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The curse of believing you are right
Having some expertise is definitely helpful when arguing a case, but that is not necessarily true for being convinced that you are right
Few pastries are as controversial as the British delicacy known as the scone. This is a small round cake, consumed with the clotted cream and strawberry jam as an essential part of the cream tea, popular in the southwest of England. However, aside from a trivial difference of opinion about its pronunciation, the question about the right way of eating it has long been provoking heated debate, with no obvious hope for reaching a definitive conclusion or even a consensus. Why is this, and is there a way out?
The primacy of jam and cream
In the county of Devon, after splitting the scone (pronounced so it rhymes with ‘gone’), both halves are first covered with clotted cream, with a dollop of strawberry jam on top. Further south in Cornwall, however, the jam is spread on the split scone (rhyming with ‘stone’) first, and is then topped with clotted cream. Both sides argue strongly for the superiority of their method. The Devonians assert that the cream prevents the jam from penetrating the loose crumbs of the cut scone. The Cornish contend that it is precisely the jam sinking into the crumb that…
