milk in tea, and drinking lake water


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Posted by Ed Kiser on August 28, 2003 at 16:39:56 from 152.163.252.103 user Kisered.

P237, CHAPTER 22, SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS

So hot grog it was and served in large tots. No tea with milk
ever tasted better than this hot milkless tea on Wild Cat Island
while the first sunlight was creeping down from the tops of the
opposite hills. But it was so hot and the Amazons were in such a
hurry to be off that Peggy was sent down to the landing-place
for a bottle full of cold water to cool the grog with.

=====================

This excerpt is the time of the Amazon surrender to the Swallows,
their acknowledgement that the Swallow is the flagship. The
Amazons, properly, are in bed asleep, so they are in a bit of a
hurry to get back home, and get into bed so they can be there to
be "awakened" to come down to breakfast. It is the dawn hour,
but if they hurry, they will get back before the natives at
Beckfoot are stirring. This need to hurry does not allow for
their hot tea to cool to a managable temperature at a normal
rate, so the raw lake water is used to cool it.

On this board are represented quite an assortment of people which
have quite a diversity of culture, customs, and habits.

For me, the concept of putting MILK into tea strikes me as
something that I would never do. I did try it, and just did not
care for it at all. Yet I understand that in other parts of the
world, especially in Ransome's world, to have to drink tea
without milk was decidedly roughing it if not uncivilized. It
seems to be a dominant concept in his stories that wherever they
go, it is very necessary to establish contact with the locals in
order to procure a reliable source of milk so they can have their
tea. I seldom see the Ransome characters drinking milk as just
milk, although sometimes it is used to mix with cocoa powder to
make a type of hot chocolate drink.

In the quoted paragraph above, it captured my attention for two
reasons:

FIRST, the circumstances had them enjoying tea even
without any milk, which is rather exceptional for these people.


SECOND, their source of water being the lake, the making of
tea at least has that water being boiled before drinking it, and
yet in this quote, we see them using lake water, UNBOILED, to
cool their milkless tea to help expedite the drinking of the hot
tea.

While boiling water can kill certain undesirable contents in lake
water, there is also the possible presence of certain chemical
pollutants that boiling will not remove. Perhaps the quality of
the water in those days was not a problem. I wonder about the
advisability of drinking the water from any of these lakes in the
District.

Ed Kiser, South Florida



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