Tea from the saucer/Laura Ingalls Wilder
Posted by Tess on January 21, 1998 at 03:27:15:
In response to Dish of tea?, written by Joyce on January 19, 1998 at 23:58:45
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie), mentions folks drinking tea from the saucer in Farmer Boy, her book about the boyhood of her husband Almanzo on a New York farm in, I believe, the 1860s or 70s. When Almanzo's sister Eliza Jane returns from boarding school, she complains to her mother about her father's pouring the tea into his saucer to cool it before drinking it, saying that "nice people" no longer did this. Eliza Jane is roundly scolded by her mother, who informs her that that had been the proper way to drink tea ever since tea had been around, and that Eliza Jane had picked up too many new-fangled notions at school!
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