Author: rebecca.selman@btinternet.com

Afternoon tea

ALGERNON: When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. …At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins.
JACK: Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. (Takes muffins from ALGERNON)
ALGERNON: (Offering tea-cake.) I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake.

(Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)

Food-wise you can’t get much more quintessentially English than afternoon tea: sandwiches (ideally cucumber and crustless), scones with jam and cream and an array of cakes. Continue reading “Afternoon tea”

All the Fun of the Fair

The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon entered the Fair Field … they looked around for a refreshment tent among the many which dotted the down. Two, which stood nearest to them in the ochreous haze of expiring sunlight, seemed almost equally inviting. One was formed of new milk-hued canvas, and bore red flags on the summit; it announced ‘Good Home-brewed Beer, Ale and Cyder.’ The other was less new; a little iron stove-pipe came out of it at the back, and in front appeared the placard, ‘Good Furmity Sold Hear’. (Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge‘) Continue reading “All the Fun of the Fair”