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.

339. Heat Wave Engulfs Ludlow Food Festival!

 

  An Indian summer. Suddenly the sun notices a little place called England and unleashes its full force on the green and pleasant land. The heat to the Englishman who goes out in the midday sun, as do mad dogs, is something to be lived with and sweated through.

  Last year’s Ludlow Food Festival will be remembered as being the one where the castle flag flew at half mast to mark and mourn the passing of a much loved and remarkable monarch. This year’s - the twenty ninth - will be remembered as the one where chefs didn’t an oven to cook things in.

  It was all too hot for me to take Lucy The Labrador along with me but she relaxed in the cool of Fishmore Hall while I pounded the streets of Ludlow and perspired my way around the castle grounds looking around the stalls as the crowds built up and the demonstration theatres prepared to get underway.

  An impressive young chef who cooks for private functions, Harry Bullock, whose business is called Evatt & Bullock Co led off the series of demonstrations on the outer Bailey stage and delivered an impressive talk full of enthusiasm. He was followed by the more grizzled-looking fish expert, Mike Warner, whose demonstration of preparing a gurnard dish and a John Dory dish was fascinating and then I ambled around the stands again trying to keep out of the direct sunlight.

  Lunch was pleasingly in the cool indoors with a talk by, and opportunity to taste the pies made by, Andy Thomas of Mr T’s Pies based at Clun. Andy was indeed a great pie enthusiast and revealed that he longed for the day when Clun would become a special travel destination for those seeking out quality pies to enrich their lives. He revealed that his fantasy special pie would be a high quality chicken Balti pie but felt that it was difficult for him to obtain locally chickens of sufficient quality to use in his pies.

  We sample pieces of four pies - all of which were excellent - Shropshire’s very own fidget pie which contained Long Mynd pork and ham slow cooked in cider with mustard, local apples, dauphinoise potatoes and sage; Hare Hill mutton, pea and mint, Caramelised onion, potato, Cheddar cheese and mustard and Stilton and leek. My favourite was the mutton, pea and mint where the mint perfectly complemented the delicious mutton. Thomas’s pastry on all the pies was excellent.

  In the afternoon I attended a demonstration by Thom Bateman of The Flintlock at Cheddleton in Staffordshire. Bateman, we will recall, was beaten by Tom Shepherd in the Great British Menu Central Region final. His enthusiasm for his work and his degree of application to it shone through and reinforced the feeling that Lucy and myself must find our way to The Flintlock.

340. Forelles.

 

   Lucy The Labrador and I always obtain great pleasure from staying at Fishmore Hall whenever we visit Ludlow. It is smart and quiet and comfortable with friendly but polite staff and a lovely garden to sit in. In a word it is as lovely a place in its price range as one may wish to stay at. I have eaten in Forelles, its restaurant named after the small pear trees in the garden, many times, experiencing the cooking of all its Head Chefs over the years apart from the first in the hotel’s earliest times.

  Ludlow was roasting hot. Summer had arrived late and then some. The Dog, with her advancing years, was confined to the shady shelter of the hotel, indeed even a young dog would have found the going tough and though the tough are known for getting going when the going is tough, no human should have inflicted the fiery furnace of Ludlow on any poor dog as it was that particular opening Friday of the Festival.

  Having both survived the day, and with Lucy ensconced in our room as comfortably as possible as the day’s heat gave way to an unnatural September evening warmth, I made myself very comfortable in the lovely Forelles dining room, which as described in previous Blogs, is a large light-filled conservatory with, in the daytime, a fine view of Titterstone Clee Hill. I opted to go à la carte, very reasonably priced for food into which so much effort had clearly been put.

  The meal started with a delightful goats’ cheese-filled beetroot macaroon, then an excellent play on kedgeree with crispy wild rice. Edwardian breakfast meets modern British.

   For the starter I chose a chicken terrine with a pleasingly crispy crust but the chicken inside was too dry though helped out by the accompanying hazelnut sorbet and black garlic.

  The main looked very promising, the principle element being a lovely piece of John Dory though, sadly, I thought that the fish was slightly over. There was also a raviolo/tortellino hybrid (there must be an Italian word for it) containing tasty, slow-cooked ox tail as well as broccoli and sharp sauerkraut. This was fair enough, the pasta, was well made and the dish was nicely presented but I should have liked chef to have concentrated on being pinpoint accurate with the cooking of the fish which should have been the stand-out star and perhaps put aside the turf part of this sophisticated surf and turf about which I was unable to feel quite as enthusiastic as I wanted to.

  There was a charming little refresher of strawberry jelly and mint sorbet - very well judged to prepare the diner for the dessert which was a Financier - a pleasing, light little sponge, though not the correct shape of a financier, with the fresh, Indian summer, sharp-sweetness of raspberry sorbet and raspberry sauce and bursts of lemon. There might have been an element or two more than I needed in the dish but it was a pleasing end to the meal.

  And so to bed with tomorrow bringing the sausage trail. It would be too hot for Lucy to participate this year so if the dog won’t go to the sausages then the sausages will have to come to the dog ….

338. Simpsons And Meat Shack.

 

  A collaboration between Simpsons and a burger joint, albeit an upmarket one, always seemed improbable but it is Simpsons’ 30th birthday year so Antona’s grown-up baby can celebrate its anniversary anyway it likes. And so, on the evening of Wednesday 6 September 2023, 

First the fine dining -

A little bottle of Moët and Chandon accompanied by a soupçon of Oscietra, which was a happy start to the meal, then two snacks - the cauliflower bomb was brilliant - delicious, perfectly-cooked cauliflower, its flavour truly exploding with a wonderfully spicy sweet chilli sauce. A “wow” moment. There was nothing to complain about with the accompanying ham hock bon bon either. There was no complaining about either about the heritage beetroot dish. Beautiful to look at and cool to consume.

  The Orkney scallop with chicory and citrus beurre Blanc was sophisticated and refined and as delicious a scallop dish as one couldd hope for.

  Then the burger - 

   The ‘Cheeky Boy’. The precisely cooked burger was fine and the enhancement with slow cooked ox cheek, hence the sobriquet, made this a very edible confection. I particularly liked the accompanying truffle fries and walnut ketchup. I guess the ‘fries’ which took were crispy pleasures shot through with truffle were about as fine dining as chips can get.

    The dessert was a perfect illustration of how the straightforward, or at least the relatively straightforward, or the apparently straightforward, is always best. Gorgeous croc en bouches with a perfect chocolate sauce. 

  A pleasurable evening. Simpsons was at the top of its game. I am a reluctant burger consumer but if I must have one then I guess these are the circumstances under which I like to eat them and to eat one so finely cooked was a treat.

  Nice too, to see a great basin of Oscietra lurking in my close vicinity.

337. By Bus To Evesham.

 

  Evesham is a moderately large, bustling town with a distinguished role in history - it was the scene of the Battle of Evesham where the future Edward I defeated the rebel Simon de Montfort. Its place in English culinary history is rather less notable - a single Evesham restaurant has only ever been included in the Michelin Guide and then for just one year - the Italian restaurant, Fontaine de Trevi in 1989. 

  I and the dog were holidaying in Stratford upon Avon and, becoming more familiar with the public transport links to surrounding towns and villages, as well keen to take the dog with me for company, I decided to take the bus to Evesham and even though now it seems there is no dining establishment in the town to be singled out for the excellence of its cuisine, I was hopeful I might find a dog friendly pub serving good food.

  The Royal Oak appeared to fit the description but when I read about it on the internet a message popped up saying it was not presently offering food and so I singled out the Trumpet Inn instead. It had a pretty exterior and an attractive collection of flowers in hanging baskets, barrels and window boxes - the management clearly took pride in the place and had worked hard to make it look welcoming. A blackboard outside the door made the point that any diner that day could choose to have curried goat which sounded promising. The interior was nicely decorated in red and white and had the feel that working people supped there and it was all very welcoming including one of the local customers who fed biscuits to a grateful Lucy The Labrador.

  A starter of prawn cocktail was too big an attraction to resist and it arrived generously portioned, the salad crisp and fresh and the Marie Rose sweet and delightfully mildly spicy. 

  Then to the curried goat. The presentation was rustic and the serving generous. The rice was well cooked but a little wet. The goat was in quite small chunks but it had a pleasingly mild flavour compared with lamb and the sauce was excellent. The accompanying naan was obviously bought in and, with all the rice, probably not necessary but that did not stop me eating some and enjoying the lightness of it. This was honest, home cooked food at a modest price. Service was friendly and helpful. So generous were the portions that a pudding sadly was out of the question and, in any case, the bus back to Stratford, which runs just hourly, was due.

  The dog and I journeyed back to Stratford enjoying the lovely Worcestershire and Warwickshire countryside, catching sight of Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham where the Cotswolds begin, on the comfortable bus passing through Bidford on Avon, Harvington and Salford Priors with its large number of modern houses. There’s a lot of exploring to do yet in this southern part of the Midlands where Gloucestershire intertwines with Worcestershire and Worcestershire mingles with Warwickshire and Oxfordshire tries to get in on the act too. And many charming south Midlands dining establishments to experience. Here and there, dining all around the Midlands, that’s Lucy The Labrador’s and my mission and it continues.

Evesham -

The Royal Oak

Rating:- 🌛🌛