If you are visiting the West Country in England, there is one thing you should know. It is compulsory to eat cream tea in Cornwall and Devon. Seriously.
Cream tea is scones with jam and clotted cream and proper black tea in a teapot. In Australia we usually call this ‘Devonshire tea’ but this is wrong on two counts. Firstly, there is great dispute between Cornwall and Devon over who first invented the artery-clogging afternoon tea, so some might argue it should be called ‘Cornish tea’. (Just as there is now dispute between the two counties over the origins of Cornish pasties, and between Australia and New Zealand over pavlova). Secondly, the key to cream tea is that it is made with clotted cream. Whipped cream is just not the same.
Clotted cream is made by cooking the cream to reduce the liquid, and it is thick and yellowy, often with crusty bits. It tastes quite different to butter and doesn’t have the same melting properties. A scoop of clotted cream looks like vanilla ice cream, but unlike ice cream or whipped cream, you can serve it with hot apple pie (for example) and it won’t melt.
When I went to Cornwall, I was told a legend about the origins of clotted cream. The story goes that a Phoenician sea king who had been blown off course taught the secret of clotted cream to a Cornish housewife. This may even contain a kernel of truth since the Lebanese and Turks still make something very similar today. But, apparently there is another legend from Devon, involving a princess who lived in an oak tree and some ‘piskies’.
Cream tea is to be found all over Cornwall and Devon. This one (eaten yesterday) is from a little tea house in a village in Dartmoor, Devon. My favourite places are farm houses that serve homemade cream teas during the summer, but the tea rooms in the towns are not bad either. I have had cream tea in other parts of the country as well but it’s not the same – in the Cotswolds it felt like a honey trap for the tour buses and American tourists. It was lovely in Yorkshire but it was a full meal with sandwiches as well.
I do believe it’s a crime to go to Cornwall or Devon and not partake of at least one cream tea. But a mini cream tea is definitely allowed – the serves tend to be generous and it’s all rather filling and fattening.
Strictly speaking a traditional Cornish cream tea is served with Cornish yeast splits not scones, although scones are far more common these days. Here’s a link to a recipe for Cornish splits: http://www.foodfromcornwall.co.uk/showrecipes.php?recipetypeid=7
Ooh, that sounds fab – thanks for the link. I didn’t know this – I always got scones when I was in Cornwall. I’ll have to try this. – Caitlin