"Tea with Miss Rose"

One of the many benefits of researching the history of teatime is that you also get to learn about some of the more fascinating women in history. That was certainly the case as I read the 2002 book "Tea with Miss Rose: Recipes & Reminiscences of Boston's Teacup Society" by Elizabeth W. Driscoll and Elaine Negroponte.

The inspiration for this book was Rose Standish Nichols, one of the so-called Boston Brahmins and — of importance to those of us who love gardening — the first female landscape architect in America. Rose was a lover of teatime not so much because she was a fan of tea and crumpets as because she saw the tea party as "her personal theater," according to an essay in the book by Belinda Rathbone. A very well-educated woman, Rose liked to host teas where guests of different beliefs were included. Rathbone says, "She would invite an arch conservative, like William Loeb, editor of the Manchester Union Leader, with a nice young Harvard student who happened to be a communist, and sort of steer them toward each other … Controversy was her spice." Rose didn't stir up things just to stir up things, however. She wanted these guests to find their common ground and be able to make peace. (Let's just send Congress home and try this in America today. Amen?)

Rose sounds like quite an intriguing lady, and while she never cooked for or ate at her own tea parties (imagine!), her cook and housekeeper Mary King did, and some of these recipes have been preserved and adapted for use at teatime today. The book includes suggested menus for six different teas, including A Beacon Hill Tea, A Cornish Tea, A European Tea, A Kitchen Tea, Tea in Bed (that's where Rose liked to take tea), and A Christmas Tea. You'll find treats such as Broccoli Sandwiches, Nunn's Puffs, and Emerald Ice, a beverage whose ingredients include mint jelly, tea, lime juice, and carbonated water. There's also a recipe for Souffled Crackers, which is said to turn "a basic common cracker into an airy frugal treat, comparable to puff pastry in appearance and texture." The book also has some fine quotes sprinkled throughout, my favorite of which comes from a 1996 book, "The Nature of Massachusetts," and says, "Proper Boston women, it was said, liked getting old. Abolitionist Julie Ward Howe, who wrote 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' and lived to be ninety-one, believed that aging was like a cup of tea: the sugar was at the bottom." If you haven't read it yet, I definitely recommend you find a copy of "Tea with Miss Rose" and learn about a very different kind of Boston tea party!