A royal Middle East crisis: jam or cream first?
‘We heard that there’s a big debate in England, so we’ll leave the scones to the side and let the Prince decide’
It is the most politically sensitive trip he has ever undertaken, entering a diplomatic minefield in the Middle East. As the Duke of Cambridge set foot in Jerusalem last night for the British Royal family’s first trip to Israel, he was faced with settling a debate that has raged for decades.
Not the seemingly impossible question of Israeli and Palestinian lands, of course, but the age-old issue of cream versus jam.
The Duke, who landed in Tel Aviv, was taken to the King David Jerusalem Hotel where a freshly baked pile of scones had been prepared for him.
There, according to Sheldon Ritz, the hotel’s director of operations, he was greeted with tea imported from England – the “best we can buy” – as well as fresh milk, cream and strawberry jam for his scone.
“We heard that there’s a big debate in England about whether you put the cream or the jam on first, so we’ll leave them to the side and let the Prince decide,” he told the Jewish News.
The Duke will stay for three nights at the King David, a former British headquarters which was bombed by Jewish militants in 1946, killing 91 people.
He will go on to undertake a finely balanced tour of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, taking in Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Jerusalem. The Duke will also visit Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. He will meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Reuven Rivlin, the president, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president.
Both his father, the Prince of Wales, and grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, have previously travelled to Israel privately, but the Duke’s visit has the added significance of being at the request of the UK Government.
The Duke spent yesterday in Jordan, inspecting the local air ambulance at an event showcasing technical training for refugees, and taking a trip to his wife’s childhood playground.
In Jerash, an archaeological site, he visited the spot where a young Kate Middleton posed for a photograph with her family. Joined by Prince Hussein, Jordan’s crown prince, he was shown an enlargement of the image taken at the Roman ruins. He laughed as he looked at the picture, pointing to the image of his father-inlaw to remark: “Michael’s looking very smart in his flip-flops. Need to come back with the family for this shot.”
The scone debate is well-known to the Royal family. Earlier this year, the Prince of Wales, who also holds the title of Duke of Cornwall, quizzed a small boy in the county after seeing him eat the baked treat.
“Have you got that the right way round?” he asked jovially, as he spotted cream first then jam on top, the preferred method in Devon. In Cornwall, scones are eaten with jam first, topped with cream.
Darren Mcgrady, a chef who worked for the Royal family from 1982 to 1993, has previously insisted that it is always “jam first at Buckingham Palace garden parties”, and added that the Queen “always had homemade Balmoral jam first”.