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Our Dialect Report from 1962 (see it at https://devonassoc.org.uk/dvp62 – scroll down below the map) contains an interesting twist on the Devon vs. Cornwall, jam or cream first debate.
To quote:
“In South Devon the correct way to serve a chudley is to butter it, then use jam with a thick layer of cream on top. In North Devon the jam is placed on top of the cream.”This certainly accords with my experience as a child coming from Holsworthy – which I guess you could call North Devon. The ‘butter’ was the cream with the jam on top.
If you went into a cafe now and asked for a chudley, a tuff, or a cut-round, they wouldn’t know what you were talking about. I wonder when the change to the now ubiquitous scone took place?
I worked as a waiter in the Thatched Barn cafe in Croyde during my university summer vacations in 1966 and 1967, and I am fairly sure that the standard ‘Devon cream tea’ we offered then comprised scones and not cut-rounds. I wonder, was it that our market was tourists from well beyond Devon that caused scones to be offered and not the cut-rounds that I remembered from my childhood in the 1950s? If you pressed me, then I would put the change at around 1960. As point of interest, some of our customers were shocked that there was no butter on the tray we brought to the table!
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