The market square outside Ludlow Castle had long, dense queues waiting to be admitted to the castle at the opening of the Saturday second day of the Ludlow Food Festival. Signs at the ticket collection vehicle announced that tickets for the Sausage Trail - this year renamed The Battle of the Bangers as it was to be located at a single site, outside Ludlow Brewery - for those unhappy Festival attendees who had not prebooked their attendance were all sold out. Lucy The Labrador however was not to have the highlight of her year snatched away from her as I had long acquired a pair of tickets for us both.
I listened to a couple of talks during the day. The first was by Mark Harris of the Pheasant Inn in the small Shropshire village of Neenton who gave a fascinating insight into the way his restaurant worked with its local community. Afterwards, probably this year’s star, the 2021 Central region champion of the BBC’s Great British Menu, Stuart Collins of Docket 33 in Whitchurch. A star he may have been but a shy and modest one it seemed. Included in his demonstration was preparation of the choucroute which had had a prominent role in his winning GBM menu and during the demonstration he spoke a little about the filming of the programme. He revealed that the programme was filmed in real time with no retakes. The participating chefs are all accommodated in different hotels around Stratford upon Avon where the programme is filmed so that when they all meet up on the first day of the competition they really do not know who they are going to be up against. Chefs are approached to participate by the BBC and they are often given very short notice of the invitation. Stuart Collins revealed that he had not yet received an invitation to participate in the 2022 series but he would almost certainly accept if such an invitation was made.
I should have liked to attend more of the cooking demonstrations but time was short and I had to head off to Ludlow Brewery to ensure that Lucy the Labrador and I arrived in time to get our share of sausages in the ‘Battle of the Bangers’ . We both voted for DH Griffiths’ fine banger which was a traditional English-style with a mild pepperiness, a little tastier than the sausage put forward for judging by DW Wall and Son but when all the votes were counted up the winner was Carters of Ludlow with a really rather spicy Mediterranean-style sausage.
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| Stuart Collins |
The highlight of the Saturday night of the 2021 Ludlow Food Festival was the Firefood banquet held for about 80 people in the banqueting hall of the inner. The castle may be a ruin but it was possible to travel back in time in one’s mind to feel what dining must have been like in medieval Ludlow. This was a wonderful event with delicious accompanying food. As the daylight faded away the atmosphere of the place combined with the light from the magnificent fire was little short of thrilling.
An opening nibble in the form of a really hard crostini, which seemed like a potential risk to aging teeth was followed by a fabulous platter of Shropshire cheeses and local charcuterie with figs. Sometimes simple is best and this was astounding accompanied as it was by scintillating fresh crusty bread. Then something rather spectacularly delicious - barbecued peaches with barbecued chicory, its bitter taste rendered sweet in the cooking - utterly memorable and one to try at home. Next an enormous helping of beautifully cooked chicken and chorizo paella and finally an intriguing burnt Basque cheesecake, it’s subtle soothing flavour a perfect foil to the spicy paella and a great way to end a highly memorable evening of very fine food.
The Sunday sessions were less satisfactory. I walked into town to listen to what promised to be a great talk and demonstration titled ‘From Filth to Fine Dining’ by Thom Bateman of the Flintlock restaurant in Cheddleton, north Staffordshire, but the talk did not take place and was replaced by a brash American introducing an Irishman with a broad brogue and a line in foul language who combined to say obtusely nasty comments about the English who were paying their fees and inviting them to their festivals. I could only take a couple of minutes of the rubbish and left to go to the outer bailey stage where more by luck than design, I caught a hilarious cooking demonstration by Howard Middleton, made famous apparently by being a contestant on Channel 4’s Great British Bake Off which I usually find intolerable though I acknowledge that if it brought this short, camp, middle aged, side-splittingly funny, wholly incompetent Mancunian to public notice then it did after all serve up some human good. His hapless demonstration of how to produce a sponge cake with wafers on two sides was so hilariously full of errors accompanied by his most delightfully funny comments that he reminded me of a joyous combination of Tommy Cooper, Larry Grayson, Frankie Howard and Les Dawson tinkling the ivories. A mesmerisingly enjoyable forty five minutes. And that was the end of the show.
Here’s to 9 to 11 September 2022.
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