An ode to lunch is not unlike a toast to breakfast.
Both are a celebration of excess.
In my mind, the ideal lunch should last approximately 3 hours.
If work you must – you would leave around 10:30 and get back to the office shortly after 1:30.
You would eat sometimes alone and sometimes with a group of friends.
And afterward, you might even have time to go home for a nap and a shower.
On Friday’s, of course, you would not leave for lunch until 11:30.
Obviously, not to return.
For what decent person works after lunch on Friday?!
“I have a vague notion that once upon a time, not so long ago, lunch was a meal to be enjoyed. The midday meal was an occasion to be deliberated over, shared with friends and colleagues, savoured, taken over two or three hours. It was a time for gossip, laughter, booze. It was a dreamy oasis of pleasure which took the edge off the dreary afternoon and was to be looked forward to during the busy morning. It might even involve a stroll around town, a taxi-ride, a trip to a gallery. Sometimes lunch would go on all afternoon and into the evening, and leave behind it a delightful trail of cancelled appointments and drudgery postponed.”
–Tom Hodgkinson, How To Be Idle (Amazon)
Hodgkinson concludes his thoughts on lunch with this:
“We need to claim lunch back. It is our natural right. It has been stolen from us by our rulers. The fear that keeps you chained to your desk, staring at your screen, does not serve your spirit. Lunch is a time to forget about being sensible, practical, efficient. A proper lunch should be spiritually as well as physically nourishing. Cosy, convivial, a treat; lunch is for loafers.”
