Eating in England

Until I was twelve, my English mother took me home every other year to see my grandparents, who lived in Bebington on the eastern side of the Wirral Peninsula, where we stayed for three months.

It was many years later, on February 12, 1964, when I saw four young men with long swinging hair—all with a connection to this peninsula—sing their hearts out at Carnegie Hall.

My Mother

We sailed from New York City to Liverpool on the M.V. Britannic—the last White Star Liner built, and the last to carry the White Star flag. It was on that well-loved ship I learned to swim—in a pool filled with water piped in daily from the surrounding Atlantic Ocean and then heated. At the end of each day, the pool was drained, and the process began again the next morning.

On Board Ship

It was also where I first became aware of how much I liked to dine.

We had breakfast in the dining room, then steaming cups of consommé on deck at 11:00 a.m., followed by luncheon at 1:00 p.m. and the 8:00 p.m. evening meal.

I was never relegated to the child-friendly meal called nursery tea at 4:00 o’clock—often the final meal of the day for children—where simple foods like small sandwiches, omelets, soft-boiled eggs, and soothing sweets such as custard, blancmange, or little cakes were elegantly served on fine bone china.

My mother and I ate at second service.

My favorite meal was freshly baked hard rolls with sweet butter, leg of lamb, peas cooked with mint, and craggy roast potatoes—confirming that only the Brits can properly roast a potato.

I ate caviar for the first time on the return voyage. I had just turned six and had learned to read while enrolled at The Rock Ferry Convent School during our stay. Seeing it on the menu, I ordered it myself. The steward got a funny look on his face, and my young and beautiful mother, in her most English accent, said calmly, “As she eats olives and anchovies, I imagine she will eat caviar. Please bring it to her.” It arrived on a plate with little pieces of toast and tiny cubes of aspic, which turned out only to be decorative. My mother was right—I happily ate the salty caviar on the dry, crunchy toast.

That year I was in England when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. Since I was enrolled in school, I attended several Coronation parties held for schoolchildren. We had lots of treats, including something called jelly cream—which reminded me of softly set Jello with whipped cream on top. I still have the mug with Elizabeth II’s picture on it, given to me at one of those parties. It sits on a dresser in my bedroom, holding bits and bobs—mostly earrings and safety pins.

My grandfather Charles was a pork butcher. At his house, the food was always simple and good. For tea, we had crumbly pale-orange Cheshire cheese, Hovis whole wheat bread sliced thin by hand and gently buttered, eggs boiled softly after being plucked from under the bottom of a reluctant hen, green onions on their stems, and cherry tomatoes. Special sweets were only presented at the end of the meal when we had company, but in the kitchen there was always a sponge cake, a plate of hand-shaped triangular currant scones, and some ginger nut biscuits available for the taking.

I am sometimes able to get Mrs. Appleby’s Cheshire Cheese at my food store, and I do buy it when I see it. But mostly what I crave from those days are soft-boiled eggs—always good, but even better when I am able to get them from local hens. I eat them, as at my grandfather’s, in the early morning, with salt and pepper on the plate to dip my spoon into as I scoop up the lovely soft interior of the golden yolk.