One of my most favourite of traditional English treats is cream tea – scones, clotted cream, jam and a generous pot of char. Upon my return to England I jumped at the chance to have one during my first weekend back; inevitably of course, it didn’t live up to my expectations, and certainly didn’t live up to the memory of that which I now call The Best Cream Tea Of My Life. For that illustrious occasion, we must travel back in time three years, to the summer of 2006…

I was in Devon, at a festival that one of my friends holds in his parents’ garden every year. My best friend (and foodie soul sister) Francesca was also there, and since after the festival finished we both had a few days to kill, we set off hitch-hiking around the area to see where fate would take us.

We ended up getting a lift with a local cabbie, who responded to our request of a free place to camp by dropping us off in a rather grim little wood, and rather further from civilisation than we had hoped. “Is there, err, a village nearby?” we asked nervously, to which, to our relief, the cabbie answered that Dittisham was but a half an hour walk away.

Thinking that we ought to get some supplies for our intended night in the wild, we started walking in the direction that our friend had pointed, laden with backpacks and camping equipment. It dawned on us that his estimation of ‘half an hour’ was somewhat flawed upon meeting some tourists walking the other way, who, with their satellite navigational system, informed us that it was rather longer than we had thought. Still, we were undeterred, seeing as the path was relatively flat and in the shade – a happy state that was soon to change as the trees cleared, the sun beat down upon our uncovered heads, and the landscape developed the contours of a roller-coaster.

All too soon we were sweaty, tired and emotional, but with our hopes lifted by the promise of a cafe in the village from people we met along the way, we soldiered on. TWO HOURS later, Fran and I stumbled, red-faced and exhausted, into what must be one of the most beautiful villages in England: stone cottages, winding empty lanes, and wisteria galore. Dazed by all this prettiness, we found the cafe, which was just as, if not more pretty than the village, and ordered a cream tea apiece.

I know that we didn’t expect much when we ordered (the cafe was staffed by teenagers), but that cream tea is without a doubt the best I have ever eaten, before or since. The scones were enormous and homemade, the jam too, and the clotted cream the most heavenly I have ever tasted. We ate on a terrace overlooking the harbour, the water dotted with brightly painted boats. The late afternoon sun shone on our flushed faces, and the green hills rolled around us in all directions. Fran and I kept bursting into laughter, it was so perfect.

Since that now infamous cream tea, I have tried on many occasions to replicate its glory, but with little success. For the time being, before I can go back to Dittisham, I will comfort myself with my own homemade attempts, and dream of harbour views, raspberry jam, and daffodil-yellow clotted cream.

Update: While in Britain I stayed a night with my friend Ciaran, who knows a few things about scones. I always have trouble getting my own homemade attempts to rise satisfactorily, so I quizzed Ciaran on his methods (I've eaten his own scones on a few occasions and they were always light, fluffy and high-risers). He said that you should 1) not use any sugar - it's too heavy; and 2) use slightly sour milk. Either use it the day after its use-by date, or leave it out of the fridge overnight, or add a little lemon juice.

On the day that we visited the village of Suopo, Cam and I had been on the road for over a week and were a little bored food-wise. Breakfast was always baozi (steamed bread) and xifan (rice porridge); lunch, noodles; dinner, rice and dishes. It was starting to get repetitive, and so we decided to liven things up a little with a proper DIY picnic - bread pouches, fresh vegetables, boiled eggs and fruit. This was the kind of food - filling and portable - that we had lived on when we hitch-hiked in Europe, and its return to our travelling routine was almost nostalgic.

After wandering around the castle-like houses and winding paths of Suopo in the blazing midday sun for hours, we found a shady wood by a stream to eat. It was the perfect spot - babbling brook by our side, awe-inspiring mountains above us, and a delectable picnic waiting to be devoured. The yellow tomatoes we'd found in the market that morning were almost creamy in their richness; the bread a nice balance of fried and baked, and local red plums for afters tart and juicy.

We loved that picnic so much that we made sure we ate a few others on the rest of the trip, but none matched the perfection and deliciousness of this one.

Just a quick link to a recent post on Rambling Spoon, the excellent blog of food journalist Karen Coates, that guest stars a photo by yours truly.

And another link to the pdf for the latest issue of Chengdoo Citylife Magazine, which features a (very!) brief overview of Sichuan cuisine that I wrote as the first installment of my new column, Your Chuancai Cupboard.

This is tsampa, the stable food of the Himalayan plateau. It is a thick, dry paste made from barley flour, yak butter, sugar and water, and although I’ve heard many foreigners absolutely despise the stuff, Cam and I quite liked it.

Our enjoyment of tsampa was, however, perhaps partly due to the circumstances of our first tasting it. We were in Bamei, a small, wild town in Ganzi County, Western Sichuan. Bamei is surrounded by grasslands of incredible beauty, and on several of the flat plains are found gleaming, jewel-like monasteries. One day, we walked from Bamei to one of these monasteries, Hui Yuan Si, which, although it only took about 3 hours, because of the high altitude was totally exhausting.

After wandering around the monastery buildings for a while, we were invited into a second storey room for some refreshments, which turned out to be tsampa, a food that I’d heard much about. The table was laid with enamel bowls of barley flour and yak butter, a jar of sugar, and two rice bowls.

A middle-aged monk, who had lived in the monastery for over twenty years, gave us instructions on how to make our tsampa. First, our rice bowls were half-filled with boiled water, to which we were told to add a few hefty chunks of yak butter. We waited one moment to let the butter start to melt in the hot water, and then on top of this buttery-watery mixture piled about three generous tablespoons of barley flour and one of sugar.

Then, the mixing began, first with a chopstick, and finally with one’s fingers; as the author of this site insightfully remarks, ‘making tsampa is in many ways like working with clay’. I’ve always loved making bread and eating Indian curries with my hands; making tsampa had much the same appeal.

Once the paste was smooth and uniform it was ready to eat. We were told to break off a little piece of dough, pop it into our mouths, and then take a sip of hot water from a separate cup (presumably to prevent the tsampa from being too dry and sticky). The texture of tsampa perhaps takes a little getting used to (although halva lovers like myself would have no problem), but the taste was undeniably delicious – rich, wholesome, and to me, highly redolent of Western breakfast cereals.

We learnt later that the monks at Hui Yuan Si usually eat tsampa at every meal, and only occasionally get other foods such as vegetables or rice. Although barley, the main component of tsampa, contains all eight essential amino acids, nonetheless I doubt it provides much in the way of proper nourishment. So though I really enjoyed tsampa, and even bought a bag of barley flour to take back to Chengdu, I don’t think I’ll be converting to the Himalayan diet just yet.