h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey something is going on at:
http://www.h2g2.com/P130852
Join in on the FUN RUN and excersise your brain, you don't even have to leave your seat.
Have a cup of tea whilst you do it.

vegiman

What's your favourite tea time treat?
I'm a real sucker for crumpets. You know the things - round, about three quarters of an inch deep with deep holes in them. (not at all like waffles)
You grill them or put them in the toaster and when they come out you cover them in butter and it soaks through. Then you spread your favourite sticky sweet concoction on them and the butter runs down your leg when you eat them.
With lots of cups of tea on a Sunday afternoon they're great.

Apparently they were sold in France for a while but nobody told the French you were meant to toast them and they thought they were revolting.

My tip for toasting them. Always have at least one the other way up.
When the side with the holes is brown turn them all over and you still have one with the holes at the top to be your guide.

The ideal bed-fellow to crumpets, without a shadow of a doubt is Marmite. Never mind sweet sticky things - Marmite on crumpets is the best. Ignore what it says on the jar about speading thinly - lay it on thick. At least a teaspoon per crumpet. Marmite also has the added advantage of being made from the by-product of the brewing process. This means than you can feel good about eating what, in a sense, is a recycled product. Unfortunately the alcohol has been lost but you can't have everything in life can you?

Crumpets are best toasted on an open fire of course...
But lemon flavoured sponge cakes with icing that has just a hint of lemon is great with tea.
High tea was something invented by the Victorians wasn't it? Like Knights in Shining Armour.

Welcome back Fate. The Tea discussion was beginning to flounder. We missed you. Have a good holiday?

Oh and if you've got any of that iced lemon cake I have a plate in my hand.

A nice holiday thanks, except no decent tea. Although I did have some nice French Fancies one day that were quite scrummy, oh and a couple of mini bakewell tarts, they were as they say, exceedingly good..
A piece of lemon sponge with a hint of lemon in the icing you ask for? Is this some kind of truce as if it were Xmas or something? Should I put Paul Mccartney on the stereo and dig out a football?
Or is this just some kind of fiendishly good trap?

I think this is a neutral forum - so we can treat it like Switzerland. Does that mean I get a piece of cake? Without the Paul McCartney please.

Ok tea cakes all round!
(With no pipes of peace anywhere, I think you'll have to visit a drug forum for that...)

I find tea cakes (of the toasted variety) go far better with coffee than tea. I must try coffee cake with tea to see if that is nice.

Could I just have a large piece please?

Tell you what Vesty, seeing as there seem to be no other takers on the lemon sponge with the hint of lemon in the icing cake, I'll just cut this cake in two shall I? And I suppose I'll have to make the bloody tea as well.....

Just make sure you put the milk in first and use boiling water (not boiled water). Funny how things come round again isn't it?

Can I have the half with the extra thick icing on it?
And here's my workman-like mug which holds a quart.

Never mind all that, where's the muffins? I'm not talking about those big ugly cake things that the Americans have taught us to call muffins, but the crumpet-shaped (without the holes) bread-type things wthat the Americans have taught us to call "English muffins".

Anyway, I love muffins. Especially the cheese ones. Split them, toast them, spread about a pound of butter on each half then put the two halves back together again. This can be equally as messy as eating a crumpet and twice as delicious.

By the way, anyone know what crumpets are made of? Are they dough, batter, some sort of marine creature or what?

Oh yeah, then there's scones. Yum. The Americans call them "biscuits", I believe, but thankfully we haven't started to do that yet.

I used to work on a crumpet farm.
The crumpets were always frollicking in the farmyard which made us laugh. Then on the "sad day" we would round them up and pull all of their legs off (hence the little holes) and hit them with a big round mallet to put them out of their misery and get them to fit in the right shaped package.
I know it's cruel but someone had to do it.

Sad day? Sounds like fun to me.

Evil. You can be prosecuted for crumpet cruelty you know. You should have used more humane methods of culling. I'll be sending the crumpet rights society round. Crumpets should be allowed to roam free on open moorland and shot from a distance with a single bullet so as to minimise the pain and fear they must suffer under your outdated methods. The holes are a consequence of unscrupulous people using shotguns and blunderbusses to kill crumpets. I know this because I sometimes get the shot stuck in my teeth.

They were at least free range (as far as the little chains round their legs would allow) and they had plenty of fresh water and food though their "toilet habits" left a little to be desired.

Are you sure it was shot you got between your teeth? I looked very closely to see if there was a dot above the o.

It is a batter that is left to ferment like dough, The batter is then poored into crumpet sized hoops on a griddle like the ones that Wimpy used to fry eggs in. don't know if Wimpy's still fry eggs like this. Ah!!! those were the days when Wimpys didn't have the compertition from Mac's & BK

I've just been given a coffee cafeteria thing.
(Well, the conversation had wandered off tea)