Picture via australiaentertains.com
When we were growing up if my aunties were invited over it was nearly always for Sunday tea. When Mr. Boo and I entertain it is usually dinner or a weekend lunch but very rarely Sunday tea. My mam and her sisters would take it in turns to host in their different houses, and once a month or more, the 4 sisters and their children would gather to eat, chat and laugh. I really enjoyed those Sunday gatherings and while I know I complained sometimes about being dragged away from the very important business of playing with my toys I only have fond and happy memories of those get togethers.
We would all be dressed in our Sunday finery naturally, having been to mass first thing, and the tables would be laid with all manner of treats. Quiche and vol au vents made regular appearances and as the years progressed so to did the salads. In the early days standard salad fare consisted of quartered tomatoes, onions sliced into thin rings, ham or turkey slices (rolled of course), some boiled eggs quartered (the quartering of objects was the height of fashion), beetroot, pickled onions, a sliced pan buttered and cut on the diagonal, and coleslaw. You couldn't have a Sunday tea salad without coleslaw, the shame of it all. Later things progressed to such exotics as cos lettuce, cherry tomatoes and croutons. Be the hokey, did you ever in your life hear the likes.
If there were loose tea leaves in the house my auntie would read our fortune afterwards. Every ones cup held the same for the future funnily enough. "You'll be getting a letter in the post, maybe you're getting an invite to a party or a wedding, that'll be nice won't it." "Oh, there's some money in this one. Now not much mind but a bit of money is coming to you. Did you check your lotto yet?" And if you were a single lady, "there's an initial in here, I bet you've a new fella coming to you". Reading the tea leaves always resulted in howls of laughter and animated conversation as discussions mounted on the analyses of who was going to win what and who was going to be invited where.
Naturally you couldn't have a Sunday tea without cake or a sweet of some kind and mountains of biscuits, the good ones, no custard creams or rich tea of a Sunday thank you very much. Sometimes my mam would whip up a pavlova or maybe some cream slices and other times a Tea Time Express box would be produced. Either way everyone would be stuffed to the gills by the end, and that was before the bottle of Baileys made an appearance to be sipped sitting on the sofa in attempt to digest the feast.
I miss the tradition of Sunday tea and think I should make more of an effort to bring it back into vogue in my own family at least, but wouldn't it be fun to have Sunday tea right here on the blog? I need your help though. If you bake any of the recipes from the blog, other blogs, your collection of cookbooks or just fresh out of your brain take a picture and email it, marked Sunday Tea, to me here on the blog likemamusedtobake@hotmail.com . Don't think that you have to be a professional chef or a food blogger to get involved, I want everyone to take part. On the last Sunday of every month I will pull all of the photos together and put them into a Sunday tea post. If baking is not your thing feel free to send me a picture of something that you cook. Better still if you still enjoy Sunday tea send me a picture of your table heaving with yummies. Also include your name and the name of your cake/dish. If you don't want your name to appear with the pic that's cool, just let me know and I will list it as anonymous. If you like, jump into the picture too. I am looking forward to seeing some lovely pictures coming through and I hope I can make this a monthly thing going forward. So don't be shy, send me on your pictures and let's all enjoy Sunday tea together.
