MG Actually, afternoon tea is in sad decline these days. My Mum is 90, and when she was young housewives were judged (in the culinary department) by their baking. A proper afternoon tea would involve scones, dropscones (aka pikelets), a cream sponge, little cakes and slices. Not in the alternative, all of them at once. Just for normal domestic consumption Mum would always have at least three different things in the cake tins. After I was married we used to go round there for years with empty tins to take home whatever was on offer, one of the reasons I'm not a great baker myself (she only gave it away about five years ago).
We were a way of disposing of anything that didn't come up to Dad's exacting standards (he'd been trained by his mother). "Have these," she'd say, holding out a tin of something that looked maybe a bit overcooked. If I did not immediately accept with enthusiasm the next thing would be "Go on, Derrick will eat them!" Poor fellow, just because his mother was a rotten cook she treated him as a human rubbish bin. Ah, but she used to do him a chocolate pavlova for his birthday.
Christine
New RFC Quick Survey: What do you call... 1268Except in fancy hotels, some of which insist on calling it "high tea", which (if I understand correctly) was something else entirely. My Mum is 90, I did the full thing once for a Father's...
