Would You Like Some Dessert?

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Waiters used to bring the dessert menu after the lobster dinner, roast beef dinner or haggis if you were in Scotland. Dessert would be peach cobbler, apple pie, black forest cake if there were forests around or good old ice cream.

Bham! Diet crash-landed on our dining habits. Calories ruled the day or the restaurant table. All dessert items became poison. Do they still serve dessert in linen and silver cutlery restaurants? I wouldn’t know because we haven’t eaten out in a long time because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Yes, lockdown is over, but some restaurants never recovered.

Excuse me. Would you like to see the dessert menu?

Waiters/servers are just doing their job, but they know the answer will be no. Let’s leave restaurants for a moment and trace dessert's origin. King Charles 111 still has dessert because he has an army of servants.

1. Soup for starters, then they clear the table.

2. Main course, Cornish hens with vegetables, then they clear the table.

3. Dessert, probably custard with berries, then they clear the table.

4. After dinner drinks, then they clear the glasses.

Therefore, it’s easy to forget that restaurants function along the lines of British, French, Swedish or Monaco royalty. Restaurants simulate a particular lifestyle, which is problematic in the internet age. Love is for the birds. Girls want to date men with social media possibilities. They want to be taken out to ‘fancy’ restaurants so they can brag to online friends, followers, family and foe.

Money is tight for ordinary people in 2023 so they call for Chinese or Indian take-out because of generous servings and the best part? No dessert.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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