A CUP OF TEA AND A KISS

I’m starting off this rather reflective Blog with a favourite invitation from one of my uncles – extended to my mother and me usually on a Saturday afternoon, late 1970’s/early ’80’s. It always sounded so enticing – how could we refuse?! Certainly put things in perspective, exuding a warmth of welcome, as well as bringing a sense of humour to the rather formal idea of ‘afternoon tea’.
As I say in ‘My Cup of Tea’: “When I was growing up, going out for tea or inviting friends in for tea was very popular. It was such a pleasant social activity and one involving all age groups – I’ve tried to hold onto it over the years, sometimes in the face of stiff competition from ‘the dinner party’ – a much more intense and formal affair (especially for the cook) and one which children were generally excluded from, and elderly people couldn’t enjoy to the ‘full’ due to the lateness of the hour.” I go on to comment that teatime was an occasion where “pretty frocks could be aired, best china displayed, bits of news ‘chewed over’, troubles soothed…..” and of course even quite distant guests could be home at a reasonable hour…..without fear of breathalisers!
The first few years of my marriage were sprinkled with tea parties – actually they could be a little too much at times……but they did expand my baking repertoire (and our Visitor’s Book), plus speed up my actions in the kitchen!
I’ll attach two photos of early teas – my very first attempt at a birthday tea for my husband – the highlight being a Chilled Lemon Flan from that wonderful 1970’s Hamlyn book, later swapped in favour of Lemon Meringue Pie (L.M.P. as my family call it) which became a rather special dessert over the years – both lemon dishes entailing the use of a huge number of utensils filling the sink equally full afterwards!
The other picture is of my favourite ‘standby’ – Afternoon Tea Scones (from my faithful old school cookery book aptly named ‘Plain Cookery Recipes’ and published in the 1930’s)
So to finish this little tea break, an extract from my 1960’s ‘Recollections’ which states my skills very clearly: “Cookery was another subject which I had difficulty in taking seriously, for instance putting a raw onion into my onion sauce and not being too co-operative about sharing a cooker with three other girls. This led to a few problems but my Afternoon Tea Scones turned out alright in the end………” Incidentally Cookery was called Domestic Science at the time!

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