This month, Sarah Merker completed an unusual, decade-long quest: sampling scones at 244 National Trust historic sites across Britain. The journey, which led to a popular blog and the book “The National Trust Book of Scones,” has transformed her into a kind of national celebrity.
Scones have deep roots in Britain. Recipes for them have been printed as early as 1669, and the word scone appears in customs paperwork from 1480. But it wasn’t until the early 19th century that the country’s “slight irrational obsession” with them developed in earnest and they came to be associated with the custom of “afternoon tea,” according to food historians.
Fractious disputes about scones rage on: Do you say “skon” or “skohn”? Is it acceptable to serve fruit scones at a cream tea, or only plain ones? And which goes first, the jam or the clotted cream? (Merker long avoided weighing on the jam-or-cream debate before admitting this month that she is “jam-first” to avoid making a mess.)
Recipe: These classic English scones taste best straight out of the oven.
New York Times
