Saturday 30 August 2008

Afternoon tea

Afternoon tea is a notion anyone who has read English literature is familiar with. The most amazing combination I’ve met in a book is “We had milk for tea”. But the afternoon tea we were invited to today was a real traditional event – although not high tea, I was told when I tried to show off with my knowledge of local habits. For high tea, there would be cold meats. As it was there were the famous cucumber sandwiches, cupcakes, chocolate cake and, naturally, scones with bream and jam. A colleague next to me, who comes from Australia, explained that one of the largest cultural controversies in various regions of England is whether to put on cream first and jam on top or the other way round. This was new to me. I thought it was just whether to pour tea or milk first. Since I don’t take milk with my tea I have no problem with this.

I spread on cream first and jam on top.

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