Nobody
I know has afternoon tea on even an occasional, much less regular basis, yet
practically everybody I know wants to do so. It’s not so much that they are
longing to make periodic processions to the Four Seasons and the Plaza. What
they want, I think, is the kind of lives that allow for teatime
-, as do I, in theory. The reality though, is that, most of us just slosh
down more and more coffee in the office, as a kind of caffeine goad to flog more
work out of ourselves.
But
tea isn’t about caffeine. It’s about ceremony and civilization. And for most
of us, afternoon tea can only be done during the weekends at home, where, as in
the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, each detail can be obsessively
controlled.
Heres
how it would work. The best day for tea is Sunday, preferably a snowy one. Tea
begins at 3:00 PM and it’s the kind of activity that should be eased into. The
only goal for the morning is the baking of scones or fruit bread. Close to noon,
a large breakfast should be consumed. That way, lunch can be skipped so as to
feel optimally peckish by teatime. Then its time to get down to business. Since
I am a traditionalist at heart, I tend to assemble what is fairly standard tea
fare: tiny sandwiches, of course, but with a twist. Some favorites are pear and
Stilton cheese on honeyoat bread, cucumber and herb butter on white, watercress,
radish and cream cheese on five-grain bread and a hearty Welsh rabbit.
Although
I’m ordinarily the laziest, most mutinous of Sunday cooks, I find making tea
sandwiches soothing – perhaps because it is the grown-up realization of tea
party pantomimes from childhood. There's a peculiar sort of pleasure in cutting
off crusts and making tiny little triangles and rectangles, tidy geometric forms
that suggest a tidy worldview.
Darjeeling
is my tea of choice. After years of comparative tasting, I have settled on
Darjeeling as being the most congenial. Those I avoid for an afternoon tea
include jasmine, which sounds poetic but tastes utterly wimpy; Lapsang Souchong
which is so smoky that its like drinking bacon, and Earl Grey which has a
perfumey bergamot scent.
The
official drill for making tea calls for hotting up the pot – rinsing it with
boiling water – but I skip the preliminaries. All that matters is the next
step: adding just boiled water to loose tea and letting it steep in the pot for
three to five minutes before pouring. I disapprove of the standard
accompaniments – lemon and milk – as distractions that get in the way of the
taste of the tea. I also agree with George Orwell: tea is best left unsugared.
Its unsweetened astringency makes a better counterpoint to the scones.
Apropos
scones, they are the single best reason to do tea at home. In public, the
boundaries of civilized behavior require one to demur after being offered one or
two scones. Only at home can you finally do what you’ve always wanted to do:
take three or four on particularly trying days. So I always make a whole slew of
them. And I don’t add raisins, which fight with the flavour of preserves.
Finally,
a standard British tea always includes a dessert after all the heartier fare.
But you’ve got too go easy on the sweets. Anything chocolate, which goes with
coffee, not tea is out. The same is true for pound cake; it’s too similar to
scones. And forget cheesecake – its way too heavy, especially if you’ve
eaten as many scones as I always do.
A
nut bread it the thing. I prefer pumpkin –walnut, which I offer to my guests
after the scones. Hopefully, no one will eat much of it and I can savor it
later, after my friends have left and I have fallen asleep on the couch with a
blanket and a cat or two, thus completely eluding the hour of the wolf.
Pumpkin
Bread
Makes
3 loaves
2
tsp. ground cinnamon
2
tsp. baking powder
1
tsp. ground nutmeg
1tsp
baking soda
1
tsp. salt
1/2
tsp. ground cloves
1/4
tsp. ground ginger
Dash
allspice
6
cups all purpose flour
1
CUP MILD VEGETABLE OIL
½
cup yogurt
4
eggs
3
cups sugar
2-½
cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
1
cup chopped black walnuts
1)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2)
In a large bowl, sift together the cinnamon, baking powder, nutmeg,
baking soda, salt,cloves, ginger, allspice and flour. Set aside.
3)
In a separate bowl, mix together the oil, yogurt, eggs, sugar and
pumpkin. Mix until smooth.
4)
Combine the two mixtures and beat until smooth. Fold in the walnuts.
5)
Pour the batter in three 8 by 4-inch loaf pans. Bake for about 1 hour, or
until the loaves shrink away from the sides of the pan and have a hollow sound
when tapped. Test for doneness after 45 minutes.