Bonkbuster food

In Jilly Cooper's infamous classic, Rivals, food speaks of the era and characters' place in the social pecking order. Liver, marmalade + radicchio salad anyone? Plus the '80s classic Tarragon Chicken.

In the second half of the 1980s I was more concerned with liquid refreshment than I was with food, truth be told. But the current surge in excitement about that crazy shoulder-padded-big-hair decade, fuelled by the new TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s 1980s bonkbuster Rivals, got me thinking about it.

And so, instead of flipping through Cooper’s brilliantly saucy book again to find the naughty bits like … erm … some people might have done when they were teenagers, I re-read it for the food. Yeah, right, I can hear you hooting. Of course, I wanted to remind myself of devilish Rupert Campbell-Black’s lunch habits, not his raunchy escapades. But it’s true.

I’m always intrigued by the way food is deployed in books and films, and I’ve realised that in Rivals, Cooper dishes up an absolute food feast alongside a smorgasbord of sex. It’s not surprising, when you think about it. Her books are all about appetites and the fun that comes from indulging them. So, when the Cotchester set aren’t horse riding naked, playing nude tennis, shagging on the coats in the spare room at a dinner party or perving down women’s tops, they’re eating and drinking. 

Long boozy lunches. Shooting parties. Summer garden buffets. Social climbing dinner parties. Fancy London restaurants. Extravagant board room luncheons. It’s 1980s food culture – of particular social milieus, of course – preserved in aspic. Cooper uses food as a social signifier that speaks volumes about her characters and where they fit in the pecking order. And meals, of course, are the perfect settings for her to make her cutting observations.

Properly upper-class (old money) Lady Monica serves Coronation  Chicken – a traditional, not fancy, nothing-to-prove dish – at her garden party. But desperate social climber (new money) Valerie Jones dishes up an ostentatious menu that smacks of bling: fish mousse, pheasant with prawn sauce and a meringue castle with an ice cream moat and whipped cream waves at her dinner party. We understand that underlings know their place when they order breaded plaice and fruit salad. And food is a weapon in one-upmanship. When Monica fancies a ploughman’s lunch and cider, ambitious Maude overrules her with Muscadet and crespolini.

The food in Rivals reflects Britain before the culinary revolution in the early Noughties. In the 1980s, the fanciest food was still French (one boardroom lunch in Rivals features boeuf-en-croute washed down with Claret, and Taggie ties herself in knots cooking chicken Estragon with its ‘extremely complicated and hazardous sauce’.) But Cooper tells us that change is on its way in Britain.

A lunch meeting involves a liver, marmalade and radicchio salad (the bitter purple Italian leaf was the height of fashion in 1986 and appears several times in the book). At another lunch Mediterranean prawns, stuffed aubergine and oeufs à la Russe make an appearance on an ‘hors d’oeuvres trolley’. (I am excited to reveal that The Carvery in St James’s reportedly boasts such a trolley still.)

Elsewhere, amid the gossip, flirting, taffeta, tight jeans, trumpet sleeves, wing collars, gasping, rippling muscles and pale cashmere polo necks, Cooper weaves in lots of good things that some Britons enjoyed in the ‘80s: quiche, Pimm’s, pâté, chocolate cake, parsnip purée, Boeuf Provençal, shepherd’s pie and more. (Sadly the TV adaptation doesn’t precisely reflect the book, including the food, but it’s still a brilliant romp).

In its honour, I’m offering you my version of the 1980s classic Tarragon Chicken or chicken Estragon as per Taggie. Tarragon was the herb of the era. My version isn’t the least bit hazardous - maybe Taggie cooked Elizabeth David’s recipe, in which a whole bird is flambéed with cognac. This one is simpler but incredibly tasty: deeply savoury with a hint of anise perfume from the tarragon. I highly recommend you eat it while watching Rivals. You know. For the food.