the prevention of food wastage. MAIN COURSE There is a bewildering array of foods appropriate for the main course - almost anything will do. Try to think of an exotic name for your dish - it has the psychological effect of improving the taste.
Dishes from a Mongolian, Bolivian or Ugandan recipe book are fairly safe bets because guests are unlikely to know what they are supposed to taste like.
The general use of a microwave oven will save you both time and money. Always buy fresh vegetables because they are so much cheaper than the frozen or tinned variety. You can create the illusion that they are the more expensive frozen or tinned ones by overcooking them, letting them go cold and warm them up in the microwave just before dinner is served. Do not get them too hot for serving - tepid is adequate.
Another trick is not to buy the best cuts of meat, the cheaper cuts can be treated by your friendly butcher with a tenderiser and then beaten with a mallet just before cooking. When well cooked they are indistinguishable from the real thing.
If you serve fish as the main course cook it in garlic or other strongly flavoured sauce in case it is not absolutely fresh.
A generous application of luke warm and watery gravy to everyone’s plate is almost mandatory - food looks so much more attractive when afloat and it takes the savage crispness off chipped potatoes that would otherwise cut your gums.
On the subject of etiquette, set an example by using your fork spoon-like when tackling errant peas and use your knife to scrape up every vestige of food and residual gravy - being careful not to remove the pattern from the plate. Lick your knife blade clean when you have finished - but be careful of the sharp edge. There is nothing more off-putting than to see soiled knives and forks at the end of a meal or someone nursing a lacerated tongue.
WINES
This is a minefield of pure snobbery where people pretend to know a good wine from a poor one. After all - we all know that wine comes in three main varieties - red and white which you can mix to make the third type - rosé. Americans have invented a fourth type which they call “blush wines” but this appears to be a marketing ploy to get rid of white wines that have been polluted or tinted with the odd red grape. If you have provided adequate pre-dinner drinks and the starting course was strongly flavoured (hence the suggestion for smoked fish in garlic sauce) - who could possibly taste the wine anyway. People will be only too glad to quaff it down with the main course. It would be a criminal waste to serve a vintage wine under such circumstances and a well diluted home made kit wine will be quite adequate.
Red wines should be served at room temperature which can be anywhere between 12º and 45ºC depending on your policy about using air conditioning or central heating in various weather conditions. White wine should be served chilled - 5 minutes in the fridge should be sufficient. Rose and blush wines should of course be somewhere between the two.
If you serve wine in a carafe - choose its size and shape with care. It ruins the ambiance if the table is laden with wine carafes that have the appearance of being designed for other purposes and have originated from a medical establishment. If using wine that has been open for a while and has oxidized - strain it through an old nylon stocking or sock to remove the sediment.
DESSERT
It matters little what you serve for dessert - by now your guests should be inebriated and in the mood for anything. Something sweet, gooey, psychedelic coloured and with anonymous lumps in tall glasses always slips down well. Alternatively, serve a sticky gateau – but serve it at the table and suck your fingers clean before manually placing each piece on the respective guest’s plates.
Some guests, lacking a sweet tooth, may prefer cheese and biscuits. A selection of cheeses, with any mould carefully removed, should be displayed on the cheese board. Uneaten cheese biscuits last for years if you dry them out in a warm oven before each meal.
When you are a guest at a dinner party, the correct etiquette for eating dessert or cheese and biscuits is very important. You are now nearing the end of the evening and last impressions linger in people’s memory.
Show that you have enjoyed the dessert by running your index finger around the inside of the dish and sucking your finger clean. This will enable you to remove every vestige from the dish. It is not OK to lick the dish directly.
When getting cheese from the cheese board demonstrate that your fingers are clean by licking them before firmly holding down the chosen block of cheese with your freshly cleaned hand whilst you hack off a portion. If you subsequently find that the cheese is not to your liking - cut off your teeth marks before returning the unwanted portion to the cheese board. A similar technique applies to taking grapes - use a freshly cleaned hand to hold the bunch whilst you pull off your requirements.
LIQUEURS & SPIRITS
This is another rich ground for snobbery - with tales of single malts, vintage brandies and classic ports. If you want to play to such snobbery the trick is to cadge empty up-market scotch, brandy, liqueur and port bottles from distant colleagues (not the guys you have to dinner of course) and re-fill them with substitutes derived from third World Countries. No-one will ever notice.
COFFEE
Always serve coffee with the liqueurs so that the use of cheap instant coffee in a percolator or cafetiere is not noticed. Pour the coffee before adding the cream (which can be cheaply made with powdered milk in a blender) and let the guests put in their own sugar or sweeteners.
It is customary to serve an after dinner chocolate with coffee - these are expensive - but a good substitute is to cut a Mars bar into slices and wrap them in pieces of foil. (Tip: put the Mars bar into the freezer for a while to facilitate cutting into wafer thin slices)
GENERAL ITEMS
Get yourself involved in the conversations around you and be selective about the topics. Talking about your hemorrhoid operation, your vasectomy reversal and current sperm count, constipation or stomach upsets in graphic detail are unlikely to be welcome during the meal. Rattling on for hours about your family at home and how you miss them is perfectly alright.
Try to laugh at the jokes of others - even if they include your least ‘favourite’ word or are based upon what you perceive to be cruelty to animals or immoral behaviour. Remember they are merely jokes and not a reflection of real life - unless you secretly know otherwise from personal experience.
If you must smoke - then confine it to between the courses (inter-course cigarettes are always the best). Do not use the carpet as an ash tray - your side plate or saucer will serve the purpose. It is considered bad manners to complain of others passing wind if you are smoking
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Entertainment at a dinner party takes many forms and can be organised for either before or after dinner is served. For animal lovers, the joy of pulling ticks off the family dog can keep guests enthralled and stimulate their appetites – even better when the dog has worms and it traverses the carpet leaving behind appropriate skid marks. Quiz nights can be amusing and often lead the party into uncharted waters – its amazing what an innocent game of “Partners” can reveal to the assembled company.
For music lovers a Karaoke evening takes some beating – singalong with Pavrotti being a special favourite. The formula for a successful dinner party is to amuse and entertain the guests – in such circumstances the quantity and volume of the entertainment counts more than the quality.
Remember the old adage – eat, drink and be merry for you may not live another day.
This concludes our brief outline of the skills you need to develop in order to lay on a memorable dinner party. Follow the examples given and you too can become the talk of the town. 
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