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The importance of Tea and Crumpets

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Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:12 / 15.12.04

Over on Livejournal, fridgemagnet was kind enough to bring this thread to everyone's attention.

I was amused by the querent's innocence, of course, but somewhat saddened too. Has it come to this? Has the great British institution of Tea and Crumpets faded into such obscurity that the youth of America now doubt our commitment to Tea and Crumpets? I myself enjoy Tea and Crumpets as often as four times a day.

I favour the now-famous (infamous?) Mrs. Beeton Two and One-Half Inch Standard myself, with plenty of good salted English butter and mayhap a preserve or two: Sloe, Hawthorne and Rhubarb for preference. My favourite tea is that delectable blend known as Edward II.

How do you take your Tea and Crumpets? How often?

18:14 / 15.12.04

Fuck tea. Give more crumpets, dripping with butter and bedolloped with runny jam.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

20:09 / 15.12.04

I must confess, I've never heard of this Fuck Tea you mention. Is it some obscure blend?

20:14 / 15.12.04

Being in America, I had never heard of crumpets until recently. What are they like? Do you know whether authentic English crumpets are something I might be able to find here?

20:15 / 15.12.04

Gawd, I love tea. I love crumpets. But tea and crumpets together? That's just madness.

20:18 / 15.12.04

I prefer tea and strumpets myself.

-pushes top hat forward, twirls moustache-

21:16 / 15.12.04

But tea and crumpets together?

What else would one drink with one's crumpets? Burgundy? Please, madam, surely you jest.

Myself, I'm partial to a particular thick-slice Sutton Wedge which I purchase from a local woman who bakes, toasted using a three-pronged fork of course. I understand some have taken to using a two-prong, which might be fine in one's university days - I even recall using an epee at one point! - but for a respectable gentleman is most definitely not the done thing.

However, in my more frivolous moods I occasionally indulge in a Unitarian with a much larger pore size that also incorporates lemon peel. So one can see that I am hardly conservative by nature.

As for tea, a bold Yorkshire blend is mostly to my fancy but I keep a supply of specially-selected Assam for the occasion of visits from friends and family.

Honey on a crumpet, of course, is the sign of a simpleton or a contemptible rogue.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:32 / 15.12.04

Ah, the fragrant tea-fields of Yorkshire! How I miss them. Myself and a few of the old gels from Cheltenham Ladies College used to engage in the odd walking holiday there--only during the summer, naturally. At that time of year our crumpets were taken very lightly toasted, with the merest glimpse of lovingly chilled salty butter. During the Winter, of course, we would venture southward to the famed Bergamot groves of Eastbourne. There we would enjoy a hearty feast of "Wedgewood" crumpets, so called for the characteristic bluish tint that they derive from special copper fermenting dishes.

Oh, happy days, happy days.

Brigade du jour

21:37 / 15.12.04

I have orange juice with my crumpets. I actually believe that the vitamin C will combat the butter and prevent me from coming out in a zit rash.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:42 / 15.12.04

Really? How very... bohemian of you, dear.

Goodness Gracious Meme

21:48 / 15.12.04

I favour coffee with my crumpets.

Lashings and lashings of butter, though, are compulsory.

21:52 / 15.12.04

Whilst I enjoy crumpets very much and even more so with a cup of tea, the whole affair just wouldn't be worth it without the also uniquely English "bit of a sit down".

Oh how I've enjoyed many cups of tea with a crumpet and a bit of a sit down. One has to remain careful however, a bit of a sit down can easily turn into a fully fledged sit down and that simply wouldn't do. Oh no.

Brigade du jour

21:52 / 15.12.04

Ooh definitely, definitely has to be buttery. Or Floray, in my case.

In fact, do you know what? In all my years of eating crumpets (and there are almost thirty of them) I don't recall ever having them with tea. Never been a big tea drinker anyway, so it seems logical, albeit still an affront to decency.

22:06 / 15.12.04

I prefer to dally in that sordid world that is the Devonshire Cream Tea - the powerful combination of jam, cream, scones and tea often induce a sensational reaction far more powerful than any narcotic...

22:07 / 15.12.04

Being in America, I had never heard of crumpets until recently. What are they like?

Well, if you must ask, a crumpet is just a thicker pikelet.

22:10 / 15.12.04

Really? How very... bohemian of you, dear.

Bohemian? Pah, that’s nothing. I prefer to butter my crumpets with oil paint. And dip them in wine. For breakfast.

Tea is for when one goes to a jazz club. Daddio.

Brigade du jour

22:13 / 15.12.04

Ohh sleazenation, listen to this ...

Some friends and I spent a week on holiday in the Isle of Wight (hey, it was cheap, and so are we!) in the summer. Every other day we had a cream tea.

The first time was in Shanklin Old Village, in this really olde worlde little place, where everything was very quiet and everyone was very polite. It was a bit like how Ferris Bueller describes Cameron Frye's house.

We felt a little uncomfortable in what was to us a very posh establishment, but hey the scones were lovely!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

22:14 / 15.12.04

a bit of a sit down can easily turn into a fully fledged sit down and that simply wouldn't do.

Indeed. One must take great care that one's posture remains vertical and that one does not become too engrossed in idle chit-chat. A good rule of thumb is the antimacassar test: If one is in danger of ruffling the antimacassar of one's chair or settee, one is in danger of giving in to the lure of a fully-fledged sit down.

00:33 / 16.12.04

At risk of seeming simple, I'll repeat my question because the answer I got was really no answer at all if you look at it through my american window.
Well, if you must ask, a crumpet is just a thicker pikelet. ..... uh.. a pikelet? Now I've known of the existence of crumpets for a while, but I wasn't sure I beleived they actually existed until a couple months ago. But I have never even heard of a pikelet. Now I've read all kinds of things about eating crumpets, but still have no idea what it is except a baked good that may be eaten with sweet/fatty toppings and possibly with tea. So.... What is a crumpet like? Dense? Fluffy? Flakey? Moist? Cakey? Are the individually wrapped or cut from a loaf or sold by the bag like bagels?

01:35 / 16.12.04

02:26 / 16.12.04

They look like cookies! I firmly beleive in cookies. I should make cookies more often.

02:38 / 16.12.04

Isn't that what we yanks call an "English Muffin?"

02:48 / 16.12.04

yup...isnt that also the same thing as a scone?

02:52 / 16.12.04

Nah, scones are like biscuits. And if that doesn't confuse everything I give up.

08:03 / 16.12.04

No no no. Nothing like an English muffin. Muffins don't have holes in, and crumpets have a different texture. You don't split crumpets, but you do split muffins. You also split scones, but they are more cakelike in nature, and I personally would never put cream on a muffin.

I've never made muffins, but making crumpets is a complex procedure involving a rising batter, a frying pan and crumpet rings.

09:03 / 16.12.04

crumpets are bollocks compared to:

scone
toast
raisin/cinnamon bagel (no other bagel though - other bagels are shit)
muffin
hob nob
rich tea
digestive
bourbon
a tunnocks
parkin
gingercake
danish

so, as the above list proves, crumpets really aren't that good.

09:37 / 16.12.04

Crumpets aren't that good? That's fighting talk! Is there gallic blood running through your veins? eh?!

To be fair to the French though - their greatest part in the history of the crumpet came during the crimean war. I remember reading somewhere that at sometime during the conflict (between the battles of Balaklava and Inkerman) a hastily assembled Crumpet stall was established for some much needed moral sustenance. This rallied the troops during the seige of Sevastapol - and reports were heard of the French being awed by the Crumpets - so much so that English cooks were taken to France to cook crumpets to serve at the Peace of Paris.

Anyway - at my work, we always have tea and crumpets for elevenses. (Except Jean-Claude - but he's no good at history).

09:46 / 16.12.04

Crumpets are ok, good for the munchies heated up a little with real butter.

Scones knock them out of the water.

Scones~

10:05 / 16.12.04

didn't someone somewhere mention recently that the australians invented crumpets? you gorge yourself on that rapidly-cooling, rubbery, made-by-criminals-food - the look of joy on mr. kipling's face is there for all to imagine.

gallic blood? outside! now!!

pointless and uncalled for

10:56 / 16.12.04

In 1642 High Chief Justice of Harrogate Sir William Mastodon Hugh Beresford-Hartwhistle III QC handed down upon Mr. Blakely St. Paul Thallowforbe (Attorney at Law) a fine of thruppence for willfully besmirching the good character of the crumpet. Since then it has been taken as precedent that to besmirch, denigrate, impugn, malign or in any other fashion or nature slander crumpet(s), crumpettry, crumpet makers, crumpet purveyors or crumpet afficionados is an offence in law subject to actionable sentance of due penalty.

So be warned that incautious statements may find you hauled up in front of magistrates and I can assure you that they take their crumpets very seriously. Without crumpets the entire legal system of the mighty nation of Great Britain would be open to ruination.

Forget not the lesson of Jennifer Smith of Warwick for whom a typographical error resulted in a months pennance in Nantes scraping the limescale from the cisterns in a bordello. She certainly paid more attention to spellchecker in the future.

On a lighter note I have just enjoyed a nicely browned Roehampton long topped with a generous spread of Vallely's Best Organic Butter and a drizzle of Wilmingtons Heather Honey.

10:58 / 16.12.04

The Thinking Man's Crumpet

11:09 / 16.12.04

Kit Kat: No no no. Nothing like an English muffin. Muffins don't have holes in, and crumpets have a different texture. You don't split crumpets, but you do split muffins. You also split scones, but they are more cakelike in nature, and I personally would never put cream on a muffin.

Just to make sure we get all our word-ducks in a row: an "English muffin" in the US is shaped like a crumpet and looks kinda like a crumpet, but is not the same thing. As Kit Kat says, the holes don't go all the way through. An "American" muffin is a totally different thing, more cakey, too but in a completely different way from a scone, which we have quite a lot of over here in our coffee shops, now. I wouldn't put cream on either an American muffin or an English muffin, but scones and double cream (something we also don't have much of here, but which is much richer and thicker than our "heavy cream" and yet not as thick and buttery as cream cheese).

But I'd also never call an English muffin a muffin. (I don't think they have English muffins in England, do they? I think they're an American bastardization of the crumpet? That's what I've always understood, anyway... And if the crumpet originated in the bastard land of Australia, well....)

11:25 / 16.12.04

When I feel tired and discouraged, I have my teatime crumpets with lemon juice and caster sugar. I find I am quite transported back my youth, and the pall of gloom is lifted.

cube, I had been given to understand that pikelets and crumpets were one and the same, with the latter being Standard English and the former Northern vernacular for an identical foodstuff. Am I misguided, crumpet historians of Barbelith?

11:45 / 16.12.04

We do have English muffins, but they are just called muffins. We also have american cakey muffins, and these are also just called muffins (but usually with a flavour description as well, e.g. 'double-chocolate muffin', 'blueberry muffin', etc.

I have looked at some English muffin recipes from the US, and can see that they are indeed more like crumpets than what I would call a muffin. The method is different - I think the batter must be left to become more keadable, as with crumpets it has to be quite liquid in order to go in the crumpet ring in the frying-pan. I think in England muffins would be baked first, and then browned off in the pan.

'Muffin' is a very silly word...

In the interests of mutual understanding, I've just been and checked the OED, and since the first example for 'muffin' (definition: 'A light, flat, circular, spongy cake, eaten toasted and buttered at breakfast or tea') dates from 1703 (crumpet - 1769), so perhaps the Mucked-up crumpet recipe idea is a red herring...

13:25 / 16.12.04

I think there is some pikelet/crumpet crossover (for that difficult "pop" pastry market) but on the whole, I think pikelets are a flatter, rather more chewy version where the holes are bubble on the surface raher than the capillaries of a full-bown crumpet. Incidentally, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference crumpets and muffins are probably the only products in that whole range in which you CAN taste the difference. In the US, English muffins are pretty close to British muffins. Think of the things that you get surrounding an Egg McMuffin and you're pretty much there. US biscuits aren't TOO far removed from scones, but completely the wrong shape.
One of the main features of the crumpet (in fact, one ot's great joys) is the capillary action which ensures any butter placed on the top is immediately wicked down to the bottom, from whence it spoils your trousers. Or volumes of Baudelaire if your name is Monty.
"Pop Tarts", however, should only be fed to Basselopes.

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