It’s the ultimate British summer question and now we have another royal entry in the debate. And it’s seen the holder of one of the oldest titles associated with the Royal Family take a very definite side in a situation that perplexes many.
As she joined a tea party to mark the 75th anniversary of the National Health Service, the Duchess of Cornwall revealed she always puts jam on her scone first which is only appropriate as that is the Cornish way of doing things.
Catherine explained that the jam sits better underneath the cream as she chatted over this most important of topics with TV star, Mel Giedroyc, as they got ready to celebrate three quarters of a century of the NHS.
Prince William went full bloke and opted ”for whatever is nearest” first which, actually, is a not an answer but let’s leave that there and move on.
For those wondering what on earth the British are talking about now, scones and cream and jam are a major issue. Every summer, not to mention early autumn and quite possibly late spring (depending on the weather but that would take this into British eccentricity overload), people around the land engage in conversation about how to prepare a scone for a cream tea. Stop rolling your eyes over there, this is important.
There are two schools of thought centred around the creation of the perfect cream tea. The scone is involved in both of them but is really a kind of walk on. It sits on the plate waiting for the row to begin. Next to it is a bowl of jam (strawberry, please) and a bowl of clotted cream. And then the row begins. For, depending on which side of the Tamar you come from, what happens next is crucial.
In Devon, on goes the cream, right on top of the scone. And then you take the jam and spread that across the cream. You can work out what comes next but in the interests of fairness, let’s expand. In Cornwall, the jam is placed on top of the scone and then the cream lies on top of the jam. If you still don’t know just how important this is, had Twitter been around in the 18th century, this is what the hashtags would have been about.
In fact, there may well be arguments raging on social media right now because, for some reason, it actually matters. And the reason it matters is that once you have decided which way you create your scone, you never deviate and, very quickly, you begin to wonder why anyone would do it the other way because it’s just bizarre to rotate your jam/ cream spread.
It was something of a relief to find that the Duchess of Cornwall goes full Cornish when preparing scones, especially as the Duke of Cornwall was just mainlining them and looking for the cakes. Can you imagine the controversy if neither of them had back the method of the land of St. Piran? With the Presentation of the Honours of Scotland just around the corner, this wasn’t the time to be starting rows about scones. Not unless you wanted to find yourself at the centre of another baseless debate about whether you are trying to steal attention from the very essence of a constitutional monarchy, this time by eating and doing something jolly in support of a service that has saved lives for seven and a half decades now.
And Devon doesn’t need to despair. A garden party at Buckingham Palace not that long ago served scones with the cream first. No doubt, at some point, we will get a royal entry in the Devon camp (quite possibly Louis in about ten years’ time when he’s a teenager and got the hump about being told not to climb the columns of the Palace balcony during Trooping after yet another scene stealing show). Until then, Cornwall’s duchess has flown the (black and white) flag and the ultimate British summer conversation just got a whole new boost.
