This recipe for Eton Mess is part of my self-improvement project to familiarize myself with Great Britain. You’d think I’d I know stuff from all those books and movies and TV shows. Sadly, having only spent three short days in London quite some time ago I am woefully ignorant.
The little first-hand experience I gleaned was taking in the latest Alan Ayckbourn comedy followed by dinner at The Ivy; a posh (correct usage?) lunch at Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy followed by a brief stroll through some gardens around Kensington. A look at some Lucien Freuds at the Tate and a peek into the Liberty of London shop constitute the entire itinerary so the answer to any “Have you ever been to (fill in the blank)” questions is an unqualified no.
What’s so irritating is I never get those casually tossed-off references intended to be so telling. When Lady Sybil Crawley runs off with Branson, why was it even more intolerable b/c they went to – gasp – Gretna Green? Just what is wrong with being from Essex? How to calibrate the rankings of Shropshire vs. Oxfordshire? Snudgebury vs. Upper Frotting? Portobellow or Pimlico? What’s up with naff, toff, chav, codswallop, dekko, yob? Do nice people say these things?
Recently my L.A. pals Roger and Michael, proprietors of the glamorously chic Grace Home, treated me to dinner at Soho House. Our dessert of Eton Mess trumped the numerous celebrity sightings. When a plate of food is more exciting than proximity to Channing Tatum that’s saying something.
Berries blended with whipped cream and meringue is the general gist of things. I turned to online research to come up with this adaptation. But all the usual sites call for store-bought meringues, which certainly won’t do here at Spectactular Delicious. Perhaps homemade meringue is a terrible faux pas, a Yank vulgarity that would cast shame on the tables of the Earl of Grantham or Lady Marchmain. Well tough titties Nanny Bloor, America’s a free country.
Enough already. Click here for the Spectacularly Delicious recipe for Eton Mess.
BONUS — SpecD’s essential Brit-Lit reading list:
Redeeming Features: A Memoir, Nicky Haslam
Snobs, Julian Fellowes
Nasty: My Family and Other Glamorous Varmints, Simon Doonan
Smut: Stories, Alan Bennet
Wait for Me!: Memoirs, Deborah Mitford, the Duchess of Devonshire (Nazi apologia alert)
