Clare Finney, the food writer and author, is fixing me with a look that says: I know you understand, I know you already know this. She gently sets her margarita down in front of her, on the small table in the corner of the Quo Vadis bar.
“Like anyone who reaches their thirties and isn’t married, I’m quite good at weaving terrible dates into passable anecdotes,” she says, smiling now. Finney is reaching back five years to 2018, recalling how her new book, Hungry Heart, got its start while she was holidaying in Umbria.
“I’d had this series of particularly hilarious dates that involved food or drink, or both — well, always drink,” she says, eyes laughing. No surprise, her friends told her the stories would make a good book. Finney began to think — waylaid somewhat by her debut, The Female Chef, published two years ago — and decided the idea could broaden, reach further, grow.
“There’s more to the idea of ‘food and love’ than romantic love,” she says. “There’s more to love than that. And you’re not going to say anything profound by just reeling off a load of dating stories.”
Hungry Heart sees Finney examine the different loves of her life; the bond with her family — one of hotelier grandparents, of divorce, of remarriage, of four brothers, of death — the closeness of her friends, the happy ties to colleagues, and yes, the occasional hapless date. Some are their fault — one chap eats crisps with chopsticks, another only eats Huel in the name of time efficiency — but Finney acknowledges her end, too, like sending an ex she regretted breaking up with an oversized rubber bearing the legend For Big Mistakes (“do you think he might have got the wrong idea?” a pal quips).
Though at pains to make it clear the book “is definitely, definitely not an eating disorder memoir”, Finney writes with an affecting honesty about hers — she did not want to eat for many years — and says her recovery was a help, speaking as a writer.
“I had quite a lot of therapy, so I found it quite easy to access those feelings around food, and the feelings food brings, positive and negative. I was very alive to the connections that food brings because when I hadn’t eaten it, I hadn’t had those connections. And the relationships I had with my family, my friends — with everybody — grew the better I ate.”
Those connections give the book its shape, and its message (and indeed, the book is dedicated ‘for Mum — my first feeder’). There are recipes here, but they’re hardly the point, as Finney cheerful acknowledges (on a ‘cocktail’ of Malibu and pineapple, the method is thus: “Honestly, if you’ve got to the stage where you actually want Malibu and pineapple, I don’t think the method much matters.”) Food, then, in Hungry Heart is a facilitator of friendship as much as flavour. “I see it in a way that others might take for granted; I didn’t eat and I didn’t drink so I could see the joy and the love that those things were bringing.
“I love the feeling that comes when everybody’s tucking in, everybody’s cheers-ing, and everybody’s on the level, on the same page. And that is really powerful,” she says, smiling. Sharing plates all round, then? Um, no. “Sharing pasta can f*** off,” she grins. “I want it to myself.”
In fact the book feels like making a new connection in its way; one with its audience. I know Finney, and what’s on the page feels much like she is with you for a meal, chatting away, wine in hand. Writing it helped her forge new friendships too — she has become close with those who contribute their thoughts and recipes, including Diana Henry and Olia Hercules — which has a suitable neatness to it.
I didn’t eat and I didn’t drink so I could see the joy and the love that those things were bringing
But for those who grew up in the Nineties, the book also rootles around in childhood, and pulls from there a great sense of nostalgia. It is not just the food mentioned — the pack lunches, the Chicken Tonight — but the way the era is evoked; the chatter at school gates, the way old independent hotels ran with their constant quirks, the acknowledgement that divorce was just different, then. “In the Nineties it was still a big thing and seminal for me,” she says now. “It was disorientating. I’m not someone who likes change, I like people to be together, so it affected me quite badly.”
The book, the, is one of a life, of its aches and pains but of its humour and light too. Dating, funnily enough, pops up here and there in passing, and romantic love — between her (four) parents, her grandparents, friends and their partners — appears throughout. But the silly dates are left mostly out of it, perhaps not to cheapen Hungry Heart. The nicknames amuse, though, the anonymity sweet in its way. Have any of them been in touch? “The guy who ate Huel because he was ‘too busy to chew’ said he read it,” says Finney, pausing. “And nearly choked on his evening Huel.”
But — despite the obvious humour that comes from it — that dating doesn’t dominate speaks to the book’s broader message: that the food we eat, and with whom we eat it, are the things that shape a life. “Food and drink is a way of coping insofar as they’re beats in your day, and they give you space,” she says. “And when you come together for food and drink, things are ok.
“And that’s what great restaurateurs will say: we provide a space, and for the time that you are with us, you don’t have to think about the outside world. You only have to think about the people you are with and the enjoyment that we can give you. Dining is a pause in your day that’s dedicated really for fuel, conviviality, enjoyment, restoration.”
And with that, Finney picks up her margarita, from that small table in the corner of the Quo Vadis bar, and proves her point.
