An English Country House Breakfast described by Elizabeth Peters
An English country house party featuring academics dressed in historical costume who want to restore Richard III’s reputation
I’m reading books set in England to get in the mood for a hoped-for trip in the fall. This passage, from The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters, made me hungry for breakfast:
On a sunny summer morning the breakfast room at Weldon House looked particularly charming. It suggested a photograph out of Country Life–a prewar Country Life, when such items as Georgian silver and Chippendale tables were commonplace. Silver chafing dishes sparkled along the mahogany sideboard, and Thomas’s nostrils sorted out a variety of tempting odors. It was not power that corrupted, he thought–it was soft living. Any invading barbarian would succumb to this fare. Bacon–solid English bacon, like slabs of ham marbled with fat; scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, coddled eggs; oatmeal, and a variety of cold breakfast cereals–removed from their plebeian cardboard containers and elegantly encased in crystal; rows of toast in silver toast racks; cut-glass pots of jam; black cherries glowing like dark rubies in crystalline syrup; thick orange marmalade, solid with rind; amber honey from Weldon’s own hives; hot biscuits, and…Thomas’s eyes widened as he identified a platter of jelly doughnuts. He had mentioned his passion for jelly doughnuts the last time he stayed at Weldon House. Damn it, he thought affectionately, you couldn’t help liking a man who remembered a trivial remark like that. He wondered if the tastes of the others had been catered to also, and decided in the affirmative as he saw the rector piling his plate with what appeared to be deviled kidneys. He waved his fork, adorned with kidney, at Thomas as the latter joined him at the sideboard. pp. 80, 81.
Do you want to join me for breakfast at an English country house?
This is my post for Weekend Cooking. Check out Beth Fish Reads today for more culinary posts around the web.
