The other day, I mentioned some baked goods I’d made during one of those endless weekends and immediately regretted it. By all appearances, my companion hadn’t quite registered the comment but I braced myself nonetheless. It was my own fault.
I’d said what it was I’d made or rather attempted to make, as it hadn’t proved to be an entirely successful endeavour, and the cat was now out of the bag.
You see, I’d uttered the word in the way my mother had done for all those years wandering in and out of the kitchen.
All those years, when my siblings and I would flit past the flour-covered table, entirely taking for granted all the wondrous delights in process thereon.
And somewhere in the middle of our comings and goings, it would, as often as not, register with Mam that not only was the oven on but that there was a free shelf lurking within, a circumstance which could warrant a squadron of UN troops to burst through the door and arrest all in sight.
So Mam would rustle together a batch of scones. That’s scone-as-in-gone and not scone-as-in-cone.
A scone-as-in-gone is a Northern phenomenon, by all accounts.
It’s their thing. And Mam came from Dundalk, a town close to the Border and inevitably influenced by their neighbours up the road.
Mind you, the “up” part of this argument, needs just the teeniest analysis, for as long as I can remember my mother and her friends and relations from the wonderful wee county would speak, without a hint of irony, of going “down the North”.
But back to the issue at hand. To this day I still say scone-as-in-gone. Not scone-as-in-cone. Maybe we could we leave it at that? And all just, you know, get along? No, sadly, we can’t. Because there is no more divisive and utterly tiresome discussion on this island than that related to the pronunciation of this product. So without further ado, let’s get to the main bone of contention. I know we’re all thinking it. The posh issue. Which generally comes into play pretty much from the off.
Middle England
I know I’ve wielded it on occasion, tossing the “scone-as-in-cone” scenario into a very BBC middle-England kind of mix.
I’ve equally been the recipient of the “scone-as-in-gone” equivalent being tossed into, now that I come to think of it, a very BBC middle-England kind of mix. Odd that. How has such a lowly item come to be viewed by opposing groups in such similar ways? It’s not as though the item itself is in any way posh. Or fancy. Or even a little bit ritzy. It’s not a lemon tart or an eclair or a macaroon. Nor has it any formal relationship with any number of its sophisticated, continental contemporaries.
Just a scone
It’s just a scone, and at this point, let’s allow the word to ricochet around our linguistic cortices in whatever form it likes – the uncomplicated product of flour, milk, sugar and butter with added optional extras. Yet within the past few decades, this rudimentary concoction has as good as developed notions, no doubt, related to the advent of afternoon tea, where it has come to colonise an area between sandwiches and cake – a kind of gateway from the savoury to sweet but not definitively associated with either.
And that’s taking into account the application of both jam and cream, a relatively recent culinary development, as for years previously, butter alone was seen as sufficient.
And butter on scones straight out of the oven is worth an assault over any legions of hot coals. But once again, we digress. Jam then cream. Cream then jam. Therein lies a whole other dilemma, with scone aficionados entrenched in their own particular corners.
However, let’s not even countenance a debate here as the cream then jam scenario defies not only the laws of natural physics but of civilisation, itself. At which point, it is time to take our hat off to the scone.
For such an innocuous, traditional fare, it most definitely knows a thing or two when it comes to courting controversy.
It certainly puts those lemon tarts and eclairs and macaroons firmly in the shade. They’re practically pacifist in comparison. And ridiculously so into the bargain. As for my companion and their reaction to what I’d let slip? There was only one option. A quick change of subject to current political machinations. A less contentious matter. By far the easier way to go.