#im addicted to food fics now i wont stop

[lumiereswig]

There’s a ritual to these things, a type of hymn, a kind of summoning in getting the tea to come right, the plates to stand properly, the spoons to shine like river water. Mrs. Potts always does this Sunday mornings, her own kind of private chapel, before the hubbub of where are my eggs and where is my hat and I’ve forgotten where I put my Sunday shoes. Getting the servants to church on a Sunday is like having a very large family; a scullery maid always needs help tying her shoes, another one is running late, and if Lumiere is up before noon everyone counts it a miracle. And church, Mrs. Potts reflects, is all good in its way; the stained glass windows, the bread and story, the people nodding hello as they come and go. But if she has to choose a way to make peace with her world, Mrs. Potts will always choose tea leaves and lace over sermon and prayer. 

She sets out special treats for Sunday mornings, small treasures friends have picked up for her on their travels. A merchant she met in the market once has sent sugared dates and figs in tiny candy-pink boxes written in languages she doesn’t know; an old school chum has packaged up sweetmeats and honey cakes with a little note reminding her of old pranks and jokes. Beatrix sets out cream and milk and sugar, buttered biscuits, raspberries and toffee. It is not the traditional spread her mother would have asked for, but she is pleased with this one she makes herself. The sweets she sets on doilies remind her of her friends, of that great hot world out there, of all the things she does not know.

“Is that—is that Turkish delight?” Cogsworth has come up on her in deadly silence, and Beatrix nearly leaps from her skin. No one has ever shared her ritual before. No one has ever been awake.

And then she sees the way he quivers over the soft sugar, and is about to poke the figs from his excitement, and she realizes he is the only one else in this palace who knows what a proper English tea is supposed to look like. Knows the joys of perfect plates, little spoons, the saucers like the gowns of curtsied ladies, the etiquette of pour and stir and sip.

She looks at him a long moment, eyes half frightened and half certain, and then asks him if he would like to join her.

He’s already sitting down, already whipping his napkin to his lap in a practiced motion, already reaching for the bowls.

“I love these little dates you have,” he says, “I can’t abide those awful squashy cakes they serve at home. Did they ever have those in Yorkshire? My mother insisted we have them, and dry as a bone they were mostly, except for this ridiculous frosting the cook would always add. Hated them. What a delight to see a proper tea.”

“I don’t know if my mother would call it proper,” says Beatrix bashfully, and “Nonsense,” says Cogsworth, “This tea reflects your soul. Hot and welcoming and are those raspberries?” 

They get caught up in the rhythm, Beatrix invoking the heady ritual of one sugar or two?, Henry responding with gleeful abandon a whispered three. Plates are passed, cups are poured, the food is spread and enjoyed with chuckles and murmurs of forbidden joy.

Turkish delights lead to talking, honey cakes to homesickness. They talk about the places they grew up, the English villages and towns, the primroses and misty mornings. Beatrix tells of tidy homes and little jokes; Henry asks after people they might know in common. For a minute, it is Yorkshire in the kitchen.

But then the bell chimes seven, and there is a rustle on the stairs, and the sounds of sleepy people across the palace rising and stretching and yawning and damn’ing and remembering that it is time to get up. With one motion Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts sweep away the feast, knick away the crumbs, until the only sign that there were such marvels as Turkish delight and hot sugared tea in the kitchen is the silver teapot sitting on the window ledge, newly washed and shining like a secret.

Mrs. Potts’s Sunday ritual is a chapel of two, after that. And no longer is the only trace of the great wide world in the cakes she sets out or the candies she eats—now it is in the conversation between her and her friend, as they chew on the world, talking their way towards home.