Tea with your grandparents

My paternal grandparents died before I was birn. Maternal grandmother who I was named for died when I was 6 in the Asian 'flu pandemic. Papa died 3 years later...he had been gassed in the trenches. I had a lovely Aunty who was always trying to feed me.

She’ll remember you because you seem to feature largely in their lives. They’ll always have lovely memories of you.

No grandmas either side for me or my sister.
Maternal grandmother died when our mum was only nine.
How sad was that for a child?
Consequently we have no memories, ours was a very small little family.
I’ve loved reading the stories here however!
It’s made me think what will our Boy Wonder and L’il Miss remember of us when we’ve gone.
I did ask her (age 5) “what do you think you might remember of me when I’m not here?” (I was curious as I’d never had a grandma).
“I like your songs grandma. “Hey Little Hen, When When When will you lay me an egg for my tea?”
That’ll do.
❤️

High tea is a working class hearty meal - not genteel teas on tiered plates.

.....and elder Berry wine.... in fact lots of homemade wines...my grandmas had demi hohns all over the house....I was given a little glass of homemade wine every night I slept there....and I was only young ...maybe 7? 😳🤣.... my Eldeat GD is nearly 7....I wouldn't dream of giving her wine to drink

Butterfly bunny....brsndy snaps with cream in the ends....home made Victoria sponge.....meringue nests with cream and peaches.....I couldn't tell you the last time I ever even saw a brandy snap...maybe 40 years ago...maybe more ( I'm 58)

My Grandma used to serve supper at 10pm with Yorkshire teacakes and cheese. It was the best meal of the day.

When we paid visits to Granny and Grandad's - it was always High Tea! The table would be laid with the big brown teapot with a woolly cosy on it. Tea was served to everyone in a teacup and saucer. Everything was homemade -bread, jam, marmalade, victoria sponge, eccles cakes, fruit loaf, scones. Butter and cream came from a local farm. Ham was that tinned arch window shaped ham and salad came from the garden/greenhouse grown by Grandad. We just ate until full!!

I think lots of people drank their tea from a saucer LadyHonoria- it helped to cool it down.

My nan sliced bread under her arm too.

My maternal grandmother always made traditional afternoon tea as well. She regarded it as her speciality.Always home made cake, never allowed what she called ' bought cake' in her house.
When she died we had to set about making cakes for her funeral wake, as my mother said she would come and haunt us if we had bought ones.

My elderley aunt was my 'nana'.
I mostly remember her home-made lemon curd and the little rice-cakes.
Tinned prunes in Ambrosia rice.

My uncle used to treat me to 'his' speciality of toasted tea-cakes topped with grilled melted cheese. We used to be taken to local corner shop 'Tickles' for egg custards. Always giggled about that.

The oddest thing we were given (mum went mad when she found out)
were the odd dog biscuit that came in different shapes and colours. 😂 Really! I liked the yellow ones! Lol.
She also believed in a spoonful of Agarol (white medicine that I think was for digestion). Suppose we needed it after the dog biscuits!

I only knew one Granny. She wasn't much of a cook, mainly I suspect because she had so little money she had little to cook. But we lived near some sand dunes where we collected dewberries and she made the most gorgeous dewberry pie. I've never had dewberries any where else, most people have never heard of them.

Bread and homemade jam and cake, cups of weak tea from a brown teapot with a green knitted tea cosy. I’m amazed I can remember all this to be honest.

did not have any grandparents.
but an aunt used to get the swiss roll with choc sponge and white filling, which intrigued me.
no formal teas or anything.
but she would give us a slice if passing.
i assumed it cost more and that she could get it as had no children, not gobbled up immediately.
years later when shopping i was surprised to find that it was the same price as the ordinary sponge/jam one.
i think my mother did not buy the favoured one because we preferred it, it was a way of exerting control. which is fair enough.
eg if you don't behave you won't go to aunt's house=no choc swiss roll.

ginny

Maternal g/mother… tinned pink salmon with vinegar. Slabs of cake, usually fruit or Maderia.

Paternal g/mother… very thin slices of bread and butter which she sliced holding the loaf under her arm with jam. She didn’t make blancmange. but made a set dessert using cornflour .

I remember my maternal gmother slicing a loaf under her arm. I have never seen anyone else do it.

The tea was always Co-op 99. My Nanna and Granddad drank it without milk, pouring it into the saucer to drink it. They are the only people I've ever seen doing this.

There'd be tinned salmon, with a salad of lettuce, sliced tomatoes, sliced hard-boiled egg, with jars of piccallili, pickled beetroot and picked red cabbage on the table.

Maybe a glass dish of sago or tapioca pudding with tinned peaches. I hated that bit. Yuck!

Then bread and butter with jam or maybe lemon curd. I refused to eat the crusts and I was told that if I didn't my hair wouldn't curl, although it turned out that I had hair that fell into natural waves that were the envy of my big sister, whose hair tended to thin, straight and straggly.

And cakes from the cakeshop down the street whose name I ought to remember, it's on the tip of my tongue but won't come.

Witzend

Yes - not a regular thing since she didn’t live close by. Always several things my mother never bought, or we only had for e.g. birthdays. Dairylea Triangles*, Penguin biscuits or Wagon Wheels, and always orange jelly with mandarin oranges in.

After she died I took the glass orange-jelly dish, it wasn’t very beautiful but such sentimental associations. I was very upset when dh broke it.
I often wish I’d ever told her how much I loved those teas, but never did - she died in her late 80s just 6 months after dh I got hitched - I was 25.

*We never had those! As a result I still have the occasional urge for them - now and then buy a pack and scoff the lot within 24 hours,

I saw Wagon Wheels in a shop the other day. I think it was &M Bargains. I hadn’t realised they septillion made them I really want one now.

Tinned fruit with carnation milk, what a treat when we visited grandma for tea.
We were once at a wedding and grandma complained out loud when presented with “fresh fruit salad “ and real cream, where’s the cherries and carnation,she moaned , what’s this stuff ?.
The top table didn’t look happy.

My Nana's wafer thin bread and butter. Just that. A labour of love on her part cutting it painstakingly with severely arthritic hands and never complaining when her little grandaughter (me) kept pinching slices as she tried to fill up a plate for "tea"!!

We used to visit my paternal grandmother nearly every week because she lived a short drive away. Sometimes it was a quick visit other times it would involve tea. She wasn’t a great cook. She had a habit of burning things! I have a memory of her large walk-in larder lined with ceramic tiles. It had a meat safe. She was very good at trifles and in fact made half a dozen for my wedding reception. She had beautiful china but sometimes forgot to put tea in the teapot. She had quite a big dining room so when she hosted a big family occasion there would be two tables - one for the adults and one for the grandchildren. Eight adults and nine grandchildren. My daughter was born on her 72nd birthday and my elder son two years later on that same day. She died when my daughter was just a few months old. So her teas were not legendary in the true sense of the word!

Viennese whirls from the local bakery with my maternal g'ma. She always put on a spread for Sunday tea.

Rice pudding from my paternal g'ma. I remember her breakfasts more - bacon and egg which smelled and tasted amazing. We didn't see her very much as it was a 300 mile trip before motorways were invented.

My Dutch grandmother always included Dutch honey cake on the tea table.

My maternal grandmother (Nan) was very down to earth as far as meals went. Tea was ham or tinned salmon served with a salad - always lettuce, sliced cucumber, quartered tomato and sliced hard boiled egg. We also had pickled beetroot and the bread and butter pickle. It was followed by jelly or fruit and evaporated milk.

My paternal Grandmother (Granny) on the other hand always had very dainty sandwiches and cakes on tiered plates (very definitely not high tea) with bone China plates, cups and saucers and silver cutlery.

Reading through these, what comes through is the ‘time’ we had with our GPs, and most speak of simple teas with a much loved elder. Perhaps that’s a lesson, that it’s about the time we’re able/allowed to spend with our GCs and not the lavish gifts we spend our money on for them.
*with apologies to those estranged or who live many miles away from their loved ones - that must be difficult and another topic. X

Looking back Sunday tea at Grans was hilarious. No pandering to children, she adored seafood so that is what we got, homemade bread just out of the oven, handed your needle as you arrived and expected to extract cockles, mussels, prawns etc. Huge mound of butter, always a salad bowl and the best mayo. and relishes I have ever tasted.
"If you want cake go home " was her mantra !