High Tea - does such a thing still exist?

Torry_Quine

dekaspace wrote: »

Only place I know of is a beautiful old tea room/coffee shop just over border in Carlisle, costs about £7 though but their tea is proper, not bagged tea but actual stuff and comes in a teapot.

That's cheap for High Tea.

[Deleted User]

at college in newcastle we had fantastic food and coming from a struggling Lverpool family with three meals a day, cooked dinner at dinner time at noon and tea at 5, a cold meal with bread. At college, breakfast was a fab choice from cold plus hot choices, lunch was cooked or salad with cheese and biscuits, tea at 3-4 was bread and jam and cake and tea, high tea at 6 was soup a cooked meal or salad and choice of puddings. For the first time in my life, I put weight on. Amazing food, all cooked on the premises but the weight never came off

monnagran

kittie, I am green with envy. When I was at College the food was atrocious. The meal that will live in my mind for ever was an all-white affair. Cod, mashed potato, butter beans and white sauce. Followed by rice pudding.
We had some sort of very nastly stew one day. Someone asked one of the kitchen staff what was in it. She replied briskly, " I have no idea, but we haven't seen Mysi for a couple of days.

Mysi was the Pincipal's Siamese cat.

I rest my case.

Smodlet

Oh my, monnagran, you have just reminded me of an incident which occurred when I was at school. There was this tank in one of the science labs with two African claw toads in it. They had been there for ages but one lesson, we noticed they had disappeared. What was for lunch that day? You've guessed it, toad in the hole.

trailingspouse

My mother is Scottish, my father is from Yorkshire, and I was born in Yorkshire.

We would have High Tea when on holiday in Scotland - a small hot dish (maybe beans on toast, or poached egg on toast), with bread and butter, cake, and tea. It was an event.

In Yorkshire in the 60s/70s, we would indeed have breakfast, dinner and tea (not High Tea) - but if you think that's how people in Yorkshire still refer to their meals, you're wrong. Definitely breakfast lunch and dinner these days.

cbrown372

caronc wrote: »

When I was a wee girl a "high tea" was something much looked forwarded too. Unlike afternoon tea a hot element was expected (though not always a ham or cheese and pineapple salad with some crisps and Heinz Vegetable salad was perfectly acceptable) most often partaken on a Saturday or Bank Holiday around 5pm and usually at a local hotel though sometimes at home. The hot element was usually a small fillet of fried fish or gammon steak and pineapple or steak pie or a small mixed grill and chips, tinned peas and a side salad (lettuce leaf with 1/2 tomato, a slice of cucumber and maybe some pickled beetroot or onion) seemed to be obligatory. A small sherry or a 1/2 of beer or lemonade (a rare treat) was essential beforehand. After the the "main", cups of tea and teabread of some kind with butter and jam, some sort of sponge cake and a creamy treat (eclair or individual trifle) followed. I remember these really fondly but haven't had one in 30+ years nor seen them advertised anywhere. Does such a thing still exist?

Many happy memories of a picnic lunch in the country on a Sunday followed by High Tea at a local hotel with the family when we were kids. Been perhaps 10 years since I had a High Tea, the last being at a coastal resort in Fife again on a Sunday at a hotel, it seems that Afternoon Tea has become more fashionable nowadays.

greentiger

Ah, high tea - memories of holidays long long ago! I remember it being late afternoon (no later than 5pm) and always came with bread and butter or toast. We usually had bacon & egg or fish & chips, but I don't remember having cake or scones.

Teejay

This is so interesting. I havent heard the term high tea for years. I never realised people went out for high tea. High tea in my house as a child was a treat on a Sunday....Not every Sunday, just when Mum was fluash. Out would come the table, which was laid with a tablecloth, and mum would get all her posh (matching) china and correct serving knives and spoons out. We would have bread and butter !! Perhaps some cold meat, cheese with pickes. If she went to her sewing box it meant we were going to have cockles, shrimps and winkles. All followed by homemade cake or a trifle. I loved it. Then it was bath, hairwash and if I was lucky allowed to stay up for Sunday Night at the Palladium......Happy days.

elsien

I'm feeling deprived. I've never had high tea.
The main treat was on a Sunday at my Nans when the Ice cream van would come round and we'd get the Neapolitan block of icecream with our sandwiches.
I was clearly brought up wrong.

caronc

So many lovely memories of High Tea - I think I'll be re-creating one in the near future