Dinner For One: Miss Sophie's Fruit Course

The phrase "Same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?" makes it plain to Dinner For One fans that this particular dinner party has been re-enacted quite a few times. With this in mind -- and having had to deal with the aftermath -- it seems likely that Cook Downstairs eventually convinced Miss Sophie to keep things relatively simple by dispensing with the traditional British sweet course when planning her birthday dinners. This makes a certain sense, as the kind of excitement that starts setting in with the poultry course in the video wouldn't sort well with a big bowl of trifle or one of the other great British puddings.

We have to say "pudding" in this instance, instead of "dessert", to conform to the formal British usage of Miss Sophie's period. In the UK, when used casually, "pudding" can mean any kind of baked, cooked or composed sweet -- what a North American would call "a dessert". So that, for example, when in the Harry Potter books and films Luna Lovegood says "I hope there'll be pudding", she's using casual Irish / British idiom to indicate that she's interested in having some kind of sweet or sweet course in general -- not a creamy mousse-like preparation that comes out of a box or from a mix. In Miss Sophie's case, though, what would be considered the "sweet course" has been bypassed. In a formal dinner of her period, "dessert" is the name of the course that comes after the sweet course, and it always means only fruit.*

As for what she eats: Miss Sophie rather sensibly finishes with just a light nibble or so after the three previous and fairly substantial courses. She picks a pear from the fruit bowl James offers her, and also appears to toy with a couple of grapes before the last round of toasts begins. Beyond that, there's not much to be said except about the drinks.

"We'll have port with the fruit."

The original port wines came only from the Douro Valley in Portugal, and in the European Union only wines from that region are now allowed to be called port since the wine acquired its Protected Geographical Status: though in the US and many other countries, fortified wines made locally can legally be called port.

Port wine as a class divides into two types: vintage port (which makes up only about two percent of all ports made) and wood port. Vintage port spends a short time aging in the barrel and then can spend many years aging in the bottle -- usually at least fifteen before it's considered ready to drink. Wood ports include all other kinds of port, but they don't concern us, since Miss Sophie's cellar would contain only the vintage type. (Also, as a British lady of "the quality," Miss Sophie would be unlikely to have anything but true Portuguese-originated ports in her cellar.)

Vintage ports are richer and more flavorful than the wood variety, and usually considerably more powerful. Many of them are blends of different ports from various estates in northern Portugal. The heavier, more complex ports are routinely suggested to accompany sweets that have pronounced flavors, like chocolate. But for fruit, it's likely that Miss Sophie would have chosen a lighter-flavored and less complex "tawny" port from her vintage port collection. Our guess is that she would have gone with something like a Colheita (sometimes now called a Single Harvest Reserve). Good ones are sourced and bottled by many large and small wine producersand importers: this one from Fortnum & Mason would be typical.

 

*For those interested in more detail about the different meanings of "dessert " in the UK and North America, check this link: for more info about the general etiquette of the distinction between the sweet and dessert courses, click here.

 

The courses served at Miss Sophie's 90th Birthday dinner, and the recipes for them:

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