Baking as Biography by Diane Tye

Author:Diane Tye [Diane Tye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MQUP
Published: 2010-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

LADIES’ TEAS

The foods, as well as the organizing principles of specialization and variety, that governed lunches reached their peak when the church women organized other food events such as wedding or funeral receptions, major fund-raisers such as church suppers, or ladies’ teas.13 Jean Colborne’s letters through 1949 and 1950 demonstrate that lunches were part of a larger network of food events that included weddings, showers, and other church or community functions. For example, Colborne describes a wedding reception where fifty people sat down to “a huge supper of chicken and ham and salads and dessert, and at our table alone there were ten different kinds of cakes” (2003, 93). Likewise, Anne Green describes an elaborate selection of foods and speaks appreciatively of individual women’s specialities in talking about the soup and dessert luncheons her church group currently hosts: “We have soup and dessert luncheons ... this is a money raiser. And we have all kinds of desserts. We have maybe two kinds of soup. Well, I have a list of people to phone and what to get from them. And I usually make a rhubarb torte ... And people wait for that rhubarb torte. You wouldn’t believe. By the end of it, it’s gone” (Green, Interview, 2004).

The most formal of all church food events was the tea. At teas, the principles of variety and quality reached a pinnacle at the same time as they were coupled with higher standards for presentation than lunches, fund-raising luncheons or suppers, which could run the gamut from casual, stand-up, self-service meals to sit-down dinners at waited tables. That said, the food served may not have differed markedly from that featured at the other food events just described. For example, one 1940s etiquette book my mother owned stipulates that the food at an informal or casual tea “should be quite simple – dainty sandwiches and cakes served with tea, coffee, or chocolate” (Eichler 1940, 215). At a formal tea, “[t]he food served should not be so substantial that it interferes with dinner. A typical menu might consist of a light salad, hot rolls or muffins, tea or coffee, and cookies. Neither dessert or rich cakes should be served at a tea” (Eichler 1940, 216).

However, what separated the ladies’ tea from other events was not so much its food as its formality. Teas offered women the opportunity to focus on elements such as presentation and etiquette. Paper plates or Styrofoam cups might have been acceptable for an after-church lunch, but the formality of a ladies’ tea required white tablecloths and china cups.

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