Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table. Nigel Slater

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СКАЧАТЬ slices of leftover bread and butter. It’s a wonder we can hold a wooden spoon, our fists are so tightly clenched.

      But then, who can argue with a pudding so calm and gentle, so quivering and fragile, so light and creamy? Bread and butter with its layers of buttered bread, sugar and egg custard is a hot pudding for which we don’t have to resort to making a cake mix and steaming it for hours. It is ingenious, and who cares if it just happens to be seasoned as much with meanness as with nutmeg.

       Eating Soldiers

      A thin slice of buttered toast to poke into the liquid yolk of your boiled egg; an edible teaspoon; a crisp contrast to the runny yolk and jellied white; a jolly idea to get children to eat up their fat and cholesterol – the soldier must have come from the mind of a genius. So christened because it possesses a straight, upright manner, is crisp and uniform in appearance and will stand to attention even when it is up to its knees in yuk. I have never eaten a boiled egg, but I have had a soldier or two. In domestic science, as food technology lessons were once called, we were taught to serve them with mince.

       Lunch on a Bench

      In summer I often eat lunch sitting on a bench in Hanover Square. The benches are crowded with office workers, shoppers and, invariably, people in black from the Condé Nast offices that overlook the garden, and one has to hover, eagle-eyed, waiting for a spare seat. Other people’s lunches are always more interesting than one’s own, and it isn’t long before I find myself having a furtive peep at the person’s next to me. Somehow it is always a furtive peep, never an open stare. One always feels guilty about this, though I’m not entirely sure why. If we were in another country – Italy or Sweden, say – we would be much more open about it, and might even strike up a conversation. But this is England, and therefore a furtive peep is all one allows oneself, or gets.

       Combating that Sinking Feeling

      While most of the world relishes a cup of tea in the afternoon, and perhaps a biscuit or even a slice of Strudel, few have gone to the lengths of the British, who have managed to turn a cup of tea and a sliver of cake into a national trademark. It is tea, rather than lunch or dinner, to which we inevitably take visitors from abroad, as much for the cultural experience as for sustenance. Though when we do, it is only fair to point out to them that this is a rare and special treat, and not, like grabbing a sandwich at lunchtime, a way of life. Afternoon tea is the works: scones, sandwiches, cakes, and of course a pot of tea. A cream tea is the edited version: a plate of scones, tea, and if you are lucky a bowl of strawberries. It is what the Cornish feed to tourists.

      It is Anna Russell, seventh Duchess of Bedford and reputedly a bit of a glutton, who is generally credited with introducing afternoon tea early in the nineteenth century. At home in Woburn Abbey, she would get her maid to bring tea to her boudoir in the middle of the afternoon, to combat the ‘sinking feeling’ she experienced between lunch and dinner. I know it well. As the new meal became something of a habit, she took to inviting friends to join her, and soon afternoon tea became a social event. You can always trust the rich to turn greed into a fashion statement.

      The wealthy British have long been fascinated by China and Japan. Making a fuss over serving a pot of tea, to which the inhabitants of both countries knew no bounds, was probably seen as our way of buying into their culture. This is why many of our tea services were decorated with Chinoiserie, and goes some way to explaining the preponderance of the once ubiquitous willow pattern china. The Brits never having quite understood the ‘less is more’ message, the original elegance and grace of the Oriental tea ceremony became somewhat besmirched by the addition of buns and sandwiches, albeit served in dainty proportions.

      It seems that no matter how much we adopt a healthy lifestyle, by which one currently means meals that are lower in fat and carbohydrate and with distinctly fewer calories, we still rarely refuse an offer of afternoon tea. There is no real excuse for it; this is not about filling the tank or regulating our blood sugar level. Tea in this sense is an undeniable luxury, a sybaritic pleasure, an orgy of crumbs and cream. Afternoon tea may be the only meal we take that is purely and utterly for pleasure.

      Perhaps this simple fact is what keeps its popularity steady, not just with tourists looking for the English experience, but with ladies who gossip, lovers of a certain age, aunts treating nieces and nephews, and those celebrating a birthday. It is something that exists purely to make us feel good about life. On recently arriving for a meeting to find it had been cancelled, one of my colleagues saved the day by suggesting we all decamp for tea and cakes. Our spirits were lifted in a way no other suggestion could have equalled.

      Despite the presence of butter and jam and plates of cream cakes, tea remains a quietly polite meal rather than a greedy and excitable one. It is a treat to share with friends and family, rather than business colleagues. You may do business over a full English breakfast or serve coffee during a power meeting, but it is unlikely that the exciting new business plans you are putting forward to your company will be taken seriously if you have a buttered crumpet in one hand. Especially if that crumpet is dribbling warm butter down your arm.

      Anyone who doubts that such decadence has a place in a twenty-first-century world of sushi-to-go and travelling cappuccini should attempt to get a table at Betty’s in Harrogate on the turn of four. Or perhaps they might like to step into the Wolseley in London’s Piccadilly at about half-past three in the afternoon. The latter will be awash with silver pots of Darjeeling and three-tier cake stands piled with all manner of little tarts and fancies, the vast room a veritable sea of tea strainers. The clatter of cake forks amid the gentle buzz of gossip can be seen as a cry for sanity in a world obsessed by calorie-counting and pilates.

       The Coffee Percolator

      There is a smell in the hall. Dark notes of burning rubber and something exotic, rich, bitter. I push open the door to the kitchen to see my father concentrating intently on a tall, shiny jug plugged into the electric socket by the Aga, its glass lid covered in dancing beads of condensation. Dad is unusually red in the face, and his tie is crooked. He’s looking slightly panic-stricken. The Formica counter is freckled with dark brown grains, and the silver jug thing with the glass lid is starting to make an excited plop-plipping sound. Steam seems to be coming from both the machine and my dad.

      ‘It’s the new coffee percolator,’ announces my mother, who is standing next to him with the noticeably resigned air of a woman who has seen canoes, fishing rods, chess sets, marmalade pans and flashing pink Christmas-tree lights that never worked and should have gone back given the same brief moment of furious attention. I am not quite sure why my father has invested in this particular contraption, especially as we don’t really drink coffee anyway, apart from the occasional cup of Maxwell House which we make half-and-half with hot milk. We are simply not a coffee family, and to be honest I am not sure I know anyone who is. Not even the Griptons, and they have an in-and-out gravel drive.

      But a coffee percolator we now have, and we all stand round it, excitedly awaiting the result. My father says something about my mother saying she always wanted a perky copulater, which I don’t understand and at which she snaps a disgusted, ‘And that’s enough of that, thank you!’

      ‘Do you think it’s ready yet? It’s been a while,’ says Mum after a suitable period of awed silence. ‘I don’t know,’ admits my father, who then mutters something about the instruction booklet being in Italian, which is odd, as we can both clearly see the words ‘Morphy СКАЧАТЬ