More about English Food

I hope I haven't terrified you to the point where this post's title made you cringe.  I promise that this is the good side of English cooking (although the English admit that their country is not known for its food).  Not everything is hot dogs in a can.  They have "bangers and mash," shepherd's pie, and of course,

Fish and Chips!!!! Oh my goodness, is this meal delicious!  One thing you have to know (that I don't always follow) is that they do not eat chips with their fingers, like we do.  They have special forks for eating their chips called "chip forks" (wow, that's creative).

This was from the first time I had fish and chips.  The second restaurant I ate them at was much better, I thought.  Miss Prather was with me on both occasions, and we agreed--the second restaurant was better, but the food in front of us was delicious, too.

Another English traditional food is one we often hear about but kind of make fun of.  And even though it sounds really old-fashioned, they still have it everyday and in the same way that they have for generations.

I'm talking about tea! This is in a little tea room my friend Miss Welter and I visited. In England, you put milk in your tea (like people put creamer in their coffee).  First you put the milk in, and then you pour the tea in.  There is a proper way of doing things.  And of course, you cannot have tea without...

Scones!  Scones are like biscuits, only sweeter.  The kind of tea we had here is called a "cream tea."  This does not refer to the actual tea you drink--"tea" is also a kind of meal they have here.  There are many different kinds of teas, but this one is a "cream tea" because of that little bowl on the top right of the plate.  That bowl has clotted cream in it (not butter--the butter is in that little square on the left that says 'butter').  The other bowl has jam in it.  You spread the jam on first and then put the cream on top.

You can kind of see in this picture that the cream is on top of the jam.  Let me tell you what--scones with jam and cream are DELICIOUS! I'm very lucky to be traveling with Miss Welter.  She loves tea as much as I do, so I always have someone willing to take tea with me.

So there you have it!  Tea and scones--still a very hot item in England!