A Social History of Tea
Jane Pettigrew
The National Trust

Every afternoon at 3pm, I have a cup of tea. It doesn’t matter the weather or the season, if it’s hot I’ll have it iced, but every afternoon, barring some great calamity, I take a break from my day to have a cup of tea and something sweet.

Tea is one of those things that we sort of take for granted; less popular than coffee, it’s still typical in many homes, particularly in Eastern Canada where I’m from originally. There, harsh orange pekoe tea can sit and stew for hours, with a couple more bags and a top up of water the only acknowledgement that the pot might need dumping or cleaning.

Jane Pettigrew is one of the UK’s tea experts, having run a tea shop for many years and written a number of other books on the subject .

A Social History of Tea traces the importance of tea to Britain from the seventeenth century onward, exploring its arrival in England, its origins and the politics surrounding the commodity. Pettigrew looks at how tea became popular, first with the upper classes, then with the middle classes and the poor.

A middle chapter explores the ritual of afternoon tea, covering etiquette and appropriate menus, including the difference between afternoon tea and high tea, which are, in fact, very different meals.

Later chapters cover the 20th century, and North American readers will see similarities in the tea breaks given to British workers with our own coffee breaks, and the section about the rationing of tea during war time including the many uses for used tea leaves is both informative and amusing.

The book also offer a visual history of tea, with images of everything from fine works of art showing the consumption of tea, to photographs of tea sets, pots, table setting and tea gowns. Early 20th century tea rooms also feature prominently, and what history buff hasn’t dreamed of a tea dance at the Palm Court of the Waldorf Hotel, suitably dressed for the era?

Fans of a good cuppa will be intrigued by the history of their favourite beverage, as well as all the trappings, politics and intrigue that goes with it. While there are a few chapters that deal with the types of tea, how they are processed, etc., this really is a work about the social history of tea, and its continued place on the table and in the lives of the British people.

Sometimes it pays to be critical. Many bloggers and writers work on the Thumper policy - if you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all. But twice in the past few months, I’ve been offered opportunities to do something based on a snarky or critical comment I’ve made on TasteTO. The first was an offer to appear on a live call-in talk show on a local cable station (which I didn’t actually do) because of my “City of Toronto, What the Fuck?” rant about street cart vending, and the second was an invitation that showed up in my email box to take part in Dinner in the Sky, after I had referred to it as “some crazy-ass French scheme to feed people dinner while they’re hoisted 50 metres in the air”. The original company is Belgian, actually, but the folks running the Toronto arm are from Montreal.

And since I’m never one to turn down a challenge, I agreed to do it, dragging Greg along for support.

I predicted that Dinner in the Sky would be like an amusement park ride with snacks and I wasn’t far off the mark. Upon arriving at Yonge-Dundas Square and signing three pages of waivers (none of which were of the “I will not sue if I fall off” variety, but all disclaimers allowing use of video and photographic images if I chose to take part) I was directed to a swank lounge area to wait for my “table” to be ready.

We were given a brief info session where the construction and safety of the table were explained, and then were ushered out to a gigantic red carpet to be strapped into our seats.

Six-point seat belts with straps that run from between the legs, crossing over the centre of the chest and running through a slot in the seat above the shoulders, as well as a strap that goes around the waist - all attached at the back of the seat - meant that falling out just wasn’t an option. Moving, not so much either. And while the seats have 180′ of spin, the festively plump, like myself, really couldn’t swivel more than 45′ or so without smushing a hip. And sadly, the tiny people didn’t bother.

Up we go! Everyone was given a laminate ID card in the lounge area, and we were told to clip our cameras to the ID tag so it wouldn’t fall if dropped.

The food (as you’ll see) was fairly minimal, but the champagne flowed pretty freely.

Many people seated near us (and it wasn’t too windy to talk), while not actually freaking out, refused to look down. As far as I was concerned, the whole point was about looking down, otherwise, it was no different than eating dinner on a 10th floor balcony.

In addition to the servers, the centre area of the table had photographers as well. This guy was connected via a wireless network to a printer on the ground, and we all received photos of ourselves as we left. Except you can’t actually tell we’re way up in the air in the photos, and mine showed me mid-chew, with half of my lipstick gone. Pretty.

Will Smith looks over Yonge Dundas Square. I usually hate this particular part of town, but I have to admit that I’d have loved to experience Dinner in the Sky at night, just for some Blade Runner-ish views.

Looking down at the crane.

Another view of the crane, plus a lady who kept flirting with the servers.

Oh, yeah… there was food. This is a cornish hen roulade lined with spinach pesto, served over fennel mash, early summer succotash, red pepper sauce and fennel pollen. It was good, but not outstandingly memorable. Dessert was a square of chocolate. The 1-hour dinners also include a salad. The dinners tomorrow start at 7am, with a breakfast menu designed by Chef Anthony Sedlak.

One more view looking down in the other direction.

While on board, do not light matches (we’re actually not sure what the first one is), undo your seatbelt (as if!), smoke, or spill your drink!

Overall impressions - a fun novelty, but not heart-stoppingly fabulous. Because you are strapped in so securely, it’s hard to move to look down, and all you can really see are the folks across from you and the buildings behind them.

The table is touring the country over the summer and then will be available for functions. No word on the price to rent the thing, but I’m guessing it’s not cheap.

It was a fun, once-in-a-lifetime experience, but it wasn’t really scary enough, imo. Other than the first few seconds when the table is lifted off the ground, the experience of being in the air is really not noticeable. I wasn’t really expecting it to fulfil my “Drop Zone” craving to go hurtling towards the ground at astounding speed, but a little part of me secretly hoped it would.

This is a completely gratuitous post, the purpose of which is to make readers crave cupcakes with strawberry buttercream. I think this officially qualifies as sexy. And yes, with real berries added to the icing, it tastes even better than it looks.

Who says strawberry shortcake can’t be for breakfast?

With berry season upon us, I’ve been shoving juicy Ontario strawberries into my face whenever I can get them, and while I like the idea of shortcake, I’ve never come across a recipe that I really enjoy, finding many that I’ve tried too dry. And those odd yellow spongy things from the supermarket and just odd… and yellow.

Enter the oatmeal scone. Perfect consistency to replace a shortcake, plus you know, oatmeal, so we can pretend it’s healthy. Top it off with sliced berries and vanilla yogurt instead of whipped cream, and suddenly it’s breakfast!

Scottish Oatmeal Scones

1-1/2 cups flour
2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup melted butter
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425′F. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.

In another bowl, beat egg until frothy. Mix in melted butter and milk. Pour into well and stir to make a soft dough. Pat into two 6 to 7 inch circles, and transfer to a greased baking sheet. Score each top into 8 pie-shaped wedges, then sprinkle lightly with sugar.

Bake for 15 minutes until risen and brown.

It could have been, truly, a clusterfuck, but the weather gods and organizing gods shined down on the One City One Table event today at the Distillery District. Part of the Luminato arts festival, this food fair took over a whole block with one long table down the centre, and local restaurants offering tastings and street food items for $5 a pop along one side.

While it was busy, it wasn’t stupid packed, and there was very little wait time at each booth to get the food. Most chefs had put some thought into their offerings so it was mostly hand-held stuff like sandwiches, tacos or things that didn’t need a fork and knife.

Enamoured of the food as I was, I completely missed getting a shot of the 500-seat table, although it was never all full at once as people kept getting up and moving around as they tried new things. I missed photographing a few things that we tried and really enjoyed like the baked perogies from Chef Nathan Isberg at Coca, and the braised hangar steak sandwich from Chef Ted Corrado at C5.

My only complaints - I’d have liked to have seen more vegetarian options, as there really weren’t many. And also, a plate of oysters on a sunny afternoon really deserves a beer to go with it. I’m sure getting a liquor license for such an event would have been a nightmare, but we actually sat and strategized at one point, trying to figure out if we could sneak a plate of oysters onto the patio at the Mill Street Brew Pub just so we could have beer with our bi-valves. Instead we just plunked down in front of the Starfish booth and enjoyed some Malpeques at a buck a shuck (photo above).

Fried clams from Rodney’s Oyster House. I once called Rodney’s in search of fried clams and they were aghast that I’d suggest such a thing. Seems they’ve changed their minds on that front, and good on them. These were awesome.

This tamale from Dos Amigos was the only thing we bought that didn’t wow us. They were pre-made and slightly soggy by the time we got to this one.

Lobster taco from Sassafraz. Seafood seemed to be the theme of our day, and this was pretty yummy.

Despite the fact that they only came with the sandwich on offer, people kept trying to buy just the pickles from Chef Michael Steh at Reds.

I was headed for the pretty cupcakes at Eini & Co. but got distracted by the filled-to-order cannoli at 7 Numbers. I loves me some cannoli.

La Creperie. And the city’s entire inventory of Nutella.

We’re drawing a blank on who it was that offered this lovely strawberry shortcake. Possible the folks from Lucien.

It’s okay to eat chicken again. Or at least chicken from KFC. In Canada.

After years of protests and campaigns by animal rights groups PETA, KFC has bowed to pressure and has agreed to work only with suppliers that can ensure less crowding for the chickens it uses, as well as phasing out non-essential growth hormones and drugs. KFC will also source chicken only from suppliers who slaughter birds with gas, considered the most humane method of processing.

An added caveat will be that KFC will add vegan and vegetarian “unchicken” options to its menu, making the chain a consideration for a demographic of customers who might never have eaten there, and allowing those of us who love the magical 11 herbs and spices coating to get our fix without guilt.

Full story at the CBC website.

I grew up reading and re-reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House” series, but it wasn’t until years later that I realized that the pie plant she uses to make a pie for the field workers was actually rhubarb. (I think I imagined it to be eggplant, which we never ate as a kid.)

While we always had rhubarb in our house growing up, it usually got made into squares or stewed with sweet dumplings and after acquiring a pretty huge bunch a couple of weeks ago, I considered a pie. Turns out most of the rhubarb pie recipes I have are sour cream-based, which is odd to me. They’re probably good, but I dunno, something just doesn’t sound right. Greg always likes the strawberry rhubarb pie, although I am not a fan - I find it too mushy and wet.

Fate decided for me, as I was at the grocery store bagging apples and dropped a bag of half a dozen Empires. I felt too guilty putting them back and taking unbruised ones, so apple-rhubarb pie it was.

And it turned out great. I used about 2 cups of sliced apples and 2 cups diced rhubarb with a good amount of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger plus about a cup of sugar and some flour. We ate a couple of slices and put the rest in the freezer, along with a 4-cup container of diced rhubarb for a similar treat next winter.

Did you know that Canada grows some fine pineapples? Or that we have many thriving chocolate plantations? If you’re a grocery label reader, it might be easy to assume that all of those prepared products labelled “product of Canada” were grown here. But the current law is a little bit slippery.

A recent Reuters piece about changes to labelling laws indicates:

Current rules state that a label can say “Made in Canada” or “Product of Canada” if 51 percent of the production costs are Canadian and the last substantial transformation of the product took place in Canada.

So cocoa beans shipped to Canada to be made into chocolate bars here go to the stores with a “product of Canada” label, even though they came from somewhere else.

The Calgary Herald explains the changes:

The new standards require that any label claiming a food product is a “Product of Canada” necessarily needs to have all or virtually all of its contents be Canadian. That includes ingredients, the processing and the labour used to make the product; an exception has been made for some foreign content to be included in a Canadian product and labelled as such if minor additives or spices are not available in Canada.

This will make a huge difference for consumers, who have been mislead for years into believing that they were buying products that were grown and created in Canada, but will also be a boon for Canadian farmers and producers, who are forced to compete with imported items incorrectly labelled as being a product of this country. For example, apples grown in China that are shipped to Canada as concentrate can, under the current laws, be listed as a product of Canada, putting Canadian apple growers at a gross disadvantage.

As consumers become more aware of movements to eat locally-grown food, we put our trust in those “product of Canada” labels. We want local first, and then Canadian second. But much of what we were buying was made from imported items that were simply processed here, and we had no way of knowing if these products were grown according to Canadian health and safety guidelines. The new laws will make it clear to consumers just where their food is coming from.

To see just how confusing the current labelling system can be, CBC’s Marketplace ran a piece on “product of Canada” labelling last fall.

No word on exactly when the labelling changes will take place, but expect plenty of whining from the processed foods sector, both because of the disadvantage it will create for them on store shelves and also because of the cost of redesigning labels, which have to be done in both English and French.

My Mom and Dad have a massive rhubarb patch in their back yard. I think it might actually be one gigantic plant, in fact, but it keeps them well-stocked in rhubarb all summer long. This recipe gets made a lot in their house, to use up the rhubarb, but also because it’s really good. My Mom cuts these smaller, into squares (16 from an 8-inch pan), but I tend to think of this as more of a coffee cake, and given the small amount of fat in the recipe, don’t feel terribly guilty serving up larger pieces and thinking of it as cake.

I cook this at a slightly higher heat than the original recipe calls for, and I also tend to find the original a bit too sweet for me, so I’ve switched the topping to brown sugar from white, and cut the amount slightly.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Cake:
1/4 cup margarine
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup rhubarb, chopped
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Topping:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup coconut

Cream together margarine and sugar, adding egg and vanilla and blending well. Combine dry ingredients and add to wet mixture interspersed with milk, blending well after each amount. Add rhubarb last and spread into an 8-inch square pan. Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle on top. Bake at 325’F for 45 - 50 minutes.

For some, it’s a dream come true, for others, it’s something they fall into and love, but lots of people end up running food-prep businesses that they start from home. Some of these are catering businesses, many more are baking businesses where folks use their love of pastry and mad skills to bake, decorate and sell cakes and pastries, doing what they love and making a little cash on the side.

I have family members, friends and know of a number of online (blogger) acquaintances who are all either running or starting a home-based food business.

Unfortunately, they’re all really, really illegal.

Home Business Advocate Beverly Williams explains about food-prep businesses on her site:

You must call the Department of Health in your area FIRST to find out if you are allowed to prepare food for sale in your home kitchen. The answer will be NO! I have never found a jurisdiction that allowed food for sale to be prepared in a home kitchen. Some areas do allow you to have a separate commercial kitchen for this purpose but the cost may be prohibitive. In some areas, you may be able to find a commercial kitchen that is not being used all day that might be willing to rent their kitchen to you. Most jurisdictions will require you to have your own business license as well.

Enterprise Toronto offers some details on what is required to operate a food-making business from home - essentially a completely separate kitchen from the one in which family meals are prepared. But these generally also have specific requirements regarding prep surfaces, storage areas and sinks. In the City of Toronto, we have a number of food-based business incubators and start-up organizations such as FoodShare that rent out industrial kitchen space for people looking to start food-based businesses but with no capital to rent a permanent space.

Also, as of 2006, all food service operations in Toronto must have one person on site with a Food Handler’s Certificate, based on a course focusing on safety and sanitation in the food prep workplace.

People looking to do more work than just the occasional cake for friends will also need to acquire a provincial business registration and should be charging and remitting the appropriate PST. Believe me, if you’re selling something that should have retail sales tax applied to it (ie. prepared foods such as cake) the provincial government will want their slice (pun intended). PST registration will also benefit small businesses by allowing you to buy supplies, both wholesale and retail, exempt from paying provincial sales tax. Registering for GST, even if your business doesn’t make the minimum $30,000 a year can also be useful as it allows small businesses to recoup GST paid out on equipment and supplies.

If you’re operating your food prep business from a separate kitchen at home, you also have to register the business with the city so it can be inspected on a regular basis for health and safety issues.

Now I know that lots of people do a little cooking and baking for friends and acquaintances in exchange for money, and generally the powers that be turn a blind eye to that kind of stuff, but for anyone looking to start a full-fledged business, where they’ll be creating food on a larger scale and especially where - through a web site, business cards, flyers or word of mouth promotion - knowledge of their business eventually reaches strangers, I would strongly advise all the friends, family and online acquaintances to cover their asses by making sure they’re doing everything legally.

Turning a hobby into a small business can be a delightfully fun thing, but not if you find yourself in court because you didn’t follow the letter of the law or someone got sick from your products.