Tea Time at the Abbey

Afternoon Tea, High Tea, and a Tea Party – is there a difference? We can thank Anna, the Duchess of Beadford for introducing afternoon tea early in the nineteenth century. Back in the mid-1800s, it was fashionable to serve dinner at 8 o’clock in the evening. To help fill the gap between luncheon and dinner, the Duchess came up with the idea of tea and a few small sandwiches or tarts to help pass the time. This was served around 4 o’clock and intended to hold you over till dinner.

About this same time in history Britain was embracing the industrial revolution and the working class began to work on a more regulated time schedule. Workers came home from a long hard day in factories and wanted a full meal with a pot of tea.

Afternoon Tea was served on low tables, maybe with a tea cart on the side. Guests usually sat on low parlor chairs or relaxed on garden furniture. The workers tea was served at a regular dinning table with high-back dinning chairs thus high tea. The working class households still call their evening meal “tea.”

A Tea Party is what little girls play with their dolls, friends and mommy or daddy. I know there is one more type of tea party on the horizon but I am not going to touch that one in this story.

Times have changed, habits and social interaction schedules have drifted. Dinner is now called supper in some parts of the country. Some travelers have embraced the idea of having tea and of course the hotels and commercial establishments are quick to step in and fill that need. Now places in the United States that serve tea mostly serve it from 4 to 5 p.m., but don’t let it go too late, because that would interfere with the cocktail hour.

In keeping with our quest to embrace as much of the feeling of “Downton Abbey,” my friends and I chose to have Afternoon Tea this week. Each was charged to prepare a selection of small crust-less sandwiches or other appropriate sweets. We made strong tea and served it with lemon, sugar and milk. Our historian, Bonnie, came up with the information that the proper order to dress your tea is sugar first, then lemon and milk last. This is so you get it the desired color and taste. We chose a suitable setting for our tea and enjoyed everyone’s offerings of tea sandwiches. We then retired to the TV and enjoyed another episode of “Downton Abbey.”

These recent cold afternoons have left a great opportunity to think about a nice cup of tea – nothing so fancy as described above. Just boil some water in the kettle or microwave, pop in a tea bag and wait for the magic. A couple of cookies will round out your impromptu tea service. You may have some Girl Scout Cookies on hand as they are “in season” this time of year.

A few tricks for making fancy sandwiches are first selecting sandwich-style bread. Trim the crust spread with any filling; cut the sandwiches into triangles or squares. Choose both wheat and white bread and mix to create a ribbon effect. For more artistic designs, cut the crust away and roll the bread flat before assembling. Your can then cut with a cookie cutter a simple round, half moon or other simple design you might have on hand.

I chose two simple fillings. One was egg salad, made of grated hard-boiled egg, a small amount of mayonnaise, softened butter, salt, pepper, and curry to taste. This was spread on an open-face sandwich cut as a triangle. Another simple spread was goat cheese with watercress spread on cut bread rounds topped and cut in half to form half moons. Let your imagination run wild on this.

Next week our little group plans to have dessert.  

I hope you are enjoying our efforts to share life across the pond. Let me know at PatsChat@livingston.net. 

Downton Abbey Dinner with Staff

As I announced last week, we will be eating with the staff this week. With all the activities going on around this big house I am amazed they could all sit down for a meal. Of course it was a much simpler meal, but Mr. Carson always observes protocol and sees that proper standards are upheld.

This is a sit-down service with everything on the table and passed around to each person. Choosing from the designated staff section of the Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook we prepared Bangers and Mash (page 194) as our main entree. We choose a celery and toasted walnut salad with Pecorino cheese (page 208) as a side and finished with a Treacle Tart (page 232). We couldn’t resist adding Bluebell Homemade Vanilla to the tart.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with the term “banger,” that means sausage. The recipe called for beef sausage. We tried to be true the English version, but I am not fond of beef sausage and will not use that if I ever make this again. During World War II, because of the lack of farm meat and rationing the sausages were stuffed with cereal and water and had tendency to hiss and pop when cooked over fires in the trenches; thus the name banger. This dish is popular today and can be found in many local pubs.  Of course, the “mash” is mashed potatoes. This is just another version of Shepard's pie without the lamb. Using mashed potatoes as a topping for a casserole can come in very handy for many meat and vegetable dishes.

From reading the cookbook, potatoes were a main ingredient in the staff diet. I am assuming there was a kitchen garden nearby. We have never seen or heard anyone talking about working a garden, but I feel certain there was one and potatoes were a main staple. The only garden talk has been about growing roses and the Dowager Countess seems to have the lock on that production. Today, we talk about being locavores, these people really put it to the test. What they didn’t grow on the place, local tradespeople delivered to the back door.

Dressing for Walnut and Celery Salad

2 small shallots, minced

2 Tbsp sherry vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)

2 tsp fresh lemon juice (best with fresh juice)

1 Tbsp walnut oil, optional

2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Whisk all ingredients together and pour on salad right before severing.

Treacle Tart (Cockney slang for “sweetheart”)

Pastry

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp kosher salt

2 1/2 tsp sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes

6 tsp ice water

Thoroughly mix flour, salt, and sugar, cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add ice water one tablespoon at a time just until mixture clumps together. Divide into two parts, form two separate disks. Wrap separately with a little flour and chill for at least 90 minutes.  This a very delicate pastry, handle with care.

Filling

1 1/2 tsp lemon zest

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 cup golden syrup (1 part sugar to 1 part water)

2 Tbsp of fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix lemon zest, oats and ginger set aside. Mix syrup and lemon juice and set aside.

Remove one pastry disk from refrigerator; allow to set for 10 minutes. Roll gently and place into 9” pie plate. Place half of oat mixture in prepared pie crust, pour all of the lemon syrup mixture on top of oats, then add the rest of the oat mixture. Roll out the rest of the pastry and cut into strips to form a lattice topping. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Can be served hot or cold. Top with whipped cream.

This was a little scary for me with so little in the filling but it worked with a good topping. Remember those Ritz cracker pies? This has been a fun journey to share with friends. Next week we plan to have tea Crawley style.

Lets us hear from you about this adventure. I can be reached at PatsChat@livingston.net.