There is a fortnight in September when everything is ready at once, and a long table is the only sensible way to serve it.

What a sharing table does to a room

People reach, pass, and talk to somebody they were not sitting next to. A plated meal is a series of parallel conversations; a sharing table is one conversation.

It is also more forgiving. Nothing is temperature-critical at the exact moment of service, which means a ceremony that runs twenty minutes late costs nothing.

The Suffolk ploughman’s

Glazed Suffolk ham, a hand-raised pork pie, Shipcord, crudités, pickled radish, pickled onions, beetroot chutney, piccalilli and country bread.

It is a serious lunch that happens to be simple, and in September it does more for a wedding than anything that needs a sauce.

Autumn comfort

A signature shortcrust pie — steak and ale, or chicken and leek — with creamy mash or thyme roast potatoes and peas à la française. Unfashionable, and the plate everyone finishes.

Puddings to pass

Florentines, mini éclairs, baklava, lemon marshmallow pies, rich chocolate pots, berry pavlova. Put them down the middle and let people help themselves; it is the most relaxed twenty minutes of the day.

The practical case

In a marquee, a sharing menu is the most robust thing we cook. See the sharing and feasting menus, or how it works in a field on the marquee page.