Talk:Eton mess

Edit to "Eton mess"
Hi, this article was recently edited "Eton mess" to state that Eton College's annual "Fourth of June" prize-giving celebration picnic is actually celebrated on the last Wednesday in May. Does anyone have a reference for this? If not, the edit might have to be reverted for being unreferenced. &mdash; Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 18:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the 2008 Fourth of June [certainly will be], and it was on the last Wednesday in May every year I was there (1993-1998). That probably counts as original research, doesn't it? The Eton [glossary] says it's "a gala day as near as practicable to the actual date", and [this page] claims it's "always held on the Wednesday closest to the 4th June". However, the actual 4th of June falls on a Wednesday in 2008, and yet the Fourth of June is a week before, so I think "the last Wednesday in May" is more accurate (this also happened in 1997). Anyway, it should be clear that the Fourth of June is not the same thing as June 4! Ladislav the Posthumous (talk) 23:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for inserting the references. Now, if only we can find a proper reference for the Labrador story – the website where I originally found it no longer seems to be working. &mdash; Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 03:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone have a reference / date for when, if ever, a similar dish was called Lancing Mess at Lancing College. I have never heard of this and I was at Lancing College from 1961 to 1967. Reddogbarking (talk) 01:29, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Other uses of "Eton mess"
I've found rather old sources that refer to "Eton mess" and "Eton mess jackets", but at the moment, it's premature to add them to the article. FWIW, here they are:
 * http://books.google.de/books?id=qkc1AAAAMAAJ&q=%22eton+mess+jacket%22&dq=%22eton+mess+jacket%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q2HMUtH3Bqm14ATumoDYDw&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAA refers to an "eton mess jacket".
 * http://books.google.de/books?id=gAICAAAAQAAJ&q=%22eton+mess%22&dq=%22eton+mess%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XmHMUpz7BYas4ATTyICACQ&redir_esc=y has the text "And Stortford was such a hindrance to all the grand plans himself; Meath believed he would really have liked their" mess to relapse into the ordinary type of Eton mess. In fact, at an early period he gave up trying to raise it to a higher standard" - that predates the earliest report of the desert linked in the article by two decades, so it seems to have some background that isn't yet explained. --Slashme (talk) 20:46, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Another one: In the Eton mess photograph, taken in 1889, in which Mr Eric Parker is one of the fag masters and I hold a kettle, no one has his trousers turned up. The same holds true for the college photograph of 1889; not even the wearers of white flannels were thus distinguished. --Slashme (talk) 21:06, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

"mess"
This word has been around in English since it was borrowed centuries ago from the French word "mets", meaning "dish (of food)", which explains why in the biblical book of Genesis Esau is said to have sold his "birthright" to his brother Jacob for a "mess of pottage": a (mere) dish of lentil stew. The Eton dish may have looked like a mess in the modern sense, but I wouldn't be surprised if the origin is quite simply archaic French-influenced English. The British military terms "mess tent" (where soldiers gathered to eat) and "officers' mess" are surely related to this.89.212.50.177 (talk) 16:20, 25 December 2017 (UTC)