With Covid-19 raging through nearly every country in the world right now, it would probably be appropriate for me to devote a post to ‘pandemic literature’ (perhaps Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year [1722] or Albert Camus’ The Plague [1947]). However, I suspect that, if food is referenced, it is far from tasty, and I also think that, at times like this, we might need to seek solace in a different type of literature. Continue reading “Cooking for the clergy”
Tag: Barbara Pym
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. Continue reading “Gossip and tea”