Gossip and tea

Out of all meals, tea is perhaps the one which most lends itself to the exchange of gossip. In my post about afternoon tea in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest I wrote about the ‘invention’ of this quintessentially English meal in the 19th century by Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, who decided she needed to eat something light to combat ‘that sinking feeling’ she experienced mid-afternoon. Whilst this routine began as a private affair for the Duchess, she soon started inviting her friends to join her for tea and gossip about the latest scandal. The ritual caught on and was adopted by the fashionable upper classes of London society. 

When considering why tea lends itself so readily to gossip, a few reasons came to mind. A key one is the fact that afternoon tea clearly originated as a female pursuit. Whilst I wouldn’t want to suggest that gossip is a peculiarly female activity, in a society where women had limited access to political and economic power, they would have sought power in other ways. The power of gossip lies in its ability to include and exclude people, to destroy reputation and to break confidences. The person with the information also has the power to choose whether to share that information or not, and to choose who to share it with.

But tea lends itself to gossip for more mundane reasons. Since food is not the focus, but rather an accompaniment to the drinking of tea, it’s a meal that requires little forward planning. Sandwiches can be rustled up quickly, and cakes would – I imagine – have been made on a daily basis in households that employed cooks and domestic staff. Tea thus lends itself well to unexpected guests who might turn up hoping to either share, or hear, the latest gossip.

And, reflecting the fact that the food is not the focus, tea tends to be served in a more relaxed setting where the emphasis is on conversation and relaxation. People don’t gather around a table in a dining room, but seat themselves on comfortable chairs and sofas in living rooms. And whilst the domestic staff – if they are employed – will bring in the food and tea, and may serve it, they will probably then disappear since they will not be needed throughout the meal, creating a safe environment for the sharing of confidences and spreading of scandal.

Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym involves both tea and gossip. Pym’s novel – written in the 1940s but not published until 1985, after her death – is a social comedy set amongst the academic and church circles of North Oxford. Like Jane Austen – with whom Pym is frequently compared – the narrator’s dry wit and irony exposes the social mores and petty goings-on within the self-deluded characters in this society.

The emphasis on tea and tea-parties is made clear from the first chapter which is called ‘Sunday Tea Party’, in which the elderly domineering Miss Doggett, and her younger milder companion Miss Morrow, host a tea party for five male undergraduates. Throughout the novel characters are constantly taking tea – occasionally in tea-shops (Fuller’s in Oxford and Lyons’ Corner House in London both make an appearance) but more often in people’s houses. And alongside drinking tea, they eat: at various points characters consume ‘buns’, ‘chocolate biscuit’, ‘walnut cake’, ‘fruit-cake’ and ‘crumpet’.

And whilst people eat, they gossip.

One of the principal topics of gossip in the novel is Francis Cleveland, a college fellow and lecturer in English literature. Feeling uninspired and unappreciated by his wife, Cleveland is flattered by the attentions of one of his students, Barbara Bird. During a tutorial on the Metaphysical Poets, Cleveland is ‘completely taken aback’ when Barbara looks at him ‘in such a way that he was startled into asking himself how long it was since any woman had looked at him like that’.

Imagining himself in love with Barbara, Cleveland is keen to spend time with her, but that is when the gossip begins, as the couple are frequently seen by other characters: having tea at Fuller’s, walking in the Botanical Gardens and even in the British Library (where they are overheard declaring their love for one another by Edward Killigrew, one of the librarians at the Bodleian who happens to be visiting the British Library on the same day).

Edward shares what he has seen and heard with his mother, who decides to hold a tea-party to share the gossip with various Oxford acquaintances. As she says to her son before the first guests arrive, ‘”this afternoon we shall have interesting news for them as well as cakes”‘. The invited guests comprise the master of Randolph College (where Cleveland is a fellow) and his wife, and Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow. The talk quickly turns to Francis Cleveland’s area of work, and Miss Doggett is immediately suspicious – ‘It was obvious that the Killigrews had a piece of news..’ – and then angry that they knew more than her: ‘now it seemed as if somebody else had forestalled her. It was really most annoying’.

And so the Killigrews introduce their story:
‘”Now we are not gossips,” said Mrs Killigrew. “We do not tell stories about people for our own amusement.”
There was an almost perceptible pricking up of ears and drawing forward of chairs.
“But there are some things which ought not to be kept secret…”‘

And so the story is told to the accompaniment of cake, both ‘sticky fruit-cake’ and ‘sandwich cake’.

I chose to make the latter – a Victoria sandwich – to accompany this post. It’s such a classic English cake, I neglect to make it in the pursuit of more unusual recipes. But made well, it’s a delight: a light (aided by the cornflour) vanilla sponge with a jam and buttercream filling. Just the thing to accompany some idle gossip.

Gossips’ Victoria Sandwich
Ingredients (for 1 large cake, serves 10-12)
175g unsalted butter, softened
175g caster sugar
160g plain flour
15g cornflour
Pinch of salt
1½ teaspoons baking powder
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
50ml milk
For the buttercream filling
140g unsalted butter, softened
280g icing sugar, sieved.
1 tablespoon tbsp milk
¼ tsp vanilla extract

Raspberry or strawberry jam

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C / fan 160C/ Gas mark 4. Grease and line two 20cm diameter sandwich cake tins.
In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Place the flour, cornflour, salt and baking powder in another bowl and mix to combine. Add a third of the flour mixture and one of the eggs to the butter mixture and beat to combine. Repeat until all the flour and eggs and are incorporated. Then stir in the vanilla extract and milk.
Divide the cake batter between the two cake tins and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and starting to shrink away from the sides of the tin. The cakes will feel springy to the touch.
Let the cakes cool in their tins for 5 minutes, and then turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
When the cakes are cool, make the butter icing. Beat the butter until soft, and then add half the icing sugar. Beat to combine, then add the remaining icing sugar, the milk and the vanilla extract.
Spread your chosen jam on the base of one of the cakes. Then spread the butter icing on top. Finish with another layer of jam and place the other cake on top. Dust the top of the cake with sieved icing sugar immediately before serving.