Basic HTML Version
58
|
TRAVELLER
chefs, this area of the British Isles is finding its flavour.
Couple that with the stark beauty of the scenery and it
makes the perfect foodie break. But where to start?
Luckily, I have Annette Gibbons as my guide.
Gibbons is a trained chef who runs Cumbria On A
Plate (
cumbriaonaplate.co.uk
), providing cookery
courses and bespoke food safaris to the district’s best
artisan grub. She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of
the area and her tours take in everything, from a local
estate where lunch is game from the grounds, to a
watermill where you can try bread making.
Thornby Moor Dairy (
thornbymoordairy.co.uk
),
run by Carolyn Fairbairn, a self-taught cheese-maker
since 1979, is our first stop. Fairbairn makes her
award-winning cheeses with raw, single-herd ewe,
cow and goat’s milk sourced from Cumbrian farms
and, after a tour, we get to taste the beauties. From the
fresh, moist goat’s cheese Stumpies and hard, tangy
Allerdale, to the creamy Crofton (a 50/50 blend of cow
and goat’s milk) and rich, blue Whinnow and smoked
Cumberland, the variety of flavours is a revelation.
Nothing complements a cheese board like a nice
dollop of chutney, and you won’t find better than at
Wild and Fruitful (
wildandfruitful.co.uk
), a preserves
company run from the home of founder Jane Maggs,
in Wigton, Cumbria. She uses local ingredients and
traditional recipes to create award-winning jellies,
jams, curds and pickles. Everything is handmade in
her modest kitchen, using ingredients from friends,
gardeners and growers throughout the region.
The northern foodie renaissance may be a new
phenomenon in many ways, but you could say that it
has one foot firmly placed in the past. Cumbria has
time-honoured traditions of preserving that stretch
back centuries – and it’s precisely this that producers
such as Maggs are reviving. Then there are others,
including Simon Rogan at L’Enclume, who are delving
even further into the annals of history. Like the
Cumbrian poet WilliamWordsworth centuries before
him, Rogan lets the landscape feed his imagination,
using historic Cumbrian kitchen techniques, such as
brining, pickling, curing and smoking (a hangover
from when the Vikings settled here) with local produce
and vegetable varieties, foraged food and ingredients
grown at the restaurant’s farm. “We try to be as
natural as possible, and the cooking is rooted in its
surroundings,” says Rogan.
Only a 90-minute drive away, there’s another chef
who is equally passionate about his region. Having
spent the past 20 years championing Lancashire
produce, Nigel Haworth deserves credit for the fact
that it’s finally getting the recognition it deserves.
A leading player on Lancashire’s food scene, Haworth’s
Michelin-starred Northcote Manor (
northcote.com
)
in Langho is one of Britain’s best-loved gourmet
escapes, attracting foodies and guest chefs, including
Heston Blumenthal and Raymond Blanc, to its annual
Obsession Food and Wine Festival. It’s also part of
the Ribble Valley Food Trail, which was created three
years ago and takes in the market towns of Clitheroe
and Longridge, and 34 food producers ranging from
farmers to delis, black-pudding producers, cheese and
ice-creammakers.
At his gastro pub The Three Fishes (
thethreefishes.
com
), Haworth explains his regional-food agenda over
a deliciously comforting Lancashire hotpot made
Left,
the RibbleValleymakes a
beautiful destination for a gastro
break;
above,
award-winning chef
TomVan Zeller at work in his
eponymous Harrogate restaurant
“We try to be as natural as possible and the
cooking is rooted in its surroundings”
056-061_ej_TheSecretNorth lg.indd 58
08/0