The Cellar  

Go Back   The Cellar > Main > Food and Drink

Food and Drink Essential to sustain life; near the top of the hierarchy of needs

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 01-01-2014, 12:24 PM   #1
richlevy
King Of Wishful Thinking
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
My first high tea

Thanks to Groupon, I bought two half-price coupons for a 'Queen Anne' high tea, one for two persons and one for four persons.

I love tea but I've never been to a real tea service before. I've looked up Devonshire cream, which sounds delicious and inordinately unhealthy, but can someone born in the British Empire please explain to me what a lemon curd is? What is Crème Anglais and how is it different from Devonshire cream? I'm not a big olive fan, so I'm not sure how the cream cheese and olive sandwiches will sit with me.

BTW, I intend to wear a top hat with a 10/6 card in it.


http://www.simpsonhousetearoom.com/menu.html


Quote:
Tea Sandwich Assortment
6.95
A wonderful tasty assortment of five (5) tea sandwiches: Egg Salad, Chicken Salad, Cream Cheese & Olives, Cucumber, & Crème Anglais with Jam
Quote:
Queen Anne Royal Tea for Two
50
Start out with‎ two personal pots of tea and a soup & salad combo plate for each then on to a 3 tiered server with twelve assorted tea sandwiches and two full sized sugar scones with all the trimmings: homemade lemon curd, Devonshire cream and butter. Finish off with two desserts from our daily selections. A feast fit for a Queen!
__________________
Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama

Last edited by richlevy; 01-01-2014 at 12:30 PM.
richlevy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2014, 02:49 PM   #2
Aliantha
trying hard to be a better person
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Posts: 16,493
Lemon curd us very much the same flavour you would get in the lemon part of a lemon meringue pie. In fact, lemon curd is what some use to fill them.

High tea is lovely and frivolous. Expect a few savouries too if its a real high tea.
__________________
Kind words are the music of the world. F. W. Faber
Aliantha is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-01-2014, 04:25 PM   #3
Molasar
Part-time superhero (off shift right now, leave a message)
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Posts: 211
Devon Cream Tea is basically a pot of tea, a scone, jam, and clotted cream. everything else is optional.
BTW the meaning of all items is English rather than American, being a Brit working for a Yank company I know the same word means different things - as the famous Anglo-American Winston Churchill once said, we are "two countries divided by a common language".
BTW(2) I see that Colorado beat Washington to the punch about legalising weed for recreational use as from today.
Forget Houston or Cape Canaverel, the true space cadets are in Denver
"way to go, Colorado" or however that's written!
__________________
The only dumb question is the one you didn't ask.
Molasar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-02-2014, 03:04 AM   #4
Sundae
polaroid of perfection
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 24,185
I always thought that Crème Anglais was custard.
So you are having custard and jam sandwiches
"Don't eat too much Richard."
"It's okay, it's only a trifle."
Oh dear, I really make myself laugh.

It all looks lovely, although it has been tweaked for American tastes and appetites. It's a cross between a Cream Tea, a High Tea and Afternoon Tea really, but why not.

Interesting omissions on the sandwich front are prawn or ham. I wonder if this is because of a more visible Jewish population in the area? I'm not assuming that because of you (at least I hope I'm not); it may just be what sells well.

Interestingly there are less cakes/ pâtisserie. And yet more substantial savouries available (soup, salad). Which is what puts me in mind of Afternoon Tea. No boiled eggs either. Can't be High Tea without a fresh egg apiece. Oh sorry, that's Yorkshire Tea
It's from an advert for Yorkshire Tea is all.

All in all it looks like a great choice and I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
Do take photos.

(If you search under Hartwell on the Cellar you'll come across my fancy Afternoon Tea, although I wouldn't say it was typical)
__________________
Life's hard you know, so strike a pose on a Cadillac
Sundae is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-03-2014, 11:43 AM   #5
BigV
Goon Squad Leader
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Seattle
Posts: 27,063
really? all those different kinds of tea?

Now, to my American ear, "tea" is what you drink, out of a cup, usually hot, but sometimes iced and then it's called "iced tea". What I think from context is that "tea" is being used in this context similar to what I'd call "meal", or local cuisine.

qcc?
__________________
Be Just and Fear Not.
BigV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-03-2014, 11:57 AM   #6
glatt
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 27,717
Maybe it's an East Coast thing. My wife has gone to high tea a few times, so has my mom. Fancy hotels sometimes offer high tea in their dining rooms. There are also cutsie little restaurants that do.
glatt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-03-2014, 12:25 PM   #7
richlevy
King Of Wishful Thinking
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigV View Post
really? all those different kinds of tea?

Now, to my American ear, "tea" is what you drink, out of a cup, usually hot, but sometimes iced and then it's called "iced tea". What I think from context is that "tea" is being used in this context similar to what I'd call "meal", or local cuisine.

qcc?
It's like BBQ.

You can go out for some BBQ, in which case you are referring to the food.
You can go out to a BBQ, in which case you are referring to the event.
__________________
Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!
I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama
richlevy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-03-2014, 02:11 PM   #8
Clodfobble
UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 20,012
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigV
"tea" is what you drink, out of a cup, usually hot, but sometimes iced and then it's called "iced tea".
In the south the assumption is opposite: "tea" is with ice unless you specify it as "hot tea." My visiting uncle was quite frustrated when the waitress told him, "Well, uh, I could maybe take some of the iced tea and put it in the microwave?"
Clodfobble is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-03-2014, 05:23 PM   #9
Lamplighter
Person who doesn't update the user title
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Bottom lands of the Missoula floods
Posts: 6,402
Try being a tourist in New Zealand...

"Tea" is a hot drink
"Tea" is a cold drink
"Tea" is a early light snack
"Tea" is the main meal of the day
"Tea" is your hostess's way of saying it's time for you to go home *


* if you are a Yank, the sign is "coffee"
Lamplighter is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-03-2014, 06:26 PM   #10
BigV
Goon Squad Leader
 
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Seattle
Posts: 27,063
Quote:
Originally Posted by richlevy View Post
It's like BBQ.

You can go out for some BBQ, in which case you are referring to the food.
You can go out to a BBQ, in which case you are referring to the event.
thanks, that's helpful. unless you're a purist and bbq means the method, not the food and ffs not the sauce.
__________________
Be Just and Fear Not.
BigV is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-04-2014, 10:33 AM   #11
Molasar
Part-time superhero (off shift right now, leave a message)
 
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Posts: 211
simplest way if looking at is this:
TEA is a drink that can only be made by pouring boiling water onto tea leaves (sorry America, a cup of hot water with a tea bag on the side IS NOT tea, no way Jose - and it doesn't matter where or how much you paid, that's indisputably not tea).
AFTERNOON TEA is a pot of TEA with a light plate of cold sandwiches, cake, scones and similar items.
HIGH TEA is based around TEA and is AFTERNOON TEA plus light cooked hot meal items to support you until dinner, I guess that was necessary in the days 150 years ago before central heating, when people moved around or on horseback instead of sitting on their arses or in cars like we do now.
DINNER was the main meal of the day consisting of soup, fish, roast meats, trimmings and as many vegetable accompaniments as you could manage, dessert, cheese. Plus wines to suit each course.
SUPPER was a light snack meal usually cold for when one returned home from one's evening out, say to DINNER or the theatre or the tavern. Or of course one could miss supper and have a nightcap from the grog* tray.

yeah, I know, those old buggers really knew how to live.

*grog in this case does not refer to the Royal Navy rum ration issued to ratings.
__________________
The only dumb question is the one you didn't ask.
Molasar is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-04-2014, 04:01 PM   #12
DanaC
We have to go back, Kate!
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter View Post
Try being a tourist in New Zealand...

"Tea" is a hot drink
"Tea" is a cold drink
"Tea" is a early light snack
"Tea" is the main meal of the day
"Tea" is your hostess's way of saying it's time for you to go home *


* if you are a Yank, the sign is "coffee"
In some parts of Britain, tea also refers to the main meal of the day - what would be called dinner in other parts of the country (theres also a class component to that - associated with Northern working class). Dinner meanwhile was the midday meal. Which is why the women who oversaw the school meal were called 'dinner ladies' .
__________________
Quote:
There's only so much punishment a man can take in pursuit of punani. - Sundae
http://sites.google.com/site/danispoetry/
DanaC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-01-2014, 04:44 PM   #13
CzinZumerzet
.....short for Caz
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: The West Coast of England
Posts: 358
I spent most of last November in the Florida Keys and was constantly asked 'hot or cold' if I asked for tea. A barman at Key West DID pour iced tea and microwaved it before serving it poured over fresh mint. I loved it
__________________
..down by the zea zippin' zider
CzinZumerzet is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-01-2014, 11:08 PM   #14
wolf
lobber of scimitars
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
Tea is a delightful and civilized experience. I used to go regularly with my girly girlfriends, until our tea hostess sold her business. We went to her house for Tea after that, and also have made our own resplendent teas. It's a lot of fun and you can get surprisingly full on those tiny little sandwiches. I've been to quite a few tea houses in the area, I look forward to a full report. We need a new tea place!
__________________
wolf eht htiw og

"Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island

High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis
wolf is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-02-2014, 09:42 AM   #15
Pamela
Deplorable
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Location: Dallas, TX
Posts: 767
Count me in the next time I am back home!
Pamela is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:40 AM.


Powered by: vBulletin Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.