COMMENTARY: Is a dinner without food really dinner?
The topic in the New York courtroom switched to dinner. It was about time the trial got interesting.
The other details of the case revolve around former President Donald Trump using campaign funds to pay hush money to keep porn star Stormy Daniels from talking about the two having sex in Trump’s hotel room 18 years ago.
Many in the fledgling corporate press seem more fixated on those details, and they can have at it. But with the mention of dinner, the trial waded into existential territory. For a man might – might – survive cheating on his wife with a porn star, then pay off said porn star to hide it from said wife. But go long enough without eating, and one’s prospects for survival do not look good.
Of particular interest, at least to this writer, is the following exchange between Daniels and Trump defense attorney Susan Necheless:
Necheless: So you are saying that when you said “we had dinner,” you did not mean that; right?
Daniels: I’m saying – once again, I had dinner in his room, but we never got our food. And I never ate anything.
Necheless: OK.
Daniels: Having dinner with somebody, at least where I’m from, doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to put food in your mouth. I’m going to someone’s house for dinner. It’s dinner time.
This back-and-forth raises the age-old question: Does a dinner that does not include food still count as dinner?
Certainly, a person can go to a friend’s house for dinner and then not eat. Perhaps the host burns the roast and then suffers a nervous breakdown and needs to be rushed to a psychiatric hospital. Or the guests barge into their third cocktails before DoorDash arrives and start playing Truth or Dare until things get weird and everyone calls an Uber and does not initiate conversation for three days.
Or maybe something more normal happens. But surely the expectation of dinner does not, in every case, result in food being consumed.
Where I seem to diverge from Stormy Daniels’ testimony is in continuing to label such occasions as “dinner.” Say I attend what I anticipate will be dinner. Upon leaving, I look back on the evening and ask, “Did I eat?” If the answer is no, then I will never again describe that event as a dinner. It may have been an enjoyable get-together or shindig or hangout. But it will never be dinner.
Or, as I’m donning my coat to leave a house or restaurant in which I did not eat, I would never say to the host, “Thanks so much for dinner,” for my growling stomach would drown out my words.
If in the days leading up to his crucifixion, Jesus had gathered his disciples but had not served his body and blood, then would we still call it The Last Supper? Maybe the Last Hurrah, but not the Last Supper. Upon their exit, a handful of disciples were heard whispering, “Wasn’t what I expected, but something tells me we’ll be talking about this supper for a long time.” They wouldn’t have whispered the word “supper” unless they had been fed.
Hannibal Lecter says he’s “having a friend for dinner” at the end of The Silence of the Lambs. It’s a shame the film doesn’t stretch on just long enough for someone to approach him and ask, “Dr. Lecter, how was your dinner? Did you eat? Also, where’s your friend?”
If Lecter’s meal never showed, do you think he’d still refer to it as dinner? We’ll never know because he was never asked, which is in part why The Silence of the Lambs continues to be one of the least-recognized and least-respected films of the 20th century.
Marie Antoinette first said, “Let them eat dinner.” When informed that there was no food for the peasants, she snapped, “Then we mustn’t call it that. Let them at least eat dessert.” That was later shortened to, “Let them eat cake.” In the centuries since, historians have argued there is little to no evidence that she said any of these things. Silly historians.
As far as I’m aware, I’ve already spilled more ink on this than anyone else. And perhaps given it more attention than it deserves – this was just one small part of a long and tedious trial.
And Daniels did clarify that her definition of dinner is based on where she’s from, which I suppose is good enough for me. To each his or her own. But to be clear, where I’m from, a dinner without food is no dinner at all. It’s not even a snack.