Rutherford's world cuisine is not structured as starter-main-dessert but around a few rituals that punctuate the British day: the hearty breakfast (with its marmalade and tea), the main dinner centered around a roasted "joint" of meat, the afternoon tea (black tea, scones, cake) inaugurated into Cambridge university life, and the college supper taken together in the Trinity dining hall. To this is added, during his Canadian years at McGill, the fortifying soup of Quebec winters. Dishes are not ranked: they are distributed in time and according to social function.

A thread throughout Rutherford's life: afternoon tea, "indispensable" at Cambridge, accompanied laboratory conversations and snacks. Strongly brewed black tea served with milk is the signature ingredient that connects his native New Zealand, Canada, and England — the whole Empire drank the same brew.