Tribute to English High Tea and Sri Lankan Teatime and Shorteats

British food has had a significant impact on everyday foods of Sri Lanka.This maybe why I have always been fascinated with British food. The Sri Lankan version of the British High Tea tradition is tea with short eats.My memories of short eats are from childhood birthday parties and when my parents took my brother and I for an occasional treat to Elephant House in Kandy town. I remember eating cutlets and rolls with tomato sauce at Elephant House and ice cream served with a wafer in an aluminium cup. At birthday parties we always ate patties, rolls, cutlets and sandwiches along with iced butter cake.It was always so delicious.

These childhood memories were the beginning of my fascination with English Teatime.After I moved to Los Angeles, I visited various tea houses where English high tea was served including Tudor House, Two a Tea, the Rose Garden Tea Room at Huntington Gardens and Chado Tea room.When in Sri Lanka the last time I visited, I had high tea at Mt.Lavinia Hotel.

This lead me to want to duplicate the flavors of those Sri Lankan birthday parties and the British tea time treats.I wanted to make those delicious sandwiches.I also wanted to make scones, which are not served in Sri Lanka but which I first tasted in Fiji where many Australian expatriates lived.I searched on the internet for recipes for sandwiches and scones.

There was always a fish sandwich along with beetroot and egg sandwiches at Sri Lankan birthday parties.I ended up making 3 varieties: egg sandwich, fish sandwich and cucumber sandwich.Cucumber sandwiches are not traditionally eaten in Sri Lanka but I wanted to include cucumber as they are synonymous with the English High tea tradition.

I came up with my own formula, that comes relatively close to what Sri Lankan sandwiches tasted like ,influenced by the various recipes I found on the internet.First, I made a paste for the fish and egg sandwiches consisting of mayonnaise, butter, ground mustard, black pepper, salt, diced onion and diced green chillis.To this base I added canned tuna for the fish sandwich and mashed hard boiled eggs for the egg sandwich.I used sandwich bread to make the sandwiches and cut off the edges of the sandwiches and cut each sandwich into 2 fingers.

The three links below influenced the final outcome of my fish and egg sandwiches with a Sri Lankan touch.

http://www.infolanka.com/recipes/mess5/88.html http://curryandcomfort.blogspot.com/2011/08/tea-sandwich-series-tuna-sandwiches.html http://curryandcomfort.blogspot.com/2011/07/tea-sandwich-series-egg-salad.html

For the cucumber sandwich I used an English cucumber sliced into 1/8 inch slices and used 8 slices per two slices of buttered bread and sprinkled with a little salt and pepper before cutting into 2 fingers, once again trimming the edges.I did not peel my cucumbers although the recipe recommends that they be peeled.

This is the link to the  recipe I used for the cucumber sandwiches:

http://thepauperedchef.com/2009/08/part-two-of-my-cucumber-sandwich-revenge-tea-time.html

Pictured below are a plate of the sandwiches I made from left to right: Egg, Cucumber and Tuna (in front)
(Please excuse the crumbs on the plate :)) Please click on picture to enlarge

For the scones recipe, I really wanted to make Pumpkin Scones.Pumpkin scones which were made famous by Lady Flo Bjelke-Peterson who was a Senator and the wife of the former Governor of Australia's state of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke-Peterson. I had gone to Australia in the mid eighties as a teenager to Brisbane, Queensland for higher studies and Flo's husband, Joh was the controversial governor of Queensland at the time.I had never actually tasted Pumpkin scones before, although I had eaten currant scones.I wanted to find a recipe that was low in sugar and fat and I was able to find one on the internet.I actually used 1cup of pumpkin instead of 3/4 cup.

This is the link to the  recipe I used:

http://australian.food.com/recipe/pumpkin-scones-18101

Below is a picture of the Pumpkin scones I made, which I served with jam and Smart Balance spread.Traditionally, they would be served with butter or clotted cream and jam.(Please click on picture to enlarge)

My ninth Birthday party also in Sri Lanka

My ninth birthday party was a grand affair, at least in my eyes. We invited some of my Grade 3 classmates from the Kandy Convent and other girls that were my playmates. At the time we lived in a 'B' Bungalow at the Peradeniya University Campus. It was quite a spacious bungalow style house with a huge garden as well. There was a round about in the front garden of the house with a round hedge in the middle of a patch of grass. A little tar sealed road encircled the mini roundabout. There were several varieties of cypress and pine trees that the previous occupants had planted in the front yard along the hedges. This bungalow was right next to the banks of the Mahaweli River and sometimes snakes used to crawl up the outside drains perhaps from the bamboo groves next to the river?

Our 3 older cousins (children of our oldest Uncle) came to help with the preparations for the birthday party. They helped make the numerous short eats ( Sri Lankan savories) for the party. We ordered two sets of bread loaves of from the bakery one was colored light blue and the other light pink. This was for the sandwiches. The sandwiches were well buttered and the fillings included boiled beetroot ,egg salad, and a spread made with canned fish. After the sandwiches were assembled the crusts were trimmed off and each sandwich was cut into four little triangles.

Also on the menu were fish and polos (young jackfruit) cutlets (deep fried balls coated with breadcrumbs. Other items were fish rolls (deep fried fish filled pancakes coated with breadrumbs) and fish patties( similar to samosa).

My Mom had been following some cake decorating classes on the weekends and for my birthday she made me a grand piano cake. She did not have the special tins for the cake so she had to bake two rectangular cakes and cut the shape of the piano with a paper template. The legs of the piano were made out of wood. As I recall we could not find any black food coloring so the key board had to be drawn by hand. The icing on the piano was either a light green or light blue and my mother decorated the piano with roses made out of icing. The cake was a butter cake and the icing on top was also butter icing as was in vogue at the time. That was my most favorite birthday cake, it's too bad that my Dad did not have the camera loaded at the time to take pictures.

I had a thoroughly enjoyable birthday with my friends and family and received many presents. I seem to recall that most of the presents were either dress materials and story books with beautiful pictures, so I had many dresses sewn in the following months. One of the materials was a cotton print of red hearts on a white background and this was made into an a line dress with little cape sleeves.