Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related UK versus US English: Smackdown 2004

Mmmm, tea. The water *has* to be boiling when it goes onto the leaves, and it's best if the pot has been warmed first so that the tea draws properly while it's still hot. I say "leaves", incidentally, but mine come in bags - my mother would never use bags, only loose tea, but the bags have come a long way in thirty years.

Then the milk has to go into the cup first. Seriously, you can taste the difference when the milk has been scalded by being added to the tea instead of the other way round. I always roll my eyes when I see actors in "British" roles pouring the tea first and then adding the milk - even Anthony Hopkins did it playing C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands. :rolleyes:

And it has to be full cream (whole) milk. Skimmed or semi-skimmed tastes thin.

(We probably shouldn't get into whether the cream or the jam goes onto the scones first...)

Mere

I wasn't going to reply, but... but... but... I couldn't let this go. (And I know it has been the subject of many a Times' letter page...)

Sorry Mere. You're wrong

If you put the milk in first, how can you be sure the tea will end up the right colour?

Helga

Well, I'm sorry ladies, but why, pray, are you adding milk at all?

(Actually, I add milk myself, being of English parentage, but many of my Scottish friends drink their tea black.)

Yvonne

But you're all wrong! The correct way to drink tea is with lemon.


Wendy

No, no, no!! Tea first, then milk. As Helga says, if you add tea to the milk, you can't be sure you won't have put too much milk to begin with. As for scones, strawberry jam definitely goes BEFORE the cream.

Kaethel (who recommends Weinholt's of Chester for the best cream tea ever - plenty of cinnamon in their scones )

I drink my tea black. No milk, no honey, nothing...unless it's chai. I'm usually more of a coffee drinker, but I like tea as well, especially in the winter months.

Since we're talking hot tea, and not iced tea, I can happily put in my two cents. Oddly, I love hot tea, but I don't really like ice tea. But when I do drink ice tea, it must have sugar in it. 1 cup sugar to two quarts tea.

It really depends on the flavor of tea. If I'm drinking Liptons (orange and black pekoe), it's 4 teaspoons of sugar first, then enough milk to turn it a nice tanish brown color. If I'm drinking other flavors (earl grey, english breakfast, irish breakfast, rose tea), it's usually about 2 and a half teaspoons, and milk depending on my mood. Milk NEVER goes into rose leaf tea. And I usually use what's in the fridge, which is usually 2% milk. At work, I have to use powdered creamer.

Rose leaf is the only loose leaf tea I have, and I use a tea ball when making that.

The kettle is usually taken off the burner soon before it whistles, unless I'm distracted, because the whistling grates on my nerves. I only use the microwave when I'm visiting somewhere. The coffee maker at work has a hot water spigot, so I use that.

I don't like lemon, so I don't use it. But I learned the hard way, being curious one time, that lemon will curdle the cream. Blech.

Good heavens, Helga... you add the right amount of milk, of course! (Sheesh - do I have to teach you English everything?)

Nope, whipped cream is far nicer. And if one absolutely has to have jam


Wendy

On the current food-related discussions...

Cheese curds, huh? Sounds awful when you say it that way, but I, for one, like cottage cheese (although I generally add maple syrup to it).

Cheese fries are yummy, but I don't generally indulge.

Anyone here familiar with potatoes au gratin?

Tea:

I keep several kinds stocked at all times, so I'm ready with the right one when the mood strikes. My faves are (in no particular order) cinnamon, mint, irish breakfast, vanilla, oolong, and a special rare kind sold only in a certain place in northern Virginia -- "Mount Vernon Blend."

I tried tea with milk on that aforementioned trip to England. I just don't get it. It's so wrong.

No lemon for me, either.

I do take plenty of sweetener, though.

Like Laura, I love hot tea, but I can't stand iced. Weird, but... <shrug>

Tea with honey is great for a sore throat, but I haven't had it in ages. Not really good for diabetics.

The water... Full rolling boil, about to boil with those little bubbles, steaming hot... It's all the same to me, really. As long as it's hot enough to steep, I'm happy. Actually, my tongue burns easily, so I prefer it to be less than boiling. Doesn't take as long to cool down enough so I can actually drink it.

Tea bags are okay. They serve well enough, most of the time. I find the quality of loose tea is generally better, though. More flavor, better steeping.

Of course, now you have me thinking about making coffee, too, which just brings to mind the conversation I started putting together in my head when half asleep a few nights ago. Don't ask me why. Timmy just started it up, which is kind of wrong, actually, because Timmy is too young for coffee, if you ask me. Anyway, the converstaion went like this (with Martha making small talk, and Lois... not):

Martha: Coffee? Oh, what kind of coffee?

Lois: Uhm... slow roasted, and finely ground.

Martha: Not instant, then?

Lois: Instant? Well... not this time, no. Instant can be good, for when you just need some quick coffee, but brewed is so much better, don't you think?

Martha: I suppose so...

Lois: It's just so much better when you take your time about it. Let the water get gradually hotter, until it starts to steam, and then boil up... And then it makes its way slowly through the grounds, until you get some nice, hot, flavorful coffee...

Martha: I never realized you felt so strongly, Lois.

Lois: ... And then, at the end, you stir in some sugar...

Martha: I thought you used artificial sweetener...

Lois: Not with Clark!

Martha: Oh. Uhm, okay... Well, then... What about creamer?

Lois: Martha!

Martha: What? What did I say?

And so on. ... Nice to get that out of my head, anyway...

Paul

I'm with Wendy on whipped cream vs clotted cream. Had clotted cream on my scones at Betty's in York, and even though it was very nice, I prefer my scones with lots of whipped cream on top.

Now, how about fish and chips? Mushy peas or no mushy peas? Malt vinegar or no malt vinegar?

For me, it's a large amount of mushy peas, and a large amount of vinegar on my chips!



Kaethel

OK, here's a question.

What, exactly, is "whipped cream" as defined by you tea-and-scones people?

Here in the US, it's heavy cream that has been whipped/beaten until very light and fluffy. Sometimes sugar is added to sweeten it, which is what I prefer. You can buy whipped cream in spray containers or you can buy Cool-Whip which isn't real whipped cream but is really, really good when spooned on to pumpkin pie. Yum!

I have no idea what clotted cream is. Sounds...like curdled milk to me. I'm sure it isn't.

Wendy - have you discovered those Canadian pastries, the butter pie? My husband loves those. Also, another Canadian dish called "pasties" always give me a big giggle. Here in the US, "pasties" (pronounced paysteez) are tiny discs a promiscous woman would "paste" on to certain parts of her anatomy. Usually they involve some sort of tassle <g>.

Lynn

Ooo, I love those! They're pronounced "pah-stees," and they're of Midieval English origin. Hard to find them around here, but they're great!

My favorite pub food.

Paul

Nope, that couldn't have been me. I don't drink anything hot, for the most part. I had jaw surgery years ago, and I still do not have feelings in my lip/gums, so I don't ever drink anything hot because I am afraid of getting a blister I wouldn't be able to feel in my mouth. I will drink iced tea, but I really am a coffee drinker (iced coffee, actually ). However, I do go out of my way to drink Starbucks' Passion Fruit Iced Tea. I put cream in my coffee. Sometimes. But milk in tea? That just seems disgusting to me for some reason. I sometimes put sugar into my tea and coffee, but not all that often.

I am a little confused about scones. Are they the same dry, kind of sweet bread-like thing that they sell in coffee shops? I sort of like the white chocolate rasperry kind, but none of the other flavors. And I can't imagine eating it with whipped cream (sugar overload!), so maybe I am picturing the wrong thing.

I think I am confusing "pub food" and "bar food". I like onion rings when I go to the bar . I am pretty sure I've never been to an English Style Pub -- well, except the Fox and the Hound (it calls itself an english pub) where I get (surprise, surprise) Onion Rings.

- Laura

Sorry, Laura. That was Karen. Memory glitch, and I was too lazy to double-check.

Yes, coffee shop scones are fairly close to English ones. They're kind of like biscuits, but dryer and a little sweeter (especially the raisin ones. Yum.). BTW, a crumpet, IIRC, is a scone with a little more milk in the batter.

As for Pubs, I have yet to see one outside the UK. They're not really bars. They're sort of bar/family restaurant hybrids, basically (weird, but it works... you just have to watch out for transition hours). With dark atmospheres and high wooden booths (for maximum privacy... so you can talk with your family or friends without being bothered by other conversations). They serve basic food like pies. Not dessert pies, but dinner pies. Pasties (meat in pastry), Shepherd's pie, Steak and Kidney Pie, etc. Sort of like hamburgers are served in some bar/restaurants here.

That all sound about right, UK FoLCs?

Paul, who has nothing better to do at the moment.

I always thought "clotted cream" was just the UK way of saying "whipped cream". I didn't know they were two separate things.

As to tea, I drink mine with milk & sugar. I also like green tea, which I drink plain. (I was going to say I drink it 'black', but that's not right. I drink it 'green'? )

- Vicki

My husband goes bonkers (in his own way) if milk does not go in first. K. This guy is 6'2", has a biker jacket and has an evil look on his face most of the time and he likes his tea. He loves Prince of Wales and English Breakfast tea. He hates Earl Grey. He says it tastes like flowers. I dislike tea, but love ice-tea. I hate coffee too, but I'm learning to like it. But so far I just like 'candy' coffee - Starbucks mocha. Can we say Big Mac in a cup! Actually a Big Mac is better for you than most of those candy coffees so I try to get mine without the cream on top and get skim milk. It knocks it down a bit. I investigated. I can so picture Lois being picky in a specialty coffee shop OR she'd come in and get the basic over and over again.

I'm sorry, but the site makes me giggle when he has his tea set on Sunday mornings.

That stuff rocks.

I often thought of a skit w/ Lois and Clark over a cup of tea or coffee. Those two always had wine and I don't know why but those scenes irritated me.

Actually, pub is a generic term which covers every kind of bar under the sun. The ones you describe above, Paul, but also the typically US bar type, workman's pubs where the stench of beer hits you in the face when you go through the door and it's all a little seedy <g>, and country pubs where the atmosphere is old horse brasses and log fires. Among many other types, up and down the country.

Although I think pub as a term is fading out of fashion these days. I still hear people saying they're "Nipping down to the local" but I hear them saying less these days, "I'm going down the pub." But that could be a regional thing.

The tea thing was interesting - and seems to be down to personal taste rather than a US/UK difference. I gave up tea a couple of years back - apparently the tanin in it is bad for your blood pressure. Now, I drink cupasoup instead. As far as I know there is no ritual about how to make that, so it's a lot more boring a subject for discussion. Funny thing is, after years of drinking tea, after not having any for a couple of months I couldn't bear the taste of it when I had to revert to it one day after running out of cupasoup. Have never been able to drink it since.


LabRat

The only way to drink tea is not at all! LOL!
I like chips plain with nothing on them. Most Aussies eat them with tomato sauce or chicken salt.

Tricia.

OK, Tricia. Now I have to ask. What is 'chicken salt'?

And when you say "tomato sauce", do you mean ketchup (or catsup as some spellings go)? I put ketchup on my french fries (chips) and on my hamburgers and hotdogs. But I put tomato sauce on top of my spaghetti (which I imagine a lot of people outside the US call marinara sauce).

So interesting!! And now I'm going to be able to travel all over and order food like a native <g>.

Lynn