Eat Britain
A tempting look at the best of British produce
Eat Britain
Chinese take-away? Italian ready-meal? International cuisine may be a staple of the modern British diet, but that’s no reason for us to forget the pleasures of home-grown and locally-produced food
words: mark hix
photography: jason lowe
IN BRITAIN, WHEN it comes to food shopping, we’ve never had it so good. We have great produce available from all over the world and often forget, with so much choice on offer in supermarkets, delis and markets, what we actually produce on our own doorsteps.
Whatever region of the country you live in, you will have access to a wealth of food produced locally, which we often neglect for a number of reasons. Television and magazine coverage of food and cooking is at an all-time high and encourages us to cook more ambitiously than ever before. At the same time there are lots of ready-cook meals competing with our conscience – and maybe confusing our palates visually – that seem an easier option than cooking fresh, real food.
After 18 months of researching and writing my new book, British Regional Food, I have only scratched the surface of what we have to offer on home turf. A stroll around a local farmers’ market should satisfy your shopping needs for a week, or possibly inspire a dinner party.
Incidentally, I would never recommend pre-planning your menu before you go shopping as you may end up in a frustrated frenzy, not fi nding the ingredients you’ve scribbled down from a recipe book and trawling shops for ingredients that aren’t even in season. Cooking and shopping for a dinner party should be fun – and once you’ve found a main course that takes your fancy, it’s easy to tie the rest of the menu around it.
Chefs in the UK today are proud to cook British produce and our farmers, growers and cheese makers are responding to our needs and competing with foreign imports. Consequently we need to import less and less from overseas and we can pay our own producers the prices they deserve. Unfortunately, many shoppers still buy on price as opposed to quality and will end up with inferior tasting and less fresh products from abroad because they were cheaper.
Here’s a whistle-stop tour of the highlights of British food and some of my favourite producers, region by region. Although, since fi nishing the book, more producers have come out of the woodwork, so bear in mind, there’s much more to discover…
THE EAST
The east of England hosts a wealth of producers and local delicacies. Food that’s free to forage includes samphire and other sea vegetables along the coast and, inland, our fi rst-of-the-season British mushrooms, St George’s. Colchester, meanwhile, has always been famous for its oysters. The Romans loved our oysters so much that they named Colchester (then called Camulodunum) the capital of England. The east is not generally known for its cheeses but I did come across a great one called Binhan Blue in Grovelands deli in Thorpe Market.
Binhan Blue is produced by Margaret Temple, who also makes two other great cheeses, Walshingham and Wighton. I decided to put all three on our cheese board at The Ivy restaurant. Margaret had never heard of The Ivy but was chuffed to bits as her cheeses rarely leave the region.
THE NORTH
My daughters, Ellie and Lydia, live in the north so frequent trips to the region have familiarised me with a wealth of local knowledge of chefs and producers. It’s a tight-knit community up there and both chefs and producers work equally hard promoting each other. Nigel Howarth’s menu at the Three Fishes restaurant in Mitton, Lancashire, is one of the best examples I’ve come across in the country for the use of local ingredients. He features Reg Johnson’s ducks and chickens, which are regarded as being of outstanding quality, Peter Gott’s wild boar and rare breed pigs, and Peter Ashcroft’s coloured beetroots and caulifl owers alongside Mrs Kirkham’s Lancashire cheese and dozens of other great local artisans who use both traditional and modern methods.
MIDLANDS
Perhaps not the obvious place to search out food, but it’s the heart of England and I had some great fi nds, from traditional pork pie-making at Mrs King’s in Cotgrave, just outside Nottingham, to new cheese makers such as Jo and David Clark, who are making traditional farmhouse red Leicester for the first time in over a hundred years. There’s also Freddie de Lisle, who is making Stilton in one of the fi rst recognised Stilton-making dairies, at his Jacobean manor, Quenby Hall, near Leicester.
On the borders of Wales, Richard Vaughan is rearing some of the fi nest Middle White Pigs at Huntsman near Ross-on-Wye, and they’re available by mail-order to the general public. Overlooking the Rye Valley, near Dorstone, is the Neal’s Yard creamery, run by Charlie Westhead, which produces great goats’ cheeses like Ragstone, Peroche and Dorstone and sells the curd that we use in our restaurants for both savoury and sweet dishes. Judy Goodman is sending her geese all over the country – remember, goose fat is great for roasting your potatoes in.
THE SOUTH
The garden of England, as it was once known, boasts some great fruit and vegetables and places of recognition, such as Brogdale Horticultural Trust, preserve old apple and fruit varieties to remind us of the past. Whitstable is still famed for its oysters, which have always been a tourist attraction. The converted oyster house on the beach, the Whitstable Oyster Company, is fast becoming one of the landmark fi sh restaurants we can be proud of. In Romney Marsh in Kent, farmers are keeping local lamb breeds going and farmers such as Clive Ovenden are growing every vegetable, fruit and salad you can imagine, including one of the largest selections of squashes and courgettes in the UK, which help to keep our menus interesting throughout the seasons.
THE SOUTH WEST
Home territory for me as I was brought up in Dorset but I knew little about the great produce that surrounded me as a kid, except for a couple of cheeses and what I caught from the sea. Cheese is big business here and the cheese makers are abundant. The Cornish pasty has also become a regular feature on our high streets, providing a tasty, meaty meal that can be eaten on the go. Experiences such as elver fi shing with Richard and Horace Cook gave me a taster of what this part of the country is all about. Ben Wright and Robin Hancock (otherwise known as the Wright brothers) bought the Duchy of Cornwall oyster fi shery last year on the River Faland have now restored it to its former glory. You can check out their oysters at many restaurants, including their own oyster bar, the Wright Brothers, in Borough Market, London.
WALES
Laverbread, cockles and sea trout, or sewin as it’s known by the locals, are amongst the treasures of Wales. You’ll fi nd real fl aky Halen Môn sea salt at the Anglesey Sea Salt Company and artisan cheese such as Gorau Glas, a creamy blue made by Margaret Davies. Down the road, Brian and Fiona Thomas are rearing Welsh black beef and Welsh mountain lambs.
SCOTLAND
Shooting, fishing and golf are what attracts most people to Scotland, but away from the fairways and rivers and along the coastline there are lots of hidden foodie secrets, much of which gets sent immediately out of Scotland for worldwide consumption. Some of our best mushrooms are foraged in Scotland; girolles, ceps and chanterelles to name a few. Scottish beef has a world-class reputation as do the country’s grouse moors. The langoustines that you consume on European holidays are more often than not fl own out of Scotland.
IRELAND
The cheeses of Ireland compete with some of the best from Europe. These days, St Tola, Gubeen and Cashel Blue appear as regularly as French cheeses on restaurant cheese boards across the UK. Hopping between farmers’ markets, I managed to secure a new smoked salmon for our restaurants from Tim and Bron Youard at the Derreensillagh Smokehouse in Kerry.
LONDON
London is now one of the gastronomic capitals of the world. Markets including Borough at London Bridge show how serious we’ve grown about our food. Restaurants such as St John have become cult venues for the carnivores who are not shy to get their fork into a shaft of bone marrow. We’ve opened the Rivington Grill in Shoreditch and others have followed. Then there are long-time British food ambassadors including the Goring hotel, while specialist shops represent the best of British fair.
We appreciate British producers more than ever before and this is just the beginning of the British food revolution.
Mark Hix is director of Caprice Holdings, the restaurant group that includes The Ivy and J Sheekey
Local heroes
THE FIRST STRAWBERRIES of the summer, tender springtime asparagus, stewed winter rhubarb… without a doubt the tastiest, most satisfying food is that which is locally grown and freshly picked in season. And with so much quality produce available right here in Britain, there’s no need to go beyond our own shores to enjoy some of the best food in the world. It’s a message that celebrity chefs have been clamouring to tell us for ages, and the trend is now spreading to the high street, with more and more restaurants encouraging us to think local by revealing what tempting treats can be foraged on our own doorsteps
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A notable example is Konstam at the Prince Albert pub in London, which aims to source as much of its produce as possible within the M25. You would be forgiven for thinking that this would make for a rather uninspiring menu, but Chef Oliver Rowe comes up trumps with Dover Sole from the Thames, cheese from Norbury and even honeycomb from Tower Hill.
Also in on the act is London hotel, One Aldwych, which is running a special Taste Britain menu this autumn. From Cornish monkfi sh to Ayslesbury duck, Loch Duart salmon to Cumbrian mutton – washed down with award-winning English wines – Taste Britain proves that homegrown produce can stand proudly alongside the best from the continent. Konstam: +44 (0)20 7833 5040. Taste Britain at One Aldwych runs until 30 September; +44 (0)20 7300 1000
British Regional Cooking by Mark Hix (Quadrille, £25.00) is published 20th October. Readers of voyager can order a copy of British Regional Cooking (Quadrille £25.00) at the special offer price of £22.00 incl. p&p (UK only) by calling 01256 302699 with your credit card details and quoting reference K26.
