Resonating Words

Although it is a Kuwaiti tradition to gather for sipping tea in the morning or after lunch, it was not something that my father encouraged us to do. He would refer to tea and coffee as the drinks of the weak and those that were not health conscious. As his children we were better off taking a daily spoon of honey, cod liver oil, spirulina tablets and molasses (sometimes).

My mother still introduced the tea with milk ritual with biscuits dips. But, I  was on my father’s health conscious team and decided I could do without caffeine. However, when we moved to London in my early teens I had a different indulgence. On random afternoons my mother and I would select a cafe for an after shopping, peaceful, afternoon tea. When I would drink my preferred Earl Grey tea accompanied by finger sandwiches and awaited scones, jam and clotted cream.

It is in these outings that I first discovered the notion of cucumber sandwiches. When I first saw my first one I wondered if something was the matter with the waiter. “Where is the cheese?” I wondered. “How can anything be eaten without it?” We had all sorts of cheese blended with all sorts of fillings and at times seemed more primal than the toast keeping it all in. I was willing to eat cheese with cucumber and miss the toast but not the cucumber without cheese. It is interesting to find that our eating habits can be so linked to our expectation and food satisfaction. I felt that something was essentially missing. I could not imagine such a combination, but after giving it an open minded taste I rather enjoyed the experience and cucumber sandwiches were my first catch in all future finger sandwich assortments.