The Conspiracy of Cream Teas

Now, we know that more than most people in this world I love a cream tea. I dream of them, I seek them out wherever I go, I champion them … I obsess. But even through my clotted cream coloured glasses I know in my heart that there is a cream tea conspiracy.

Just think about what a cream tea contains. Scones – flour, butter, sugar, eggs, processed fruit if you are lucky.. Combine this with high sugar jam.. and then you have the clotted cream – I just looked at the typical nutritional value of a tub of clotted cream and it is 97% fat, 3% carbs… essentially no nutritional value whatsoever. Clotted cream = heart attack. That is the only sensible conclusion I can draw from this. And as you eat your scones you wash it down with tea, the least you could do is drink skimmed milk and avoid sugar but no, we all take it that little bit too far don’t we, pouring thick whole fat milk into our tea so it goes all creamy and pale. What gluttony.

A cream tea is high fat, high calorie, low nutritional food and yet we see it as something dignified, indulgent yes, but not frowned down upon. Yet if you caught me unwrapping a large donner kebab with garlic sauce and onions you would wrinkle your nose and lecture me upon the calories. Lets get some perspective here, clotted cream is 97% fat!! Its packing more calories than a sara lee gateaux and a dominoes meat feast combined (okay that’s a lie) but how come if you witnessed me leaving dominoes you would raise an eyebrow and go ‘oh..sarah you pig’ and I would feel shame wash over me. Yet when you see me trowling clotted cream into my gob you smile and say ‘oh how dignified, how delightful, how civilised!’ It’s madness!

Cream teas are my little partners in crime, my conspirator against all those super healthy eaters out there. I like to think I eat well, it is certainly perceived by others that I am a healthy eater so when I wish to indulge the safe option is the cream tea. Admitting I ate a gingsters pasty followed by a kit kat chunky would evoke disgust in my colleagues. I know this so I hide behind the glamour of the cream tea. Long live the conspiracy and long live my greed.