Eating like Judas Escarrot

I'm not talking about heavy-duty antisemitism - I'll leave that to Melanie Phillips - but some people do make it hard being a Jew. For instance, why did the thieves who broke into my house steal almost nothing except my menorah? Was it antisemitism? It was certainly a nuisance. A good man is hard to find but a good menorah is harder. And this was a very good menorah. If the thieves were Jewish I suppose I say "Happy Chanucah" but if (as I suspect) not, would they be kind enough to take computers, cameras, jewellery and money in future.

Then there was that recent dinner at one of London's grandest hotels - a very fancy affair with more courses than a university. I informed them in advance that pork and shellfish were not for me and arrived confident that I would be treated like a king (King David). Things began satisfactorily enough. To be honest, the cooking was so sophisticated it was difficult to know precisely what was what, but I was sure I was being steered down the paths of relative righteousness and I felt I was being treated as an equal. I had no sense of people looking at me and thinking: "Oh, he must be Jewish. They get worse food but they probably do all right in other ways."

Then came the lobster. I am no expert on lobsters, never having made one's acquaintance, but I know they're a big deal - the ganze machers of crustaceans. It's only fair to point out that what my companions were enjoying was not the whole red-clawed beast but a meticulously chosen element thereof. Even so, I waited expectantly for something sensational by way of compensation. Their lobster, by the way, was served with tandoori spices and a posh carrot-and-citrus puree.

My plate arrived. What enviable Jew-pleasing magic would they have confected, in place of the presumably celestial (satanic) lobster? The answer was: almost nothing. Just a lobster-shaped hole with an extra dab of puree and a couple of carrots. And when I say carrots, they weren't carrots as you know them. Miraculous things they were, miraculously tiny, specimens that you might admire under a microscope. Since this story has a religious dimension I'll say this: if you had to feed the 5,000 you would never do it with these carrots, no matter who you were.