Went in a cafe of the wrong class today. [sad face]

[TiggyD]

There were 2 cafes near each other. I picked the wrong one. I'm lower middle class and the cafe was for middle middle class to about lower upper class. I should have guessed by the little accent they put over the 'e' in the name.

I went in and up to the counter and asked for a sausage roll and a hot chocolate and they didn't give it to me. I was told to go sit at a table. My sausage roll came served on a plate with salad which, and you might not believe this, somebody had drizzled on! I'm guessing it was basil oil or some such frippery, although the cafe with an accent was next to a boating lake the same colour.

I should have gone to the other one where I'm sure I could have just taken the sausage roll in a bag or on a paper plate without being drizzled at.

It's hard being English.

Dh (from Co Durham) has just informed me that a potato - fish - potato in breadcrumbs is called a 'dab' where he comes from! Anyone else heard of that one?

Middle class eateries aren't homogenous though. Last summer we had a few nights in a welsh hotel with a michelin star and a 'taster' menu. Definitely middle-class (nearly every car in the car park was a VW Golf Estate - that must be as middlingly middleclass as possible, surely?). Exquisite.... but lacking substance and fibre. Were we ever glad for a visit to the cafe at the CAT centre (again, surely middleclass in its environmental earnestness and shiny kids keenly inspecting compost loos) where we devoured a hearty pile of vegetarian chilli.

This book is worth look if you want a laugh . DH bought it for me as a stocking filler last year and i still chuckle at it.

DH went out with work in Whitechapel the other day and sent me an outraged text. They had ended up at a 'pop up artisan gin emporium' in an opticians. i shit you not. he even texted a picture to prove it. He came home grumbling about why couldn't his work just do the traditional Whitechapel thing and take them on yet another obligatory (we have each been on 7 with various companies) Jack the Ripper tour and a curry.

You know where you stand with ghoulish stories of mutilation and a chicken jalfrezi. Drinking cardamon infused gin standing in an opticians, not so much. I can just imagine my great big dh sipping out of an eye wash awkwardly.

The staple dish of Hull is the Patty Butty: batter coated deep fried mashed potato in a white bap.

No, I haven't eaten one either.

If those brown and orange plates are Denby Arabesque usual they could be collectors' items.

My Mum still has a burnt orange, Kenwood Chef foodmixer, circa 1974...it weighs a tonne and is the size of a small car.

It would feckin beat the shit out of those fancy-dancy, pastel Kitchen Maids on Bake Off...

I say scone to rhyme with bone and I'm completely Northern.

I think that is 'normal' rather than 'middle class'.

What the actual Jeff is a yum-yum?
I am also in forrin and will spend my day weeping for Yorkshire tea in a mug and sausage rolls. But yum-yum? Wassat?

pontification - Yum-yum is the heroine from The Mikado, the operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Maudlin I'm in Devon and they deep fry Mars bars here too (and they're bloody lovely)

And there she is, lying down for some inexplicable reason.

Probably had another tiff with Nanki Poo.

But if you say scone to rhyme with bone, then the fastest cake in the word joke doesn't work.

Pontification A yum yum is a cross between a danish and a doughnut. A deep fried danish, if you will. It's covered in a 'glaze' (like icing, but thinner) and is quite tasty. Needs filling in it though.

Scon is more English and Scone is more Irish or Scottish.
Not sure about the Welsh - dont they have Welsh cakes instead?

Welsh cakes are too thin to put jam and cream in the middle of. No good.

Jam and cream? too decadent for the Welsh I am afraid.

You just take two Welsh cakes and sandwich them together, Specklady.

Oh yeah - good idea!

usual/AllAloneNow

I always think of Hornsea pottery when I think of the 1970s. We had some Bronte (see pic) and remember it with fondness.

My parents got Arabesque as a wedding present in 1966, and still use it!

When I was younger I always wondered about tea while reading Agatha Christie/PD James/other snobby writers.

There'd be this class-defining (as if shoes/clothes/speech/demeanour hadn't already given it away) question, "China or Indian?" Apparently the 'correct' answer was China, more up the social ladder.

Came to mind as I picked up a box of 'Twinings Everyday' when in England at half-term. Idly reading the box to delay unpacking, I noticed it says it contains Chinese tea. And Assam and African. Would Agatha/Phyliss have fainted?

More to the point, has anyone ever just had Chinese tea, with lemon?

Most chinese teas don't need lemon imo.

Just googled 'arabesque' - ooh, that was grim. My mother favoured Indian Tree.

Love that pottery, Rattle. I think we had 3 canisters (tea/ coffee/ sugar), or at least something similar.

In our 1970s council house (for a moment there I forgot the point of the thread ).

Agatha would have looked down her lorgnette at a blended tea, I expect, Fid. Single estate only in the polite drawing room of the Christie residence.

I have always enjoyed lapsing souchong - love the smoky flavour.

We tried lapsang once, DH came out in dreadful hives.

(Theres a whole other thread about tea running at the moment btw.)