How to eat a scone and other foodie foibles

CELEBRITY chef Nigella Lawson created a stir at a recent Sydney Opera House appearance and it was all over how to eat a scone.

JAM or cream first? Nigella Lawson has divided foodies with her views on the right way to eat a scone.

She confessed to a Sydney Opera House audience that she’s a “cream first, jam second” devotee and it was met with head-shaking disbelief from the crowd of 2600. It also prompted a spirited defence from the British cook, TV host and author in an hilarious exchange with show host Annabel Crabb.

“In England, there’s huge arguments going on about when you have scones, should you have the cream first or the jam first? If you’re from Devon … you would put the cream first and then the jam. And in Cornwall you put the jam first and then the cream,” Lawson said.

This is the only way to eat a scone, according to Nigella Lawson.

Her confession that “although more Cornish than Devonian, I do the cream first”, prompted a ripple of laughing protest from the audience before Lawson cut through with an explanation.

She said clotted cream was “really like a version of butter and you put it on what is really like a quick bread”.

“It’s much easier to put the jam on top. If you put the jam first and then you try to put the cream on, you drag the jam, whereas the cream is heavier.”

Australian celebrity chef Matt Moran sat with Lawson at dinner on Thursday night, and confessed this morning had he known about her scone food foible, they might have disagreed over dessert.

“You don’t put butter on top of Vegemite,” he said, outing himself as a jam-first-on-scones man.

“That’s how my grandmother served them and you don’t mess with your grandmother.”

My date tonight @Nigella_Lawson @CHISWICKSydney #foodies #sydney #nigella pic.twitter.com/tVdk0wPXFb

— Matt Moran (@chefmattmoran) January 21, 2016

Moran added that tomato sauce belonged on top of a meat pie, not in it, and that tomato sauce lived in the fridge “although God knows there’s so much vinegar and sugar in it, it can last anywhere”.

HIS OTHER FOOD FOIBLES?

“Vegemite in the pantry; pineapple belongs in fruit salad and has no place on pizza; and prawns must be deveined, and served with tails on because that’s the handle.”

He said beetroot was a mandatory part of any Australian hamburger — which, incidentally is always built with the meat and onion on the bottom.

Moran offered to discuss that matter further — or, more accurately, not discuss it “because when it comes to these things, there’s no science to it, we just all think we’re right” — over a cuppa — “but only if the hot water goes in first”.

Originally published as How to eat a scone and other foodie foibles