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.

264. Ludlow Food Festival 2022.

 

  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.

  The first worthwhile demonstration was by Chris Simpson of the Michelin-starred Pensons’ of the Netherwood Estate on the Herefordshire and Worcestershire border. I have not yet visited Pensons’ and I know that I must.

  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.

  If, like the Edinburgh Festival, Ludlow were to have the Festival’s best joke competition, Crouch and Link would undoubtedly have won with - 

   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.

182. Docket No. 33.

 

 

 And so to the furthest north westerly edge of the West Midlands. Two miles from a foreign country (Wales) and two miles from the strange and barbaric place known as The North (well Cheshire actually which really ought to be in The Midlands but was annexed by posh people in Manchester who could not actually bear to live in the real North). Anyway this is where West Midlands restaurants end and where Salford-based BBC luvvies begin to dominate culture, be it gastronomic or otherwise, and which apparently is in need of jolly well being uplevelled. Which nobody can deny.

  But on this side of the very edge of our Mercian civilisation stands the town which the dog and I are visiting - Whitchurch. This is a very, very, some would say profoundly, quiet town. In the daytime you can stand still, listen to the noise around you and hear nothing, absolutely nothing. Silence. It’s my cup of tea for that reason alone. It’s picturesque and famously is home to the restaurant, Docket No 33,  belonging to chef patron Stuart Collins who was the Central region champion chef in the most recent Great British Menu (see Blogs 136-38). And that is why Lucy The Labrador and I are here in the furthest reaches of our region close to strange lands.

  Front of house is so important to the enjoyment of a meal and few lead a team better than Frances Collins, chef’s wife, business partner and restaurant manager, who exudes the sense of welcome mixed with meticulous competence. The Michelin-plated restaurant is decorated meticulously too with completely apt contemporary art coupled with relaxed comfort. And the taster menu comes up trumps at a very user-friendly price and an equally sensibly-priced wine flight. This is good and my fussy dining companion and I are in a thoroughly good mood.

  I am not at all disappointed to find the chick pea chip, which I have grown to love on my visits to Purnell’s, on the menu (see Blog 50). It is accompanied by a tasty smoked garlic dip and served at the same time as an exquisite golden beetroot tartlet, the pastry as finely crispy as you could wish, all made very pretty with red veined sorrel leaves. The chips, alas, are not as firm in their texture as Purnell’s’ are and fail to thrill me. Purnell’s chickpea chips are smaller and it may be that the chickpea contents are more compressed to give a firmer texture. The bread is not our favourite though my dining companion likes the poppy seeds in it and Appleby’s whey butter does not really float our boat either. Perhaps the option of a little accompanying salt would be the solution.

  Next mackerel. Oh dear, I’m always moaning about mackerel and it’s ubiquity. But this is a great mackerel dish. This fish lacks the aggressive flavour with which I often feel assaulted when mackerel shows its face. It’s beautifully delicate mackerel with a perfectly crisp skin and the accompanying gooseberry in particular adds to the pleasure of it all. Then a course noteworthy for the texture of the King Oyster mushroom complemented  by little blobs of truffled goats curd with other ingredients. Some meticulous work here but, being rather curmudgeonly I’m afraid, a course made up of a slice of mushroom  seems a little inconsequential despite the cleverness of it. Then to the focal point. A fine piece of blushingly pink Mangalitsa pork cooked sous vide but beautifully finished off served with a delightful little faggot on a butternut squash purée and hispi cabbage. The failure of some meals is that the main course is often not the highlight and sometimes the biggest disappointment. This was certainly not the case with this excellent dish.

  The dessert too was very pleasing. It came on a stick which seems to be the case in quite a lot of restaurants at present. It was also a chocolate dessert as is so often now the case nationwide. Myself, lacking in sophistication, bitter chocolate desserts even when coupled with elements to bring some sweetness and to cut the richness, just do not bring me to a happy place. But this pleasurable chocolate lolly was tasty and painless for me, the dark chocolate being cut through with the sweetness of toffee flavour. That’s the way to do it. But that was only half the pleasure as the lolly sat on the lid of a dish which when removed revealed such a dish of delights as to bring a “wow” to one’s lips. 

  Stuart Collins had delivered the goods. My fussy companion and my curmudgeonly self both agreed we had had an excellent evening of fine, delightful food - you can not be gushing about everything, after all. We both felt that a trip to the furthest borders of civilisation had been well worthwhile and the price for such an excellent meal had represented exceptionally good value. Is Shropshire still the culinary epicentre county of the West Midlands? Quite possibly.

 I should have also liked to visit Whitchurch’s other Michelin-plated restaurant, Wild Shropshire, but as Whitchurch is closed for most of the week (Sunday to Wednesday) it was only possible to go to Docket No 33 on this particular visit to this sleepy town. Docket No 33 is fully booked until April 2022. Stuart Collins came out to speak to his diners as service drew to a close. I annoyed myself in that I forgot to ask him why the restaurant is called Docket No 33. That’s a question that will just have to wait until next time.