FoodBanter.com - View Single Post

Sonam 4/6/05

> On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 19:06:55 GMT, Falky foo wrote:
>
>> Just thought I'd repost this warning.. I know most of you already know it,
>> but some of the swankier places at which I've been dining have advertised a
>> "high" tea which, of course, is afternoon tea. Here's yet another essay on
>> how calling low tea high tea marks you as a pitiable lout.
>>
>> From restaurantreport.com:
>>
>> Tea
>> (Or, Why I Almost Never Drink It In Restaurants)
>> by Barbara Ann Rosenberg
>> "Don't miss high tea at the Ritz!" urged - - no, commanded, my
>> (purportedly) most sophisticated friend, as I headed out the door many years
>> ago, bound for London for my very first visit to that fascinating city.
>>
>> As it turned out she was wrong, very wrong in her advice! No one at that
>> plus ultra of elegance hotel, the Ritz, would be caught dead having "high
>> tea", except one of the porters, perhaps...or a scullery maid! It seems that
>> "high tea" is the working class equivalent of "supper" at which meal
>> "ordinary folks" eat such things as "bangers and mash" (translates as "hot
>> dogs and mashed potatoes") or Shephard's pie (lamb stew with some kind of
>> crust)...certainly not the exquisite, refined food for which the Ritz (and
>> its stellar chef, David Nicholls) are noted.
>>
>> What my friend had in mind was, actually, "afternoon tea", a ritual of the
>> upper class (or "would be" upper class) folks who regularly indulge in a
>> repast of teeny-weeny sandwiches concocted of such delectable things as
>> watercress and shrimp pate followed by assorted teeny-weeny decorated
>> pastries in fanciful shapes - - and a pot of properly brewed tea.
>>
>> [etc. blathering]
>
> I'm no expert on English customs, but I thought the "high" and "low"
> referred to the height of the table upon which it was served. High, being a
> kitchen table for a meal as Falky sets forth, and low being in a living
> room, where the tea is accompanied by those awful little sandwiches and
> petit-fours and served to you on a low table. No?

Quite right on every count. However, here in the good old US of A, we
reverse the meaning of the two terms. Unfortunately, as with "public"
school, the British have yet to get it right. In actual fact, the terms high
and low in regard to teas might refer to the relative intelligences of the
persons partaking.

Michael