Betty Ross and I are staying at The Nare Hotel in Cornwall -- fabulous place, and we're enjoying fabulous weather. The food is indescribably good: full multi-course breakfast, no need for lunch, cream tea (scones & clotted cream, two or three cakes, shortbread, digestives, etc., etc.), nibbles before dinner, then dinner is a four course extravaganza that can be stretched to six without any trouble: a starter (with about six different options, one of which is selections from the hors d'oeuvre trolley), the fish course, main course, and dessert.
For dessert, you get a choice of the "hot" dessert or anything from the dessert trolley. I picked the "hot" dessert this evening: Treacle Tart with Crème Anglais.
In a word, scrumptious. Yes, there is a resemblance to the non-pecan portions of a pecan pie, but there's more to a treacle tart than that. It had a richer, more interesting flavor, and the crème anglais was more than just a custard-y sauce. It was the deepest golden cream color and had flecks of vanilla seeds in it. Together, they were perfect.
No book should be ashamed to be rated a treacle tart, if by treacle tart one meant what I ate tonight.
No boeuf en croute so far, but lashing of Cornish clotted cream at virtually every meal.
Oh, and how do you stretch the meal to seven courses? Have the nibbles (crisps, olives & nuts) as an aperitif, then the starter, fish course, entrée, dessert, cheese trolley (with grapes, savory biscuits & chutney), and coffee with chocolate truffles. We've only managed five so far; there simply isn't room for the nibbles AND the chocolates.
(Betty) Magdalen
For dessert, you get a choice of the "hot" dessert or anything from the dessert trolley. I picked the "hot" dessert this evening: Treacle Tart with Crème Anglais.
In a word, scrumptious. Yes, there is a resemblance to the non-pecan portions of a pecan pie, but there's more to a treacle tart than that. It had a richer, more interesting flavor, and the crème anglais was more than just a custard-y sauce. It was the deepest golden cream color and had flecks of vanilla seeds in it. Together, they were perfect.
No book should be ashamed to be rated a treacle tart, if by treacle tart one meant what I ate tonight.
No boeuf en croute so far, but lashing of Cornish clotted cream at virtually every meal.
Oh, and how do you stretch the meal to seven courses? Have the nibbles (crisps, olives & nuts) as an aperitif, then the starter, fish course, entrée, dessert, cheese trolley (with grapes, savory biscuits & chutney), and coffee with chocolate truffles. We've only managed five so far; there simply isn't room for the nibbles AND the chocolates.
(Betty) Magdalen
A cheese board! I demand a cheese board!
ReplyDeleteI have a question about clotted cream. What is it like? I'm imagining soft butter...
ReplyDeleteBetty Debbie -- Okay, take the thickest cream you've ever had, way thicker than conventional "heavy cream" is in the US. That's called "double cream" here and it's so thick you can pour it like a sauce over dessert -- lovely.
ReplyDeleteOkay, now imagine it even thicker -- it's still cream (not at all buttery) but spreadable. That's clotted cream.
I will put together a package for you of scones (pronounced here as sconns with a short o sound, rhyming with dons), clotted cream, English strawberry jam, and proper chocolate digestives so that you can approximate a cream tea. Yumm.
Spreadable cream...mmm...sounds like it goes right up in the pantheon of things like bacon(as in: everything is better with bacon)which are delightful and decadent at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI'm taking the train down to Betty Keira's near the end of the month...we'll have to have a cream tea then.
When is your cream tea? I'll get that package together.
ReplyDelete(As I was unable to do before we left for England -- my apologies in particular to Betty Janet, who has ten (!) Betty Neels still sitting on a table in my house in Pennsylvania.)
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
ReplyDeleteI'm going down to Betty Keira's on the 30th...
That reminds me - can you get your review of Fate is Remarkable written up by then? That will give Betty Keira and I a couple of days to tart it up (with pictures) and get a discussion thread started. We plan on posting it April 5th.
Not a problem -- will get a care package off to you this week, and will write up the review before the 30th.
ReplyDelete