With sleeves streaming behind me, I walked through town wearing my flowing black gown: I was going to Formal Hall. The sleeves are rectangular, flaring slightly outward, hanging down to my ankles when I am standing still, sewn shut to form a pocket -- a perfect place to stash a bottle or two. My arms come out of sleeve about a third of the way down the sleeve. This is not peculiar; it is simply what we do in Cantabrigia, where ceremony and tradition are taken very seriously.
Formal Hall is a four to five course dinner, with wine, and occasionally port, served strictly by candlelight, in our extraordinarily ornamented, ancient, and cavernous Hall at Peterhouse. There are three lengths of long tables going down the Hall. At the head of the hall is the High Table, which is oriented perpendicular to the other long tables, and reserved only for the Master and Fellows and their guests. On the walls of the Hall are magnificent stained glass windows, portraits and crests of the college's founders and significant benefactors gazing at us as we dine. Academic gowns are mandatory for Petreans dining at the Peterhouse Formal Hall. All the other colleges of Cambridge also have Formal Hall, may they be in even grander Halls or austerely-modern ones.
Saint John's Hall (bottom) vs. St. Edmund's' Hall (top)
In the time that I have been here, I have re-established my pantry, which was hard work for someone who is as obsessed with food as I am; I have bought a bike; I have bought my gown; I have lost one of my two bike keys; I have had a Chelsea Bun; I have locked myself out of my room after taking a shower, and had to break into it by jumping in through the window; I have discovered that marzipan in the UK is dirt cheap (only 73p!); I have had good puddings; I have had horrible puddings; I roasted a chicken; I made broth out of the remains of the chicken; I have reduced said broth down to a concentrated base; I have had the best figs ever.
While I may have done a lot so far, there are still more things to do. For example, I want to attend Formal Hall at EVERY SINGLE ONE of the 31 colleges in Cambridge. So far, I have only succeeded in Formal Halls at Peterhouse. I go to Downing is this week...and Christ next month.
