The paraphernalia and ritual, the scones, strawberry jam and cream. The cake stand, the doilies, the mouth-watering anticipation. It’s teatime, and no other country fills that lull between lunch and dinner with anything quite like the British four o’clock feast.

Every tourist knows that a visit to this island is nothing without an hour spent sipping and nibbling, comfortable on soft, upholstered chairs among the potted palms. But this gentility is not the real point of tea, just an extra exercise in manners and a little ceremony. Nor is the drink itself – we already drink gallons of it throughout the day. It is the food that is at the root of teatime excitement – the promise of jam, oozing from a scone; the light yellow crumb of an iced sponge cake; the snap of a buttery biscuit.

Not that afternoon tea is always great. I never understood scones until relatively recently. Those I knew were dense, dry little pillows, rescued by the jam and clotted Cornish cream that make up a classic West Country cream tea. Then the secret of a good scone was revealed: do not make them with fine, conventional cake flour but stone-ground, unbleached white flour that still contains the natural wheat oils. A scone made this way has an elastic, tearable inner crumb when broken apart.

My scone experience proves that bad tea-time food is a victim of low-grade ingredients and that every element must be chosen for its quality. Begin with good bread, buttered, with a choice of sloppy jams (raspberry, Victoria plum, blackcurrant) and honey. Leave the crusts on the buttered bread, but cut them from the sandwiches. Fillings for sandwiches must be well thought out. Be delicate – Parma ham is more elegant than pink, cooked ham; eggs bound with real mayonnaise will taste of themselves and not vinegar; cucumber slices must not be put between slices of buttered bread unless the skin is partly pared away and they have been de-seeded, thinly sliced, then salted and left for half an hour to remove excess water; tomatoes must be skinned and de-seeded, then seasoned.

The best teas are seasonal – toasted crumpets and teacakes in winter, a melting pebble of butter on top. My mother made drop scones and we ate them straight from the griddle, spread with Tate & Lyle syrup. A dark, rib-sticking Belvoir ginger cake, sprinkled with toasted, flaked almonds came after. She cooked both recipes from the Constance Spry cookery book, and I remember the spots of black treacle on its pages. Summer means sandwiches filled with brown crab meat and cucumber, or poached asparagus spears individually rolled in wafer-thin slices of buttered brown bread. Fill the centre of the Victoria sponge with fresh strawberries and whipped Jersey cream or make little meringues rippled with raspberries. Finally, all tea-time chefs need a recipe for a gooey chocolate cake, preferably made with ground almonds so it is never dry.

If the food is good, there is no need to fuss about the table. A plate of perfect sandwiches and a cake will be heavenly, tablecloth and napkins or not. But junk shops and antique markets are laden with embroidered linen, multi-storey cake stands and chipped china that will have lived through a thousand teatimes. Buy it and give it back its old job, add your best manners, then spread the table with a feast – and remember not to invite that greedy cousin who always takes the last piece of cake.

Eating In

Bread

Poilâne, 46 Elizabeth Street, London SW1 (020-7808 4910)

The slight sweetness of Poilâne’s perfect, slow-made milk bread makes it ideal for those tiny, crustless ham or egg and cress sandwiches.

Jam

Ouse Valley (01273 891893; www.ousevalleyfoods.com)

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