341. Heat And Fire At The Ludlow Food Festival.

 

  By Saturday, the main roasting taking place at the Ludlow Food Festival was that being carried out by the Forces of Nature as the crowds were baked and then broiled in their own perspiration by the extraordinary heat of the direct sunlight of this short lived but surprising Indian summer.

  But, the English being nothing if not resilient, the show went on and the furious fluttering of fans by large middle aged women and their wearing of sun hats of varying degrees of decorativeness were very much in evidence as the crowds packed the demonstration tents where the shade sheltered the huddled masses from the fiery firmament. The first speaker on the main stage was Sarah Rossi who has brought fame to herself as a blogger of something called ‘Ten Minute Meals’. She came over as charming and enthusiastic but her talk was, alas, somewhat banal - her first dish was the preparation of jam turnovers for which the detailed instructions involved buying some puff pastry, rolling it out, spreading some jam on it (plus some fruit to give added sophistication, one supposes) and baking the products of these manoeuvres for a few minutes - the result, not surprisingly being, er, jam turnovers. Equally revelationary was the buying of pasta, boiling it and adding a sauce to render it more palatable. 

  It says a lot about the way children and young people are presently taught in schools and the complete uselessness of modern education to prepare them for an adult life that a guru like Sarah Rossi is needed to keep the younger adult population from starving themselves because of their inabilities to cook shop-bought pasta or bake shop-bought pastry. All power to her elbow, I say.

  From the vaguely ridiculous to the sublime and an excellent talk by Stuart Collins of Docket No 33 in Whitchurch. The most charming anecdote he related was that his five year old son had recently celebrated his fifth birthday and had received as a present his first cooking pan with which, Collins assured the audience, the boy was highly delighted.

  Crowds elbowed each other out of the way to occupy the front rows of the demonstration tent when Cyrus Todiwala, Chef/Proprietor of Cafe Spice Namaste and a chef who frequently features in television programmes, appeared for a joint cooking demonstration with his wife, Pervin. They made a fine double act: their relationship was charming and their banter made for a good number of laughs for the audience. Todiwala spoke intensely about his Parsee religion (Zoroastrianism) rendered extinct by the tyrannical regime in Iran itself where it originated and indicated how much of the Indian food with which we are familiar originates in Persia. This was a great 40 minutes and naturally I was unable to resist buying a signed copy of his book.

  If TV chefs draw in the crowds, the now famous Sausage Trail draws in the multitudes. I always see this as Lucy The Labrador’s most special canine treat of the year. As usual I had bought her very own ticket which entitled her to 3 sausages, one each from a local butcher, the right to record her favourite of the three (not surprisingly I help her with choosing as she tends to wolf down each one without, I suspect giving chance for her tastebuds to zing into action to enable her to choose that which is her favourite flavour of the year), and then, at the end of the trail, to choose her favourite sausage and be served with it on a bread roll. As was the case last year, the three sausages in battle with each other were given birth by DW Wall and Son’s, Griffiths’  and Carter’s. The stalls of the first two are located in the old town near the castle but Carters’ is situated at Ludlow Brewery down the unhappily steep Corve Street which is fair enough when one is going downhill but not an attractive prospect when returning uphill having reaped the harvest of Carter’s’ contribution to the contest. It was even less an appealing prospect given the heat of the day.

  Thus, sadly, Carter’s’ sausage went untested but Walls’ and Griffiths’ confections were well worth the trip. Walls’, more traditional and eminently well seasoned sausage was my favourite for 2023 with Griffiths’ more exotically spiced banger coming up close behind. Of course, it was far too hot for Lucy to join the event this year, but all her sausages were taken home to her and a contented canine was the result. You can serve me all your wursts and furters that you wish but the British banger stands head and shoulders above them all in my highly experienced opinion.

  After a return to Fishmore Hall, feeling melted, roasted, barbecued, broiled, baked and all-round done-in by the heat of Sizzling Saturday, I recovered in the Fishmore Hall bar with an Alabama Slammer, both a restorative and a cooler, fed Lucy The Labrador her sausages and set off again for the Castle for this year’s    Fire and Feast, held as in the previous three years in the ruined medieval banqueting hall in the castle’s inner bailey. Like the Sausage Trail, this was fully subscribed though many there seemed to becthe slow food chefs and assistants themselves. 

  Service was also slow and I had to leave before dessert was served - these slow food people are obviously the cool end of modern catering and, like their food, can not be hurried. There was a starter of Slow roasted tomatoes with, among other elements, tasty fennel; then, as in previous years, a grand and very welcome platter of delicious local charcuterie and cheeses with figs and then the main of delightfully slow cooked pork with excellent new potatoes, cooked well and not messed about with, and a range of slow cooked vegetables including sweet beetroot which garnered much admiration. The dessert, had I not had to leave, was roasted peaches with ice cream of some sort which sounds gorgeous but one can not have everything in one’s life that one would wish for which is a lesson which many younger people are still to learn.

  As I passed through the castle gates at the stroke of ten, night having long fallen, the evening still warm but much more comfortable, the market square quiet and picturesque under the street lights, I thought what a splendid food scene our West Midlands has and of all the places that should be my and Lucy’s next ports of call.