The gnocchi to my heart

Anna McCormack discusses whether the way to the heart is really through

He sent me a message on Tinder: ‘let me win the Gnocchi to your heart with a dinner for two’. The pun is admirable. Durham’s own Paul Hollywood ringing on my door, suggesting that he plans on winning my heart through my stomach. Maybe I would have been more convinced if he had looked like him too. So, I entertain this message: ‘dinner for two, what are you cooking?’. Worst case scenarios start to flash through my mind. A bottle of Tesco’s ‘Zesty White’ wine, sausage and mash that he has picked up from the reduced aisle, and maybe the treat of 39p garlic bread. Naturally, he responds with, ‘well, what’s your favourite food?’. Disappointed by another Tinder match having a lack of initiative and inability to make a single decision, I am left wondering: what is the best first date food?

He plans on winning my heart through my stomach

Instantaneously I scour the internet for the perfect response, hoping to be simultaneously witty and appetising. Taking caution from Lady and the Tramp and hoping to avoid a situation where he rolls a meatball over to me with his nose, I immediately cross most meat dishes o the imaginary list I began to form. Whilst I enjoy a chicken balti and a chili con carne, especially when accompanied with microwavable packaged rice, I felt uncomfortable about the prospect of his pained face when trying to deal with the spice. So, I crossed o any other polarising foods: garlic, anchovies, mushroom risotto, and pineapple on pizza. I had formed a large list of foods I have decided the guy from Tinder would not eat. By the time his second message had appeared, I had decided that he detested green olives (but could stomach black ones), he had an inability to handle anything hotter than the lemon and herb spice at Nando’s, and that his favourite food was a well-

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done rib-eye steak.

Conversation progresses. I suggest that my favourite food is pasta, which whilst slightly ambiguous, ensured that I was not making too many assumptions about his limited palette. In one fatal swoop he argued that he had consumed more pesto pasta than me this term. Whilst I am pretty sure I would win a nation-wide termly consumption competition, his tedious response revealed that this would not be a candlelit dinner with a gourmet meal. Rather, I should lower my expectations to a Chicago Town on his living room floor. Returning to the start of the whirlwind romance, a mere four messages previously, I chuckle at ‘let me win the gnocchi to your heart’. I began to question whether he even knew what gnocchi was, or whether he had just read an article entitled, ‘Punny Food Pick Up Lines’.

Looking over our romantic exchange, I conclude that the way to my heart is absolutely through sharing and eating food. However, as arguably the sixth love language, it is important to me to eat and share food that makes us happy. Not to change our ideals to impress someone else. My favourite food is lasagne, I adore all olives, and would happily maintain a diet of pineapple pizza and anchovies for the rest of my life. When asked about our favourite food, we are often faced with the question, ‘what would your death row meal be?’ We are forced to choose between Mum’s Sunday roast or the seafood linguine we had on a trip to Tenerife in 2015. The idea of our favourite food being exclusive to our hypothetical time on death row almost

La Spaghettata

An absolute classic in the Durham dating scene, the fettuccine al salmone (despite potentially messy) is not one to pass on for a great date.