The dog and I passed a happy weekend in Ludlow attending the country's oldest food festival for our fourth consecutive year.
Just ahead of this the Good Food Guide 2019 had added three new local restaurants to its listing - Forelles located in Fishmore Hall where the dog and I were staying for the festival as we always do, Mortimer's and Old Downtown Lodge - meaning that 3 of the 7 newly-added restaurants in the West Midlands are located in this, the original, food town - Ludlow returning to its sacred old place in English gastronomy we hope.
The Festival as ever was enjoyable and the dog was in raptures about having her own ticket for the Sausage Trail. She and I were of one mind that this year AH Griffith's peppery and spicy sausage was the clear winner but we felt we could not complain about any of the five entrants in the competition. I had to buy myself some souvenirs to take home from the event and picked up a bottle of the excellent rhubarb Gun Dog Gin made by a family business in Herefordshire and a couple of bottles of wine from the Halfpenny Green vineyards in south Staffordshire - the dreamy Late Harvest 2014 made from Huxelrebe and Bacchus grapes and a bottle of the immensely tasty Mercia made from Madeleine Angevine and Ortega grapes. I also allowed myself the pleasure of buying some packs of Droitwich salt, extracted from Roman times from brine springs in this historic Worcestershire town. The West Midlands - we've got it all!
There were some highly interesting presentations from chefs usually with, at some stage in their careers, a connection with Ludlow. The chefs were generally young but accomplished and many talked as much about the science of gastronomy as about the art of being a chef. That I thought, is the theme for now - the science of cooking.
The theme cropped up frequently during the talk by chef David Kelman of Cowley Manor in Cheltenham and in the following demonstration by chef Joe Gould of Forelles whose food I was to eat later that day.
So how did the science and the modern technology fare when I dined at Fishmore Hall that evening? It all started off with a delectable amuse bouche which was basically an elegant miniature kedgeree. A starter of quail made lively with goats curd and chorizo was very good but the main course of turbot was not as tasty as it promised to be. The dish included a crab gnocchi which I couldn't identify and an accompanying strip of chicken wing was very tasty but the texture was remarkably unpleasant resembling soggy cardboard. The highlight of the dish was a stupendous and unctuous chicken sauce which allowed one to forgive almost anything (apart perhaps from the texture of the chicken wing). Chef's dessert of banana parfait with white chocolate and pineapple restored pleasure to the meal and the coffee was accompanied by some interesting petit fours.
On Saturday, Lucy The Labrador and I had a busy day at the Festival. I started off the day having coffee with a view (the beautiful Dunham Weir) at CSons Ludlow, formerly the Michelin Bib Gourmand-awarded Green Cafe. Inside the castle I listened to Liam Dillon talking about his restaurant in Lichfield and I was impressed by what he had to say so that I feel I must soon pay a visit to The Boat Inn. It's good to have an extra reason to visit another one of our beautiful West Midlands medieval towns. I missed a number of talks which I would have liked to visit because of the canine necessity of walking around the Sausage Trail!
A second night of gastronomy at Forelles. After another joyous dip into the immaculate mini-kedgeree amuse bouche it was on to a starter of tasty sea trout accompanied by what seemed to be deep fried Serrano ham and beetroot, neither of which really worked for me (the texture of the Serrano was far from crispy and the beetroot, though it should be a perfect companion for oily fish, seemed to be too sweet to enjoy the trout to its best). The main course however was much more enjoyable than that of the previous evening - chicken cooked in hay with another gorgeous sauce, perfectly cooked asparagus and an oyster bonbon which was not entirely successful. For the second evening the dessert was highly enjoyable and memorable - a charming and delightful 'baked alaska' with peach.
Lucy and I passed Sunday morning at the Festival. I enjoyed listening to a talk by Reuben Crouch who with his three brothers had opened CSons in Shrewsbury and had recently taken over the Green Cafe in Ludlow. I really must head for Shrewsbury in the foreseeable future.
So, another highly enjoyable and interesting weekend for man and dog in Ludlow. I've already booked my accommodation for next year's festival. Regardless of what south-east and London-based critics and food guide writers might think the West Midlands is a gastronomic region of which to be proud.
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