The Ludlow Food Festival has had its ups and downs. Two years ago, in the wake of the COVID pandemic, the live event was cancelled and the organisers had to resort to an on-line only festival but at least the show did go on. This year’s was suddenly faced with the nightmare decision of whether to cancel or not in the face of the sudden death of our late Queen and the prolonged period of national mourning which took place as a result. The show went on but with the compromise that the national flag (in this case, curiously I thought, the national flag of England rather than the Union Jack) would be flown at half-mast on the castle’s tower, a minute’s silence was to be held and no music was played during the festival (which to many would be a relief even at ordinary times). The weather was generally moderate and Lucy The Labrador and I had a generally happy time, she sniffing the entire grounds to seek out dropped food and I listening to a good number of the food demonstrations from mostly West Midlands chefs while she snoozed at the edge of the tent.
Jason Christie, Head of Fermentation at Daylesford Farm Organics, demonstrated, as you would expect, fermentation as well as showing how to cook fish by means different from the chef at the next demonstration I attended, the first on Saturday, that by Stuart Collins of Docket No. 33 in Whitchurch (see Blog 182).
One speaker who received far too much exposure at the Festival (3 separate demonstrations, one of which would have been quite enough) was Howard Middleton, the Tommy Cooper of British baking, who was last year generally funny in his ineptitude but this year was more a case of ‘you’ve seen him once and you don’t really need to see him again’ (let alone three times). He might have lightened the mood if the Festival had been rather sombre as a result of The Queen’s death but generally it was going along perfectly satisfactorily. People were eating and buying and holding on to their dog leads, Olde England was mourning but still getting on with things including this historic food festival.
A real highlight of the festival is the Fire and Feast event on the Saturday evening. I attended for the second year having feasted right royally in 2021. As darkness descended on this magical scene (well, magical might not be quite the right word but, with a couple of cocktails inside me, it does convey the thrill I experienced being there with the fires burning and the tables all set up in the ruined banqueting hall) the eighty or so diners settled down to a quite fabulous feast of local smoked cheese and superb local charcuterie with figs and fine bread having previously been served a delicious and lovely piece of kid meat. What followed was astronomically good - supremely delicious and tender beef, of the highest quality, covered in truffle with a potato salad drizzled with an excellent, perfectly spicy chimchurri and served with charred, er, chard and gorgeously sweet carrots. There was a sort of apple crumble to follow with, I think, oats for the crumble but this was not really immensely enjoyable though the apple itself was very good.
Back to Fishmore Hall where I was staying, at 10PM, the market square almost deserted after a day which had seen thousands of people walking through it to get to the castle.
Sunday morning brought a double act demonstration by Mark Harris of The Pheasant Inn in Neenton and Reuben Crouch of CSons in Ludlow and Shrewsbury.
Reuben Crouch, “I was going to put all the mushrooms into the pan …”
Mark Harris, “But there wasn’t mush room!”.
Andy Link of Riverside Inn, Aymestrey gave an interesting overview of the trials and tribulations of recent years and highlighted the dab as a good flat fish to serve.
He pointed that what you write on a menu really does matter and gave the example that when he featured gurnard on his mention there were very few takers for it but when he changed the fish’s name on the menu to the ancient name of it, sea robin, its popularity as a diners’ choice soared. It was formerly known as the sea-robin because, not surprisingly, its under-thorax is red.
The last demonstration I attended was that by Nick Bennett of Old Downton Lodge outside Ludlow and rather remote. This is another restaurant I have been meaning to visit for a long time. It does not do a lot of covers at any one time and the restaurant’s activity can be heavily influenced by the season, for instance it is heavily booked with the shooting season being upon us.
Among my purchases were five large bags of Two Farmers crisps (at a very good price of £10 for five) produced in Herefordshire which I think are the tastiest and crispiest crisps I have ever had the pleasure to open a bag of, Two lovely pieces of ceramics from Stych Farm Studios and a copy of Angus D Birdett’s excellent new book A Portrait Of British Cheese which the author kindly signed for me, he being at the book stall at the time I bought it.
My new Stych Farm bowls -
As Sunday afternoon drew to a close the crowds disappeared and I headed off for the walk back to Fishmore Hall. Sunday roast was on offer for dinner -
trout rilette, roast beef with seasonal vegetables and broccoli and leek gratin and what looked like a failed panna cotta with macerated cherries and cherry sorbet. The rillette was very agreeable, the beef was cooked magnificently and was as delicious as that I ate the previously evening at the castle and the accompanying vegetables highly enjoyable though the roast potatoes were not really crispy and I particularly enjoyed the broccoli and leek gratin - the flavour of the leek really shone through and the cheese was very tasty. The dessert was a bit of a hotchpotch (I think I was expecting a panna cotta but I don’t think things turned out as they should have done) but there was plenty of cherry flavour in the sorbet and macerated cherries to ensure satisfaction with it.
And so to bed. Exhausted by food and exercise.
I hope that next year the Festival organisers can come up with some new interesting West Midlands chefs as most of this year’s chefs had been seen before and there are chefs local to Ludlow and nearby who have not yet made an appearance. The festival may be becoming mildly stale not just in the chefs presenting but also the food stalls. Now it seems to be more about alcohol than food - anyone and everyone in the area seems to be making gin and flogging it off at the Festival.
Still, the grand Sausage Trail remains a great draw as hundreds of people, myself and Lucy included, amble around the town tasting what the local butchers have on offer. This year’s samples were very good but not outstanding and it was difficult to identify a deserving winner but dog and man eventually settled on the fine blushed tomato sausage produced by Carter’s of Ludlow (no relation as far as I know to Carter’s of Moseley).
So the Ludlow Food Festival, Britain’s original food festival carries on and I have already reserved my room at Fishmore Hall for the second weekend in September 2023.
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