Nourishing eating — Tudor style

Press, 11 April 1979, Page 19

Nourishing eating — Tudor style

The Tudors were great eaters. A day’s hunting was .a wonderful thing for working up an appetite, and when a host offered bed and board he meant just that — a board slung be tween two barrels or bales, groaning with food, and a bed for the night. The Tudors liked simple nourishing food, especially spit-roasted meats, pickles, pies and fresh bread. Vegetables were regarded as peasant food by the landed gentry. New herbs and spices were beginning to trickle into England from the Continent. Rosemary, mustard and cinnamon were seized on enthusiastically, as were the new drinks — tea, coffee and chocolate. ft is against this background of tradition that Mike and Pam Vickers have launched their Tudor tea rooms at Winslow,

just 9km south of Ashburton on State Highway One

“Tudor House” is well known to travellers, with its distinctive Tudor design, eye-catching black-and-white exterior and leaded glass windows. It is the travelling public which is most likely to benefit from the tea rooms.

“We think, there is a great opportunity here to meet the needs of travellers, particularly overseas tourists who want something more than Formica and stinless steel palaces,” Mr Vickers said.

“My wife and I want Tudor House ’to be a place where they cin stop for a simple but nourishing meal in surroundings which will give them something good to talk about once they have left.”

The Vickers want to create a traditional Tudor atmosphere for visitors. Hence, the 40-seater dining room is outfitted with wooden tables built to a Tudor design, with wooden floor. low ceiling and leaded windows. The walls are festooned with bottles, earthenware and other memorabilia — here a chastity belt, there a post horn. And the “Inglenook” fireplace is indeed big enough to roast a pig in. The couple have gone to great lengths to ensure tha: the victualling fits in with the decor.

“We have arranged for much of the food to be provided by firms which specialise in the kind of thing we want” Mr Vickers said. “We will be doing a certain amount of cooking and baking ourselves initially, and this is

something which we hope to expand as we go along.”

There are no hamburgers, no fish and chips, no prawn cocktails. But there is pork pie from the pantry: spicey pie with pickles, and there are turkey drumsticks, English ploughman’s lunches and Devonshire teas. The tea and coffee is served in a generous mug and the chocolate in goblets.

“The sort of light, simple meal a traveller wants,” Mr Vickers said.

And, in keeping with the house theme, the “serving wenches” will be dressed in traditional Tudor dress. But it is not all for the traveller. Mr Vickers said he hoped the Tudor House would attract local people for casual meals either individually or in small groups.

In fact there is aj supper room which can act either as overflow for th£ 1 - main dining room or as a separate and more intimate eating space for smaller groups.

Mr Vickers said he thought there was scope for the house to be used as a venue for meetings of service and social clubs — “any small gathering which needs a small meeting room with a light supper afterwards.”