Start Date
1-6-2022 11:45 AM
End Date
1-6-2022 12:00 PM
Description
The relationship between rambling and food in Britain in the 1930s is explored through the weekly newspaper column Rambling Notes by W. E. Hopkin, head of a ramblers group based around Ripley, Nottinghamshire. Hopkin describes the previous Sunday’s day-hike, and the shared meals with 15-25 other ramblers. British ramblers carried minimal food in their knapsacks, preferring to eat in pubs, and tearooms with signs that read: “Tea and Hot Water Provided.” ‘Tea’ refers both to the meal – sandwiches and cakes – and also the drink. The huge influx of ramblers into the countryside in the 1930s triggered a growth in tearooms, often improvised in farmhouses and private homes. Hopkin’s descriptions of communal meals locate tearooms as sites for creating and maintaining social relations and identities. The symbolic role of food in rambling is examined through the notions of conviviality, commensality, and hospitality. The tea experience was central to the conviviality of the ramble, creating social bonds between diverse rambling group members, reinforced by the commensality of eating and talking together, and the imagined traditional values of the English countryside embodied in the tearoom hostess, welcoming travelers back to an idealized rural past of abundant authentic food and farmhouse comforts.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21427/jatt-ze20
“Tea and Hot Water Provided”: Conviviality, Commensality, and Hospitality in the Rambling Notes of W.E. Hopkin 1930-1940
The relationship between rambling and food in Britain in the 1930s is explored through the weekly newspaper column Rambling Notes by W. E. Hopkin, head of a ramblers group based around Ripley, Nottinghamshire. Hopkin describes the previous Sunday’s day-hike, and the shared meals with 15-25 other ramblers. British ramblers carried minimal food in their knapsacks, preferring to eat in pubs, and tearooms with signs that read: “Tea and Hot Water Provided.” ‘Tea’ refers both to the meal – sandwiches and cakes – and also the drink. The huge influx of ramblers into the countryside in the 1930s triggered a growth in tearooms, often improvised in farmhouses and private homes. Hopkin’s descriptions of communal meals locate tearooms as sites for creating and maintaining social relations and identities. The symbolic role of food in rambling is examined through the notions of conviviality, commensality, and hospitality. The tea experience was central to the conviviality of the ramble, creating social bonds between diverse rambling group members, reinforced by the commensality of eating and talking together, and the imagined traditional values of the English countryside embodied in the tearoom hostess, welcoming travelers back to an idealized rural past of abundant authentic food and farmhouse comforts.