What is traditionally served with British tea (food)?!
Answers: I have to bring in food for class but it has to be what British people eat with tea.
Actually it depends on if it is a "High tea" or just everyday tea. High tea has all kinds of cakes(particularly lemon), cookies, finger sandwiches, muffins, and scones w/ butter and jam. Its kind of a grand affair between lunch and dinner. If you are talking about just normal tea time, then buttered scones, cucumber or watercress sandwiches, and different jams for the scones is an appropriate choice.
I would think scones.
Scones or "Rich Tea" (brand name) biscuits, don't forget, they drink it with cream and sugar not lemon.
lots of rich biscuits and cookies!!!
Sandwiches with ham and English mustard, cucumber sandwiches (yes, really!), egg mayonnaise sandwiches-hard boiled eggs with mayo,scones with whipped cream and strawberry jam (preserve), fruit cake, sponge cake, Jaffa Cakes, any McVities biscuits.
British Food
Britain is no longer the culinary wasteland that it was just three decades ago. The traditional starchy diet has become blended with Indian, Thai, Chinese, Greek, Italian and just about any other cuisine that you can think of. The English breakfast is a masterpiece of bacon (usually with the rind still on), egg, grilled tomato, sausage and fried bread. The staples of the English lunch are bangers (sausages) and mash, sausage rolls, cottage pie, steak-and-kidney pie, Cornish pasties, and fish-and-chips. A ploughman’s lunch consists of a hunk of fresh bread, some cheese, tomatoes, pickled onions, and some Branston pickle or chutney. Late afternoon tea is a delightful English tradition designed to tide them over until a late dinner.
Since Cardullo’s does not sell prepared meals, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the many British food products that we do sell and spend a little time discussing them.
BANGERS British sausages, the primary ingredient of which is bread.
BATH OLIVERS Thin, ivory-colored crackers invented by Dr. Oliver of Bath. Excellent with cheese, especially Stilton.
CORNISH PASTIES Pastry turnovers stuffed with beef and potato.
KIPPERS Herring smoked over an oak fire until pale silvery gold. Usually grilled with butter and eaten for breakfast.
MARMITE A thick black paste made from yeast and vegetable extract, beloved only by those who acquired a taste for it in childhood.
SCONES A soft, doughy pastry, served at tea time with butter, clotted cream, and jam.
TEA The tea page covers tea but, since it is such an ingrained part of the British culture I thought I would touch once more on the subject by quoting Charles Oliver in Dinner at Buckingham Palace.
The ritual of the English tea-time was brought to perfection by the late Queen Mary, for whom it was the favorite time of day. Everything had to be fully ready by 4 P.M. punctually, with sandwiches, cakes and biscuits invitingly set out on gleaming silver dishes upon a smoothly-running trolley. The teapot, cream jug, hot-water jug and sugar bowl were always the same antique silver service which had been a favorite of Queen Victoria...{Later} Queen Mary would take over and meticulously measure out her favor Indian tea* from a jade tea-caddy she kept locked in a cupboard. Then she would pour on the boiling water and complete the tea-making ritual by snuffing out the spirit stove before sitting back for the footmen to pour tea and hand round sandwiches and cakes. But before Queen Mary gave the signal for this to begin she would always let exactly three minutes elapse from the moment she poured hot water on the tea leaves so that the tea would be perfectly brewed.
*Apparently this was the Queen Mary tea Twinings sells. It is a fine Darjeeling with a pronounced Muscatel flavor.
CHEESE
There are many wonderful cheeses from Britain. I will touch upon a few here.
Cheshire is the oldest British type on record It is a farmhouse cheese and was made by dairymaids, there is reason to believe, even before the Roman invasion. The so-called red Cheshire was originally tinted with carrot juice. It is now tinted with annatto. To the south of Cheshire County, other dairywomen developed a firmer textured cylinder called Cheddar. It was named after a small village in the Mendip Hills. We have no way of knowing how Cheddar or Cheshire tasted in the eighteenth century. Today the manufacturing of these cheese has been standardized by computers. With more moisture and only slightly less fat content, Cheshire is a crumblier cheese than Cheddar.
Stilton has been justifiably been called "the king of cheeses". It is very rich yet surprisingly mellow with blue veined marbling more intense than any other. It derives its name from a Leicestershire market town. No one seems to know who developed the Stilton recipe but the cheese dates back at least to the reign of George II. Stilton differs from Roquefort and Gorgonzola in texture and the wrinkled, dull crust that reminds some of the skin of a melon. Stilton used to be thought of as a cold weather cheese when appetites are robust and in want of warming up.
Double Gloucester is sometimes called "the golden cheese" by English fans because of its rich creamy color and its mellow flavor. It sometimes compares favorably to well made cheddar.
Cotswold is a relatively recent cheese which is made by mixing chives in a base of Double Gloucester. Britons like it melted on toast. It is a cheese with a delicate onion flavor.
Caerphilly is white and crumbly with an ever so light taste of buttermilk. Best with lots of butter on your favorite bread. Excellent for fondues and soufflés.
Cadbury Chocolates although not a component of British cuisine, the Brits do consume vast quantities of it. I am, of course, referring to the Cadbury chocolate that is produced in Britain which is not the same as the Cadbury sold and produced in the U.S. Cardullo’s stocks only the Cadbury chocolate produced in the U.K. Dairy Milk, Flake, Crunchie, Fruit & Nut, Drinking Chocolate, Fingers, Picnic are some of the many English Cadbury products here at Cardullo’s.
Bird’s Dessert Mix is a popular custard Style pudding powder that can be used as is or as the basis for a trifle.
Devon Cream is synonymous with Clotted Cream here in the U.S. There is a slight difference in texture due to the pasteurization process that is required in order to bring the cream into this country. Devon cream, from Devonshire, can be used as a topping on fruit, desserts etc. and it is a necessity of life in England’s West Country. "Thunder and Lightning" is the awe-inspiring name for bread spread first with Devon cream and then treacle.
Double Devon Cream is twice as thick as Devon Cream and twice as good!
Treacle, a molasses type syrup; Golden Syrup, a sugar syrup - are both used in baking.
Lemon Curd makes a wonderful filling for tarts & turnovers.
Virgil’s Root Beer is brewed by a microbrewery in the north of England. It is the actual brewing that gives it a creamy rich flavor and a foamy head when poured. Virgil’s is different from American root beers because its taste is created with a combination of herbs, including licorice, anise, molasses, sassafras, and with crystalline spring water. It is bottled in a unique brown glass bottle resembling bottles dating back to the turn of the century.
Additional British Products:
Beverages: Idris ginger beer - Horlicks & Ovaltine malt beverages - Tynant waters from Wales in a genuine cobalt blue bottle, Ribeana black currant beverage, Bovril
Confections: Bendicks of Mayfair, Cadbury, Fry’s, Nestle, Cavendish & Harvy hard candies, Callard & Bowser toffees and Altoid mints, B/C Black Currant & glycerine pastilles, Quality Street, Bassetts Allsorts licorice, Roundtree
Condiments: HP Steak & Fruity Sauces, Patak’s Indian Spices and Condiments, Sharwoods Indian Spices and Condiments, Cross & Blackwell Branston Pickle, Pickled Walnuts, Pickled Onions, Mint Sauce, Heinz Ploughman’s Pickle, Escoffier Sauces, Hoe’s Steak Sauce
Biscuits & Cookies: Carr’s, Cadbury’s chocolate covered shortbreads, McVities Hob-Nobs, Digestives, Walker’s Shortbread, Jacobs, Fortt’s Bath Olivers, Peak Freans, Elsinham
Soups: Baxters, Grant’s, Oxo, Heinz
Desserts: Ambrosia canned Devon cream Puddings, Bird’s Semolina & Pudding Powders.
Fish: John West Smoked Kippers in Oil
Cereals: Weetabix, Scotts Porrage
Preserves: Fortnum & Mason, Wilkins & Sons Ltd., Nelson’s, Frank Cooper’s Oxford marmalades, Robertson’s, Roses marmalades, Keiller marmalades, Thursday Cottage home-made preserves and diabetic preserves.
Snacks: Twiglets
Sandwiches, cakes and scones.
Pikelets etc
scones & jam
cucumber sandwiches
buiscuits
crumpets
scones
pastry