On the rascal run

A new book celebrates 100 years of Bettys tea rooms through the people, the places – and memorable menus of this tasty institution

- Kathryn Armstrong

Writer Annie Gray has fulfilled an ambition many of us can only dream of. A day spent eating her way through the menu in each of the Bettys tea rooms in Yorkshire.

Where to start? For Annie, it's a cup of Blue Mountain coffee and cinnamon toast at the iconic Bettys in St Helen’s Square, York.

Annie has written From The Alps To The Dales: 100 Years Of Bettys which is essentially a social history telling the story of this tea-cakes-and-gentility business as it celebrates 100 years in Yorkshire.

Annie’s ‘rascal run’ or ‘Bettys crawl’, call it what you will, reveals the essence of these magical tea rooms.

Just as Alan Bennett is so good at the wry observation of Yorkshire folk at play, food historian Annie gets the measure of the appeal of Bettys as she travels from York to Northallerton, Ilkley to Harlow Carr and to Harrogate, taking the temperature not only of tasty rarebit but of the ingredients that meld this unique business.

Annie is a no stranger to a fat rascal. A research associate at the University of York, she found much student sustenance behind the steamed-up windows at Bettys. Now she is a resident food historian on Radio 4’s Kitchen Cabinet with Jay Rayner and author of a number of books, the Official Downton Abbey Cookbook among them.