Comments on: An English Farmhouse Tea

By: Rachel Laudan

Rachel Laudan — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:30:40 +0000

Adam, like Ji-Young I wonder if this shift is happening in Britain? My exposure to non-family British is pretty limited. The nineteenth-century quotation is interesting because they really are referring to a high tea. I would like to hold out for an intermediate tea between “afternoon” and “high”. What we ate was not high tea in the sense that although there were savory dishes there was not free-standing meat. And it was not afternoon tea which we clearly distinguished because unlike our farmhouse tea it was not substantial enough to be a full meal. That was what we had after an afternoon concert or cricket match or the like.

By: Kay Curtis

Kay Curtis — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:33:09 +0000

My own introduction to “Tea” as a meal, rather than as simply a beverage, was on a trip in my teens to Victoria, BC, Canada. The tradition is still very much in evidence and looks like what this column would call a Cream Tea.
http://www.fairmont.com/empress/GuestServices/Restaurants/AfternoonTea.htm

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:25:50 +0000

I would imagine that it goes back to well before your childhood. There are plenty of references to “High Tea” in an upper class context. I wonder if originally these definitions were not then as strict as they became in the 20th century (which have again relaxed).

From the 19th century:

“Now, the reasons which made a movable high tea more economical than a fixed dinner are as inscrutable to me as the reasons for which the meal was called tea at all. There was never the most shadowy pretence at tea to be seen upon the table—what fashionable ladies could keep up the strength their hard life demands on such mild fluid? and mayonnaises, cold game and poultry, and raised pies, are not, in the country at least, cheaper than hot dishes. That high tea, with three young and charming women, open windows, no servants, and no master of the house, was a much pleasanter meal than a hot dinner in a hot room, with a hot butler, and a hot old general eating audibly, was incontestable; and Mr. Clarendon Whyte, and all other bachelor frequenters of the house, were loud in praise of the change, and strenuous in advocating it among disaffected young wives and revolutionary daughters elsewhere.”

By: Ji-Young Park

Ji-Young Park — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 03:39:12 +0000

Is this shift in meaning happening in Great Britain as well? Or Australia?

I am pretty sure, if childhood memories serve me well, that in America “high tea” has been mistaken for “upper class” afternoon tea for quite some time.

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:55:03 +0000

I think that at the moment there is a shift in the meaning of “High Tea”. Essentially this working class meal, has become the name of bourgeoisie afternoon/cream tea.

By: Ji-Young Park

Ji-Young Park — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:59:11 +0000

Speaking of high tea and class…

In America high tea is often thought of as “upper class”.

I was watching a television show the other day. The matriarch of an “old money” American family prided herself on her knowledge of the fineries of European upper class dishes (French and British). In one scene she admonished her daughter-in-law and granddaughter for fighting during high tea…

By: Rachel Laudan

Rachel Laudan — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:09:04 +0000

My gosh, Adam, you’re right. Wiltshire is in the south. No seriously, tea has lots of different meanings in different places. But the farmhouse tea that I grew up with, the last major meal of the day at 5 pm but definitely not a high tea, has gone completely.

Paul, you are right, the terminology shifts all the time. See quick post.

By: Paul Roberts

Paul Roberts — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 03:04:43 +0000

I’ve always been confused because up north (in England) they refer to what we southerners call “dinner”(ie the evening meal) as “tea”…”what’s for tea, pet?”…… and what we southerners call “lunch” they call “dinner”…though school dinners seem to transcend the north/south divide and are always at midday. Mind you an alternative to a school dinner is a packed lunch (not a packed dinner)

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:53:51 +0000

Yep, meat and veg. It was quite usual to have tea at every meal. But this is quite common. If you do a simple search of the phrase “What’s for Tea?”, you get all sorts of lunch/dinner items. The OED gives the following definition of “Tea”

“4. a. A meal or social entertainment at which tea is served; esp. an ordinary afternoon or evening meal, at which the usual beverage is tea (but sometimes cocoa, chocolate, coffee, or other substitute). Now usu. a light meal in the late afternoon, but locally in the U.K. (esp. northern), and in Australia and N.Z., a cooked evening meal; in Jamaica, the first meal of the day.”

Wiltshire isn’t in the North is it.

By: Rachel Laudan

Rachel Laudan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:10:30 +0000

Adam, your comment that the main meal of the day was called tea in your mother’s family just drives home how important it was. But was it meat and two veg and tea? I’d be curious to know.

Yes, Janet, I’m with you. Bring back tea. But it really is out of sync with modern eating habits–carbs, fats and sugar.

And Senora, Mihaela and Phil, in response to the question of its disappearance. I think this is because in England most people now eat the main meal on getting home from work, say at 7 or so. In the past they lived close enough to work to eat the main meal at home at midday. Now they have a sandwich at midday and don’t want a big tea to spoil their appetite for dinner or supper or whatever they call the last meal of the day.