Roaming foodie Natasha Al-Atassi explains why good ol’ British childhood party food can taste just as scrumptious, even when you’re an adult. Yum yum…

“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Isn’t that what good old Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz? Well, my thoughts are, if she said it, it must be true.

I could travel the lengths and breadths of the globe, eat crocodile in Kenya, shark in Thailand and chicken hearts in Brazil but there really isn’t another place quite like home. And one of the main reasons for this, is of course, its food.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Now it would all be lovely if we came home to Aunt Bessie’s cooking every night. Such is not always the case, but you don’t need to live with Gordon Ramsay to enjoy proper English fodder. And as much as I love a proper steak-and-ale pie or bangers and mash, my absolute favourite meal to enjoy when at home has to be ‘Party Tea’.

Party Tea is more than just party rings and jelly babies (though it can quite happily – and should – accommodate both)! It is our British tradition of putting everything unhealthy in bite-sized pieces for consumption of mountainous proportions. There are many variants of Party Tea: some enjoy cucumber sandwiches, some like their mini cheese and onion pasties, some particularly love Mr Kipling’s french fancies.

But my favourite variant has to be Mr S’s family’s classic Party Tea. Thrown belatedly for my birthday, I was overwhelmed by the surprise (and the food). In tiered cake stands were mounds of muffins, marshmallow tea cakes and frosted fairy cakes. Triangle sandwiches neatly rested on top of each other in delicate displays, cheese straws stood tall in glasses and bowls of jelly, Angel Delight and all things delicious greeted me with shiny, effervescent and luminous pleasure. Yum. It wasn’t before long that I tucked into the many mini pizzas, scoffed a few cocktail sausages and eaten my way through cake after jelly after mousse after biscuit. But it was all totally worth it.

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD PARTIES RE-LIVED

None of it spells out ‘healthy choice’ but all of it remains a nostalgic reminder of childhood parties that we all wished we could still enjoy. Well, I might not be a child anymore but I’m glad to say that this is one English tradition I will never grow out of. Bring on the plate of sausage rolls, bacon crisps and cheese-and-pineapple cocktail-sticks, I say. The super brilliance of the foodie surprise with the sentimental comfort of being at home made this a birthday I was rather glad to endure.

Now I just have to figure out a way to greedily enjoy Party Tea without the added years.

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