Years ago at a Christmas party, a dinner conversation struck up where everyone at the table was asked to name their ideal dinner guest. The only rule was that only two guests were allowed per person: one had to be deceased, allowing anyone in history to be considered, and the other had to be alive.
Over the years many variations of this subject have been debated and enjoyed on social occasions – readers have probably joined in with a similar conversation at some point.
The Roast Dinner variant
Hospitality & Catering News was recently introduced to another variation of this theme through British Roast Dinner Week, a marketing campaign by Unilever to promote their Knorr brand to restaurants serving roast dinners.
One part of the campaign used research undertaken in 2012 by OnePoll for Knorr Gravy that revealed Stephen Fry as the most popular roast dinner guest. And a post on Unilever’s Facebook page on this subject further stated that Stephen Fry, Jennifer Aniston and Kate Middleton are the celebs with whom UK diners would most like to share a roast dinner.
‘Who would be your pick for a celebrity roast dinner date?’
H & C News thought it would be interesting to share the post with our Facebook fans, so we simply asked ‘who would be your pick for a celebrity roast dinner date?’
The H & C News Facebook page consistently attracts comments, likes and shares on all posts, so we expected a good reaction to this one: but we didn’t expect what actually happened – the comments just flooded in, most of them showing real thought.
Many adopted chose a famous Chef or other famous foodie; all time heroes was another favourite; actors and actresses attracted support; and – no surprise – ‘dream’ guy or girl was popular, along with quite a few sporting names. And then there were the simply unexpected – Henry V?
The comments were very considered: here’s a selection of the comments, thought and wit that they reveal…
Great British Chefs Stephen Fry always gets chosen for dinner dates – he was even mentioned on Coronation Street last week when the same question came up. Jennifer Aniston & Kate Middleton seem unlikely choices for a roast as I can’t really picture them tucking into a roast with great relish – so I’d go for Brian Blessed, Miranda Hart and Jo Brand – all are fun and I’m sure would really enjoy a hearty meal.
Chefs Jobs UK ooh its got to be Jamie Oliver as he seems like a really lovely guy and then maybe Beyonce because she is FAB and then for a dishy date it would have to be Alex O’Loughlin from Hawaii Five-0
Joanna Hunter Date My very own shades of grey Mr C, but my table would include Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Sammy Davis Jnr, Elvis, mixed up with a bit of Mr R Williams, Mr Gary Barlow and the lovely Adele.. would make for an interesting turn out and I bet they would all order pi x
Nice also to get a comment from a Facebook page with 102,000 likes and is a live case study in engagement for Facebook – Great British Chefs
All comments can be seen on the post here
The table below details all the entries. Our top 3 are all famous chefs, which given the majority of our Facebook content is food and recipe related was not a shock.
The image and table was created on 2nd September 2013 if you want to take a look at the post itself it can be seen here.
Doubtless this post will just run and run so we will update the table above soon
