If you traveled to London and someone asked you to tea, would you know what the invitation meant? What about an invitation to supper, cream tea, high tea, or afternoon tea?
If, at the meal, your host explained pudding was on the menu, would you assume you were having dessert? And if your host offered you a biscuit, what do you think you would get?
Today, we’re going to learn about English cuisine beyond bangers and mash or tea and scones. And you don’t have to put on red woolen socks with sandals to join us on the journey…
As we’ll learn today, biscuit means something quite different in England than it does in the American South, and George Orwell was not so hyperbolic in 1984 when he wrote about the darker reasons driving the low cost of liquor for citizens.
Several times this year, we’ve invited local chef Dean Neff, formerly of PinPoint and now opening a new restaurant in downtown Wilmington, also a James Beard Semifinalist for Best Chef in the Southeast, to talk with us about elements of local, seasonal, simple, and healthy food – in the series A Place At The Table.
This time around, the focus is English food. And on this he is appropriately partnering with a Londoner:
Vic Roberts is a newly-minted local, a former London bus driver, bus mechanic, and now – English food historian. She also claims to be extremely good at eating.
