Pumpkin scones? Have you taken leave of your senses we hear you cry! Nothing to do with us … blame the Aussies. Let us explain. With virtually no COVID deaths in the past week, Scotland is gradually easing its way towards lifting lockdown. The risk of catching coronavirus is now at least five times higher in England than Scotland hence the hoo-ha about health checks on the border. In our previous post from the Wineport, we spoke of the Australian government closing the border between the states of New South Wales and Victoria. No sooner had we done so than we received an unrelated but nevertheless timely report from our Bathurst correspondents in NSW.  In their own words:

Today we went on a firewood gathering excursion on a friend’s farm about 30 miles downriver from our home in Bathurst.  For morning tea our hostess served us pumpkin scones.  Alas, no cream or jam, just butter, but they were delicious.  My understanding is that pumpkin is classed as a pig food in the UK, but you eat swedes and turnips instead, which over here, we wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. The wife of a now-deceased premier of Queensland, Flo Bjelke-Peterson, was famous for her pumpkin scones.

Pumpkin v Turnip

They raise a number of points which we will try and address here:

1. Experienced sconeys would not expect jam and cream with a savoury cheese or pumpkin scones … basic error.
2. Pumpkins may well be pig food over here but we also find them useful as lanterns at Halloween! Other than that pumpkins are as about as useful as Boris Johnson. Okay, we may be coming down on pumpkins a bit hard there! As lanterns, pumpkins do emit some light whereas the same could never be said of Boris
3. They are right in saying that we do eat turnips. Every year, in January, when we celebrate the birth of Robert Burns, our national bard, huge quantities of haggis, neeps and tatties (haggis, turnips and potatoes) are consumed along with copious quantities of whisky. Burns saw these as the food and drink of the common man and elevated them above the ‘skinking ware’ that the highfalutin aristocrats partook of. He knew what he was talking about!
4. We can only assume that the Australian aversion to turnips is due to the likelihood that most of them were sent to Australia for stealing said items. 

 
Shrewd Flo!

Our correspondents also alerted us to the wonderful Flo Bjelke-Peterson.  She was an influential member of the Australian Senate who is the first person we have come across to openly admit to using scones for political purposes. She baked them for family and friends but also for the journalists that used to stake out her home. “They help me relate to the women who make them, and the men who eat them.” So we concede that these pumpkin scones must have been pretty good otherwise their influence politically would have been extremely limited.

When readers in the UK have finished gnawing on their turnips they might want to try Flo’s recipe … if they have a leftover lantern from Halloween!

INGREDIENTS:

1 tablespoon of butter
½ cup of sugar
¼ teaspoon of salt
1 egg
1 cup of cooked mashed pumpkin (cooled)
2-2¼ cups self-raising flour

METHOD: Preheat your oven to 250°C. Beat together butter, sugar and salt with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Add egg, then pumpkin and stir in the flour.
Turn dough onto a floured board and cut into circles.
Place on a tray on the top shelf of a very hot oven (225-250°C) for 15-20 minutes.
Remove from oven, allow to cool and serve with butter.
Note: As with all scone dough, it is important not to overmix the dough. Keep your touch light, knead it as little as possible, and only work it enough to just bring it together. When you have cut your scone rounds out, you can recombine the leftover dough to make more scones, but again, don’t overwork the dough, or you will end up with tough scones.

NOTE: We are, of course, hugely grateful to our Bathurst correspondents. Keep them coming but maybe try some proper scones next time.

BREAKING

Donald Trump has been seen wearing a mask. Apparently, he likes it and thinks it makes him look like the Lone Ranger. Up until now, we suspected that he was suffering from another virus which seems to accompany coronavirus. We’re not singling him out, lot’s of people seem to have the imasthickasshitvirus. Sorry!

Who knows, if things continue to go well, we may be able to get out scone hunting again very soon.