F2F-Journeys in Local Food

from FoRk to fork Journeys in local food Five road trips through the landscape and culture of local food in the company of the people who produce and sell it to us direct in Wales

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Talking Fork2Fork with Festivals, Farmers’ Markets and Farm Shops Fork2Fork Recipes Food Lore and Legends

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“‘Fishing for Secrets Graze Anatomy

the power of flFLour

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Sweet dreams in Dairyland

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Fork2Fork - your road to local food How we buy and enjoy food is hugely important, in particular for the people who produce and process it for us here in Wales. All primary produce and ingredients (meat, milk, eggs, crops) start on farms somewhere, or in the case of seafood and fish, are caught at sea or in our rivers, yet farmers, fishermen and producers are often the least rewarded in the food chain. Since 2009 the Fork2Fork project has been about helping and encouraging food and drink producers to sell direct to the public to maximise returns and also to persuade consumers to recognise the benefits of buying direct and local.

The shorter the journey from farm fork to eating fork the better, as it not only provides fresh, healthy food but also helps sustain communities in the widest sense. Opportunities to buy direct include farmers' markets, farm shops, box schemes, online, food festivals and of course the farm gate itself.

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Fork2Fork is one of around 30 Supply Chain Efficiencies (SCE) projects funded by European Structural Funds via Welsh Government, and in their different ways each of these projects* has addressed key areas of food and drink production and distribution including how to add value to primary agriculture, horticulture and fisheries.

Over the past five years, even during the worst of the recession, numbers of producers selling direct have grown. Although consumers still buy the vast majority of their food from supermarkets, opportunities to buy locally produced food and drink direct from source have increased, as have sales. Consumers also enjoy meeting food producers of fresh and artisan products which offers a different, more meaningful shopping experience.

This Fork2Fork food journeys publication celebrates some inspiring success stories related to Supply Chain Efficiencies. There are many more producers featured on the interactive online community at www.fork2fork.wales.

We hope fellow producers will enjoy learning from them and that all readers will be tempted to try their fabulous products direct.

Fork2Fork team

* Food related SCE projects include: BOBL Welsh Organic Supply Chains (Organic Centre Wales); Cywain Adding Value Through

Collaboration (Menter a Busnes); Farm Produce Development (Cambrian Mountains Initiative); Food Festival Support & Evaluation (Welsh Government); Home Delivery Service (Pembrokeshire Produce Direct); Horticulture Wales (Glyndwr ˆ University; Smart Move, Sustainable Supply Chains (F3 Consultants); Improving & Adding Value (Ceredigion CC); Improving Welsh Dairy Supply Chain (Coleg Sir Gar); Monmouthshire Food Works (Aventa); Welsh Food Added Value (Coleg Menai); Welsh Perry & Cider Project (Welsh Perry & Cider Society). Several other SCE projects relate to crop, livestock, timber and related markets development.

Views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and/or interviewee(s) and are not necessarily those of Fork2Fork. Any photographs included in this publication are illustrative only and do not necessarily reflect the finished goods or their production process. All materials included in this publication are subject to copyright and other proprietary intellectual property rights.

Editor Simon Wright; Deputy Editor Sam Argent; Writers Jackie Bates, Charles Williams, Simon Wright, Manon Steffan Ros, Michael Smith, Dylan Iorwerth; Photography Warren Orchard, Iestyn Hughes, Elinor James; Recipes Simon Wright for Fork2Fork; Production co-ordinator Sheila Joseph; Translation Elin ap Hywel; Production FBA; Print Westdale Press, Cardiff.

This product has been printed using paper from sustainable sources.

Upcoming Events St Dogmaels Farmers' Market Pwllheli Farmers' Market Abergavenny Food Festival

THE TASTE OF TALES WELCOME TO FORK2FORK. WE’RE GOING ON A JOURNEY. NOT A LONG ONE. WE ARE GOING WHERE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE FORK THAT DIGS THE SOIL AND THE FORK ON YOUR PLATE IS SHORT. WHERE THE MEAT IS SOLD AT THE PLACE WHERE THE ANIMAL WAS REARED. WHERE THE CRAB CAN BE BOUGHT IN THE LITTLE MARKET JUST A STONE’S THROW FROM WHERE IT WAS LANDED, WHERE THE CHEESE IS FORMED ON THE FARM AND WHERE THE CIDER IS MADE IN THE MIDST OF THE ORCHARD...

...BUT THERE ARE DISTANCES INVOLVED TOO. We’re going to a place where the taste of a cheese made in one place is a very long way from the taste of a cheese made in another, where the flavour of one brewer’s beer is a million miles away from the flavour of someone else’s, where the texture of this baker’s bread and that baker’s bread are far, far apart.

And that is the joy of this place we are going to - in a world in which much is the same wherever you go, where production is mass and the aims are consistency, homogeneity and the triumph of the smooth over the knobbly – this is food with its own personality. It might be harder to come by, you might have to seek it out, it won’t always be available and yes it may cost more than the routine.

But its food that has a story to tell in which the characters are landscape, tradition, culture, climate and the people who rear it, grow it, make it - and when we eat it, it is this special tale that we are tasting.

So, in that narrative spirit, five writers were sent to chronicle their trips into the food culture of a nation, setting their sat navs in search of dairy, baking, fish, meat and brewing and returning to share their very individual journeys. The aim, unashamedly, is to tempt you with these literary titbits, because for every appetite sharpening story here, there are a feast of others waiting to satisfy your hunger.

Go to www.fork2fork.wales and start your own story.

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the writers

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“‘Fishing for Secrets

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Graze Anatomy

simon wright editor

jackie bates

charles williams

Simon stumbled into a career in food 20 odd years ago after a short and unimpressive stint as a town planner.

He has been a partner in several award winning Welsh restaurants, although it’s fair to say that his contribution to their success is often overstated. Past glories include being the editor of the AA Restaurant Guide, publishing a couple of books and making the odd television series for BBC Wales and Channel 4. He was also Restaurant Consultant on all the UK produced episodes of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and he can still often be heard on BBC Radio Wales.

Sometimes he can be found at Wright’s Food Emporium in Carmarthenshire where he does his best to help out.

Jackie has spent the last 20 odd years writing for and editing various well-known food and accommodation guides, and has been lucky enough to eat a lot of nice food. Her interest in cooking and eating began in her mid-teens despite (or maybe because of) her parents’ almost total disinterest.

Her interest in books and writing began long before that, and a degree in English led to a career in publishing. She reads a lot, likes punk rock and dance music and is reasonably well-pierced for a middle-aged person. She never wears trousers and if you see a woman climbing over a five-bar gate in purple wellies and a skirt, it might be her.

And why would she be climbing over a five-bar gate? In order to examine a standing stone or a stone circle – why else?

Charles is a freelance writer and broadcaster. He spent 10 years as a full-time journalist, and now does an odd assortment of writing jobs that include editing tourism magazines for Visit Wales, writing radio comedy, and presenting documentaries for BBC Radio Wales.

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His interest in food goes back to his childhood on a farm in Carmarthenshire.

“It was a great place to learn how to eat well. It was about feeding big meals to hungry men, which usually involved cheap cuts – briskets, bellies, shoulders – with lots of veg from the garden. In other words, the sort of stuff you pay top-whack for these days.”

Since then, he’s eaten at some of the world’s best restaurants – including the legendary El Bulli… twice – but is just as happy barbecuing on a Welsh beach, as long as there’s beer. He’s also the custodian of the family cawl recipe (“Shin of beef and neck of lamb. That’s all I’m saying.”).

Sweet dreams in Dairyland

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Talking FORK2FORK

manon steffan ros

michael smith

dylan iorwerth

Manon has spent around 31 of her 32 years on earth tasting things, graduating from an early penchant for plasticine to actual foodstuffs. She learned to cook after the birth of her first child, when she realised that it was unfair to unleash her infamous bean and noodle surprise upon the infant. She is now an avid (and occasionally smug) home cook.

Michael writes in traditional forms like the novel (Unreal City, Giro Playboy) and the essay (Esquire, Guardian, etc), but also loves exploring the possibilities of extending the art of writing into other media.

Dylan is a journalist and presenter.

A one-time parliamentary lobby correspondent for BBC Cymru/S4C, he is joint founder and Managing Editor of the Golwg stable of magazines and on-line news service Golwg360.

He has made critically acclaimed essay-films for the BBC (Drivetime, Deep North, Culture Show etc), directed several short films (Lost in London, Drift Street etc), and made an album version of his latest novel with musician Andrew Weatherall. You can see some of his work at bymichaelsmith.tumblr.com.

He has been BT’s Welsh Journalist of the Year and has won all three of the major literary prizes at the National Eisteddfod.

He works in a range of media – print, radio, television and digital – and in both Welsh and English language. Dylan is keen on cooking – and eating too.

In between googling Turkish Delight recipes and hiding vegetables in her children’s food, Manon works as a novelist, playwright and columnist. Her novel with recipes, Blasu, won the fiction category in the Welsh Book of the Year in 2013. It has just been published in English as The Seasoning.

Originally from Rhiwlas, North Wales, Manon now lives in Tywyn, Meirionnydd, with her two sons and an overworked oven.

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Contents

Talking fork2fork Dylan Iorwerth and the people who are passionate about bringing locally sourced produce direct to the public.

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FEATURED TRIPS

08 The Power of Flour

Jackie Bates drags herself out of bed before dawn to break bread with some of Wales’s most talented bakers.

Fork2Fork Recipes

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Jim Cross from Bellis Farm Shop Martin Orbach on Abergavenny Food Festival Jane Hughes of Gwledd Conwy Feast Lucy Beddall from Uplands Market Deryl Jones of Snowdon Honey Farm & Winery

Charles Williams encounters tails of the unexpected in the hills and valleys of North Wales and meets a baron of beef and a sultan of sausages.

Great local produce, simple recipes, delicious results.

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50 Sweet Dreams in Dairyland

FOOD LORE & LEGENDS

Simon Wright journeys from the river to the sea and discovers that the ways of the fisherman are almost as mysterious as those of the fish they pursue.

Manon Steffan Ros travels through green pastures and meets the people that turn milk into something more.

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A feast of little known food and drink tidbits.

Michael Smith sets out to explore the beer and cider renaissance, meet the makers and get a taste of their local magic.

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Earl Grey and honey loaf Lamb boulangère Whole poached sewin or salmon Red onion, butternut squash and blue cheese quiche Wild garlic and cider soup

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Bakery Meat Fish Dairy Beer & Cider

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“ It’s meditative.

You can think about anything or nothing, empty your mind, or plan what you might like to make next.”

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the power of FLour Baking may seem prosaic but in fact it’s the most bewitching of crafts, as Jackie Bates discovered when she got up before dawn to witness the transformation of flour, water and salt into something rather magical.

Words Jackie Bates Photography Iestyn Hughes

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“There are yeasts in the air around us, invisible, waiting... give them the correct support and enticement and they’ll be happy to make your bread delicious.” wouldn’t describe myself as a morning person. In fact, I’m famous for not being one. So as I roll out of bed at four a.m. I wonder what I was thinking when I agreed to investigate baking in Wales. It might be late April but it’s still dark at four forty-five.

I bid farewell to the comfort of The Hardwick and embark on a journey through the dark countryside, heading for an industrial unit on the outskirts of Hay-on-Wye to talk to Alex Gooch, Artisan Baker, about, well, bread.

The countryside around Abergavenny is lovely – especially in the spring; blossom, leaves unfurling, lambs – all sadly invisible at five a.m. We drive through empty villages and never see another car, only valleys filled with mist, hanging still and silent. At last we’re here. A smell of baking, yes, just a hint, and then we’re inside in the warm.

We meet Liam, Alex’s assistant, and Alex. We don’t shake hands, he’s covered in olive oil and dough. The unit is square, high-ceilinged, the ovens a shiny stack of stainless steel boxes. There are metal-topped catering tables, a giant mixer, huge plastic tubs full of dough. Alex works at a vast oak table – it would seat twenty for dinner. When we arrive, half of it’s covered in a slippery heap of dough.

I’d imagined bakers in white, but Alex and Liam both wear black T-shirts and dark cooks’ trousers, navy aprons.

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Liam’s been in since one a.m., Alex since ‘two-ish’. He’s in the middle of moving house, and he has a four month old baby, he must be knackered but he doesn’t seem it. We look at the stacked bakers’ trays of cinnamon swirl pastries and fruit bread that they’ve already made this morning. It’s about six o’clock, so they’ve been working for five hours already and have made a lot of stuff. Tell me about bread, then. Why bread?

Alex used to be a chef. But while working at Penrhos Court with Daphne Lambert he learned about fermentation and sourdough and has never looked back. What’s so special about sourdough? It’s complex and magical. Magical in a scientific way, of course. There are yeasts in the air around us, invisible, waiting. Give them the correct support and enticement and they’ll be happy to make your bread delicious. Alex’s sourdough is made with a starter that was born or created – conjured from the air – ten years ago.

You feed it and watch over it and in return it makes your bread something special. It’s alive, after all, and affected by all kinds of things. The weather. The season. The other ingredients. Your mood? I ask. Yeah, I think so, says Alex, definitely.

I watch as he slices the enormous shifting wobbly pile of dough into pieces. Forty, sixty, all chopped and weighed and

The Power of Flour

rolled in flour, shaped and left to prove further. It’s soothing to watch, and something he clearly does as second nature, my nosy questions not affecting the repetition of his actions.

The dough is very wet, if you’re used to making ordinary bread, and very active, forming large, slow bubbles even as I watch. He moves back and forth, pricking the biggest bubbles with the corner of the dough blade. Then the dough goes into proving bowls, and he’s emptying another enormous heap onto the table. Tell me about ingredients, then.

Flour’s interesting. He uses various flours, different grains for different loaves. Some is grown elsewhere but milled in Wales, and some is grown in Wales. He makes a heritage loaf with Welsh-ground, Welsh-grown flour, Halen Môn salt from Anglesey, and seaweed from the Gower. Wales is an amazing place for produce, we agree, great cheese, brilliant for salad and herbs, amazing to have local salt. It’s easy to see local provenance for lamb or beef, of course, but you don’t think

about flour, where it come from. Alex is always looking for new producers, interested in what’s going on in terms of local and organic produce. And why here? He lived near Hay as a child. He came back because it’s a good place to be. He sells at Hay Producers’ Market and Presteigne. And he sells to restaurants – The Hardwick is one of them. We had your bread at dinner last night, I tell him.

We’re there for nearly four hours, watching Alex and Liam feeding the ovens with ciabatta, sourdough rolls, four or five different sourdough loaves, fruit bread, a dense rye and raisin loaf. It seems endless, industrial, and yet all shaped by hand, methodical, calm. What do you think about, when you’re doing it? Liam laughs, he doesn’t think about anything.

Bread? I ask. Alex says maybe. It’s meditative. You can think about anything or nothing, empty your mind, or plan what you might like to make next. The final thing he makes is the famous sourdough focaccia. I’ve made focaccia myself and

“It''''’s complex and magical

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always been pretty pleased with it but my goodness this stuff is amazing. The dough is wetter and oiler and much – busier – forming huge gassy bubbles as Alex pours it into large metal trays and prods it, adding more oil and salt.

At the moment he’s making one with onions, cheese and a bright green pesto-like substance made with local rocket and purple-sprouting broccoli. It’s intensely green-tasting.

The plain focaccia is incredible, I could have easily eaten – I did eat – loads of it. Salty, oily, perfect, amazing. The open crumb is unexpected. It’s absolutely delicious. Very popular, he says. His father, who’s arrived to help with the stall at the market, tells me it sells fantastically well, and I’m not surprised. I’m extremely jealous of the people of Hay and Presteigne who can buy this stuff from their markets.

Do they know how lucky they are?

Stuffed with bread, now we’re off to the Vale of Glamorgan for cake. The weather is absolutely glorious and the countryside is beautiful. For me it’s a strange feeling to

have done a day’s work (if you can call talking to people and eating, work) already. I couldn’t be a baker but bread is amazing stuff. I’m pretty fond of cake, though, and looking forward to meeting Mel Constantinou, doyenne of Baked

by Mel. She lives in Llantwit Major, which seems to be full of bluebells, late daffodils, birdsong and sunshine.

In complete contrast to Alex’s little industrial unit, Mel bakes at home. We’re drinking tea and eating Bara Brith within moments of being welcomed into her kitchen. Baking seems to make happy friendly people, and Mel’s no exception.

Her baking journey began as a way to work from home when her children were small and she was a single parent. At first she made cupcakes and sold them at the local garden centre and at markets and food fairs. When she moved to Llantwit Major she had to rethink her audience. She wondered if there was a market for cake by post. Cupcakes aren’t really suitable for posting, though. And they’re not so Welsh. But Bara Brith, well, everyone likes that, and you really can’t get it elsewhere

People open the box and eat it, basically,

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The Power of Flour

in the UK. She sold at the Abergavenny Food Festival and gained an award from Taste of Wales. Fortnum and Mason took an interest and before she knew where she was, Baked by Mel Bara Brith was on sale in Piccadilly. People are surprised, sometimes, that Mel’s not Welsh – she was born in Essex and is half Greek-Cypriot. But one of her grandmothers was from Swansea, so maybe it’s not such a stretch. She lived in the Middle East (‘on a beach with no running water and no electricity’) before teaching in Wiltshire and Somerset and finally ending up in Wales. Her Welsh grandmother made ‘tea bread’, and it was only when Mel began to make it herself that she realised it was the same as she’d eaten as a child.

Bara Brith is one of those things, she says, where everyone has their own recipe and a real idea of how it should taste.

It’s very satisfying when she puts out her samples and hears people saying ‘this is as good as granny’s’.

She was determined to use no preservatives. Bara Brith keeps well – hers has a sixteen day shelf life – more than adequate for sending it out by post. People open the box and eat it, basically, she grins. I don’t think many survive the full sixteen days.

How many do you send out a day? Usually between four and ten. She makes the mixture one day, bakes the next and posts the following, and there’s still a post office in the village so it’s very straightforward. And do you love it? She does.

She’d make cake anyway, after all, and she needs to be at home for the boys. It’s ideal.

Next stop, Cardigan, to meet another baker. Jack Smylie Wild was born in Aberystwyth but brought up in Devon.

He’s 25 and started baking three years ago, in reaction to the ‘rubbish bread’ his girlfriend was buying. At first glance a philosophy degree might seem a strange path to baking, but maybe not. Do you find it a meditative thing? I ask.

He’s enthusiastic in his response. Absolutely. Early mornings, quiet, bread – all lead to contemplation. He bakes forty to sixty loaves a day, sold in Bara Menyn, his bakery/café, just up the hill from Cardigan Castle. They opened in February.

How’s it going? Brilliantly. The café was certainly busy while we were there. I’d seen acclaim on the internet for his sourdough pitta, so that’s what I have for lunch, with falafel

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“the depth of fLavour adds a level of complexity

and halloumi. I love pitta, but I’ve never tried a sourdough one before and, as with Alex’s focaccia, the depth of flavour adds a level of complexity. I have toast as well, made from the standard sourdough loaf, and it’s excellent. Jack’s full of energy and enthusiasm, and I talk to a couple of customers who rave about the bread. He helped set up the Organic Fresh Food Company’s bakehouse in Lampeter, and one couple used to buy their bread there. We were so thrilled when we found we could buy Jack’s bread here, the lady tells me. I ask Jack about produce. He’s interested in local producers as well, with plans for an all-Welsh loaf, also featuring Halen Môn salt and Welsh flour. Some of the flour he uses is ground at Y Felin, a watermill in St Dogmaels, just up the road. He tells me how proud he is to have a business that employs people.

He hoped to create three jobs, but he already has six people working for him. Bara Menyn began life as one of Cardigan’s Custom Houses. Jack himself lives in a little flat above the kitchen. So you can get up in the night and check it’s all doing the right thing? Yeah, it’s good to live on the premises, he feels an even greater connection to his work.

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So what did I learn on my journey? That Wales is a beautiful country full of incredibly passionate people.

They make, grow and produce all kinds of wonderful things.

It’s not just about fish or lamb; the fields full of wheat or rapeseed can also end up in local food. That everyone thinks it’s pretty cool you can get Welsh salt. That people who are lucky enough to find their calling can inspire others with their passion. And that this passion can result in fantastic food. If there’s somewhere near you producing amazing, delicious and honest food, you should support them if you possibly can. People who love what they do want to share it. Alex does courses, and Jack will give you some of his sourdough starter and explain how to care for it if you want to make bread at home. Mel will send you a Bara Brith. And what could be better than getting cake through the post? Everyone I met was incredibly inspiring. Although I don’t need much encouragement or inspiration to stuff myself with baked goods.

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Food Lore & Legends VIVA LA BARA BRITH When the Welsh sailed off to Argentina in 1865 in search of a better life, they took their famous bread, sorry, cake, with them. Visit a Welsh teahouse anywhere in Argentina’s Chubut province and you’ll find bara brith on the menu. Usually sweet and more of a cake than a bread, in Spanish they call it torta negra, or black cake.

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COULDN'’'T EAT A WHOLE ONE Bala cooked the world’s largest Welsh cake on St David’s Day in 2014 measuring 1.5m wide, weighing 21.7kgs and cut into more than 200 pieces.

The wind that feeds Growing corn, milling flour and bread making has been an essential part of Welsh life for thousands of years. Anglesey, the island of windmills, was called ‘Môn, Mam Cymru’ (‘Anglesey, Mother of Wales’) as it was reputed to have enough corn growing to feed the whole country.

A slice of pancake Welsh crempog, also known as ‘ffroes’, differ from the British/ French crêpe. More like the American pancake and bigger than the Scotch pancake, crempog can be made with or without yeast, with buttermilk, oats or speckled with raisins or currants.

Stacked in a pile, smothered with butter and then sliced like a wedge of cake – a teatime treat.

Old shell biscuits Aberffraw cakes are more biscuit than cake.

The name of these little shortbread biscuits comes from the village where they originate and they are moulded into the shape of a shell.

Traditionally the shape is formed by pressing the unbaked mixture into a scallop shell before baking; the shell is removed before it goes in the oven leaving the shell imprint – a traditional motif of pilgrims, steeped in ancient meanings.

Griddled not baked Traditionally Welsh cakes were cooked over a hot bake-stone, but iron griddles were later used and are now the predominant method used to cook them.

They have gone by a few different names including their Welsh language names ‘Cage Bach’ or ‘Picau ar y Maen’ but also they are known as ‘Griddle Cakes’, ‘Welsh Tea Cakes’ and ‘Welsh Miner Cakes’.

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Earl GRey and Honey Loaf Here’s one of those great tea time (or anytime) fruit loaves not unlike Bara Brith.

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450g dried fruit 200g brown sugar 50g honey 2 Earl Grey tea bags steeped in 300ml boiling water 450g self-raising flour 1 tsp ground nutmeg 1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 Soak fruit, honey and sugar in tea overnight.

2 Discard the tea bags, add the dry

ingredients to the fruit mix and stir together.

3 Now add a beaten free range egg, stir again and pour into a 900g loaf tin.

Bake at 170ºC for 1½ hours.

4 Serve with butter.

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Fork2Fork’s free online community!

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The Fork2Fork online community is a great forum for food and drink producers and consumers interested in connecting directly with each other.

It is a virtual meeting place and unique space to share ideas, information and offers inspirational examples of best practice direct sales.

Find out what’s going on and contribute your own stories, recipes and list local events, all helping to promote the benefits of buying fresh, direct and local food.

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Upcoming Events St Dogmaels Farmers' Market

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TalkinG Fork2Fork

Bellis farm shop

For the love of fresh food The Bellis family have been on their farm in Holt, near Wrexham, for more than a century.

But they now have a flourishing Farm Shop, Garden Centre and Pick Your Own business too.

Farm Manager Jim Cross grows the vegetables and fruit – and really loves his work.

From small beginnings...

When I joined in 1984, the family had a small farm shop about the size of two double garages. Now we’re a farm shop and garden centre with a farm attached.

...to a big enterprise...

There are 60-70 people working here full and part time. The restaurant seats round about 180 and the rest of the shop is on a similar scale. We are now a 'destination' Farm Shop and Garden Centre.

Selling what we sow...

We’re growing potatoes, onions, carrots, all the brassicas, sprouts and that kind of thing. We’re also doing soft fruit – strawberries, raspberries, loganberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants. Some of these are sold through the shop but most of them are for our Pick Your Own site which is open through the summer.

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“I wish more people made the connection.

Far too many people don’t really care where their food is coming FROM...”

“The customers are getting produce as fresh as you can possibly do it.”

Facing up to making a maize maze...

From fork to fork...

With trepidation. I’ve never done it before. A lot of the bigger maize mazes do it with GPS satellite guidance. I’m going to use a lawnmower and a couple of bamboo canes.

I wish more people made the connection. Far too many people don’t really care where their food is coming from and perhaps they should. It would be much healthier for them.

I think everyone should eat more fresh fruit and vegetables and I’d be quite happy to help them!

The beauty of freshness...

The customers are getting produce as fresh as you can possibly do it. The asparagus that we picked this morning at eight was in the shop by nine. You can’t get it fresher than that really. Freshness is guaranteed.

Loving the work...

On a nice day on the Pick Your Own fields you see so many people enjoying the experience of being out there picking the fruit. And I think, ‘it’s great that I’ve been able to help do that’. We had a crop last summer, the first variety (of table top strawberries) that we started picking in June last year, and to see the fruit just hanging over these table tops, it was just such a beautiful sight... and big berries... and the flavours as well. You just think, ‘That’s fantastic’.

The pleasure of eating what you have planted...

Definitely... it’s the first potato from the field when the skins are still rubbing off... it’s to go down a row of raspberries on a sunny afternoon and just pick a few off and eat them.

You can’t get better. I’m salivating now just thinking about it... just the pleasure of finding that first berry of the season – I’m really looking forward to it.

There are hundreds of farm shops scattered across Wales.

To find one in your area visit www.fork2fork.wales

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GRAZE ANATOMY It’s grand up north. Charles Williams goes on tour to meet a baron of beef, a sultan of sausages, and a lot of happy animals who are outstanding in their field.

Words Charles Williams Photography Elinor James

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“N

Graze Anatomy

It is a passion of mine

I can go out in the market with confidence knowing that we’re producing the best

orth Wales is bathed in spring sunshine, the gorse in dazzling bloom on the hills, where lambs gambol and cattle graze with studied concentration. We cross the River Dee as… good grief, is that a herd of bison?

It is. It’s alarmingly incongruous, as if we took a wrong turn at Llangollen and ended up in, I dunno, Wyoming. Actually, we’re still in Denbighshire. Specifically, the Rhug Estate near Corwen, home of the estimable Lord Newborough, organic farmer and purveyor of Welsh lamb to the world’s best chefs.

“I saw a herd of bison once and I thought, wow, they look fun,” says His Lordship. “I put some in a field by the main road in the hope that they’d slow down the traffic and everyone would turn into the farm shop. It was so successful it became an accident blackspot.”

The 8th Baron Newborough comes from a long line of adventurers, politicians, swashbucklers and war heroes. He’s wiry and laconic, and even in his sixties gives the impression that he’d be pretty handy with a sword, if required. Today he’s wearing the aristocrat uniform of a frayed blue shirt that’s retired from active service in the boardroom, and an £8.99 fleece.

“I was born and brought up as a farmer, but I never found farming very interesting, so I went off and did a lot of other things, much to my father’s horror,” he says. The ‘other things’ included protecting fisheries in Sierra Leone, running an air charter company, and building his own electronics firm.

When he eventually took over the family farm, he brought not only shrewd business skills, but also a sense of a big world outside Wales, and a passion for organic food.

“In the 90s there were so many food scares, and when I took over the farm in 1998 I made the decision to go organic,” he says. “It’s far more challenging than farming conventionally, because there are no quick fixes. It’s much more interesting.“ In the old days, almost all Rhug produce went to Waitrose.

Today they sell 65% of their produce direct to customers. He started with nine staff, and now provides jobs for 105 people.

“The farm is at least three or four times more productive than it ever was. With organic farming, you have to believe in it. It is a passion of mine. I can go out in the market with confidence knowing that we’re producing the best,” he says.

Accordingly, his organic lamb and beef is served at some of

the poshest tables in the world, including the Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong, the Burj al Arab in Dubai, and London’s Ritz, Connaught, Dorchester and Berkeley hotels. On the flip-side, Lord Newborough is just as proud that he’s supplying organic lamb and chicken to schools in the London borough of Tower Hamlets.

We go for a drive around the estate so photographer Elinor can do her thing. His Lordship rides chivalrously in the back, leaping out to open gates. The 70-strong herd of bison are even more otherworldly when you see them close up. It’s like bumping into Beyoncé in Asda.

Lord Newborough warns us to keep a close eye on his bovine counterpart, a massive shaggy bull that looks like it’s been constructed of about 19 densely-packed tons of muscle, bone, horn, leather and grudges.

“If he raises his tail, that means he’s about to charge,” says Lord N, blithely reaching out to stroke the bull, whose tail already looks more than half-mast to me and Elinor. It ends, predictably, with the three of us scampering to the car.

We drive on. The world’s most sought-after organic lambs are picturesquely arrayed in front of Rhug Hall, m’lord’s honey-coloured country pile which sits prettily across the lake.

In the next field, young Aberdeen Angus cattle are enjoying the spring pasture, while Lord Newborough enthuses about the joys of going organic, how all manner of clovers and hedgerow plants have emerged since the tyranny of pesticide and chemical fertiliser was overthrown, and how the animals’ grazing habits have changed, and they instinctively forage for the wild herbage which contain the minerals and nutrients their bodies naturally need.

Back at the Rhug Estate Farm Shop and Bistro, we put the meat to the test. It’s rather thrilling to be able to buy the same meat that’s served by the world’s top chefs, in a roadside shop in Wales (albeit one that looks less farm-shoppy and more the food hall of a high-end department store).

Their top seller is the bison burger, which sells quicker than they can produce it. Lord Newborough is sometimes berated by tourists who’ve driven all the way from Birmingham to try one (top tip: the bison is good, but the lamb burger is even better).

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We say our farewells and head north into the hills, cutting crosscountry through the folds of Denbighshire and Conwy, on roads that look bigger on the map than they turn out to be in reality.

It’s not a place to be in a hurry. Somewhere in these hills, a man called Eifion Howatson makes his own chorizo and salami from pigs he raises on his smallholding. (We’d have called in, but Eifion is looking after his grandchildren today, which rightly takes priority.)

At length we join a valley that slashes down towards Conwy, home of a thumping great castle and another famous local monument, Edwards of Conwy, which recently won the UK title of Butcher’s Shop of the Year.

In the labyrinthine back rooms, men are breaking down carcasses. It’d be quite sinister if it wasn’t so sparklingly clean and everyone so cheerful – none more so than the company’s founder, Ieuan Edwards.

A farmer’s son from the Conwy valley, Ieuan set up his own butchers at the age of 20. His premium sausages now appear on supermarket shelves throughout Wales, and they’re spreading eastwards into England, making the leap from regional brand to national super-sausage. They’re also all the rage in Kuala Lumpur, bizarrely.

Despite all the sharp knives lying around, I ask Ieuan if his sausages have dropped in quality on their journey from butcher’s banger to global domination. He laughs (thankfully).

“There are certain values you have to maintain,” he says.

“When we began 30-odd years ago, we only put in shoulder pork, nothing else, and it’s the same today. Just because we make more of them doesn’t mean to say we make them poorer. In fact, I think they’re better than ever because we’ve got more in-depth understanding of the sausage process.”

Another rude question: you’ve got enough (sausages) on your plate. Why bother keeping a shop?

“Because I’m a butcher, aren’t I?” says Ieuan. “Unfortunately I have to wear this thing [indicates tie] rather than my apron a lot of the time, but I still love coming down here.”

Ieuan recently refurbished the shop in a way that, interestingly, doesn’t go down the route of hiding the fact that meat comes from… well, dead animals. There are lots of arty design flourishes, but behind the meat counter is a cabinet displaying whole lamb carcasses and great hunks of beef.

Ieuan is closing the gap between animal and consumer, not widening it. He invites people to custom-cure their own Christmas hams. He runs wine-and-food nights. As we chat in the shop, he’s interrupted constantly by customers and passers-by, bantering in Welsh and English. Everyone knows him, and he knows them.

Ieuan the town butcher, who just happens to run a multinational sausage empire, but still provides locals with top-quality meat.

Last stop of the day is Bodnant Welsh Food. It’s set beautifully, near the famous National Trust gardens, in a neat cluster of 18th-century farm buildings that have been lavishly converted into a B&B, cookery school, restaurant, tea rooms, wine cellar and excellent farm shop. Elinor and I carry out an exhaustive study of Welsh cider, watch the sun set over the River Conwy, fight over who’s having the bigger room, I lose, and we withdraw for the night.

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Graze Anatomy

“

Ieuan is closing the gap between animal and consumer, not widening it.

He invites people to custom-cure their own Christmas hams.

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Another perfect day dawns. We snaffle a Full Welsh at the Bodnant tea room, then it’s onward to Anglesey, the island that was once the breadbasket of Wales, the last stronghold of the druids, and what tabloids used to call WILLS & KATE’S SECRET LOVE NEST. Since the 1960s, it’s also been the home of Michael and Rosalind Hooton, who moved here to grow potatoes and cereals on a farm by the Menai Strait. They started selling asparagus from their back door; then sons Andrew and James came home to farm, and they now run two shops which sell a multitude of seasonal veg and meats: Welsh Black beef, Lleyn lamb, pigs and turkeys.

We’ve come to the original Hooton’s Homegrown Farm Shop at Brynsiencyn, whose front door perfectly frames the pyramidal summit of Snowdon, which looms a dozen or so miles away. We like James Hooton immediately, partly because he’s an immediately likeable chap, but mainly because he arrives on a big red tractor, looking like a proper farmer (because he is).

“We’re just… real,” he says, muttering dark things about some so-called farm shops which aren’t any such thing.

Hooton’s is indeed the real deal: all the fresh produce on the shelves is grown or reared on the farm (‘we work in food metres, not miles’ is their slogan). All the preserves, pies, cakes and ready-meals are made in their own kitchen.

“Everything we do here, everything we grow or raise or cook or make is sold in our shops, and nowhere else,” says James.

They have a loyal local following, boosted by a seasonal influx of tourists. In summer, they fire up the BBQ so that visitors can devour steaks and burgers along with the stonking views. Behind the scenes, three butchers are busy breaking home-reared beef, lamb and pork into cuts. James ushers them into the sunlight to pose for a photo, leaning on the wheel of his Massey Ferguson. “Is this farmery enough?” he asks, wrily. “I can chew on a straw and go ‘ooh-arr’, if you like.”

Not necessary. The meat (which we buy and cook later) proves his credentials. It’s really, really good. Then James is back on his tractor and off to plant some peas and tend to his garlic and do farmer stuff. If you’re in Anglesey, do call in. As James says, it’s real.

We drive back across the Menai Strait and down onto the Llŷn Peninsula. It’s surprisingly mountainous, with volcanic peaks rising jaggedly from the sea. Just before the highest, Yr Eifl, the road veers inland and drops down to Glasfryn Parc, our final destination. Glasfryn has diversified well beyond the usual farm shop, and is now as much a tourist magnet as a farm, with go-karting and wakeboarding among the attractions.

Its meat has won a hatful of True Taste awards, and they supply lots of local pubs and hotels (including, I note with approval, Plas Bodegroes, one of my favourite restaurants in Wales). They also sell meat direct at the farm and at the Puffin Café in Penmaenmawr.

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Graze Anatomy

animals are best when allowed to get on with doing what comes naturally

Gwynfor the farm manager takes us on a tour of his domain. It’s fabulously low-tech, an elegantly battered collection of mostly Victorian farm buildings. The Welsh Black cattle are about to be released to pasture, and look glowingly healthy. Across a stone wall, lambs are doing that skippy-jumpy thing in a meadow. We meet the pigs, whose home is a scrubby field that is useless for cattle or sheep, but paradise for the porcine. Gwynfor calls to them and they trot up to greet us, each with a tide-line of mud from where they’ve been wallowing in the field’s lower swamps. We feel momentary pity for factory-farmed pigs, the ones whose trotters feel nothing but concrete.

We also remember Lord Newborough’s mantra that animals are best when allowed to get on with doing what comes naturally. These pigs are as happy as pigs in… well, you get the picture.

The same goes for every animal we’ve met on our tour, including the humans. Raising animals properly, in a sunkissed North Wales, and making meats that are celebrated by the world’s best chefs. It’s bound to put a smile on your face, isn’t it?

“

Everything we do here, everything we grow or raise or cook or make is sold in our shops, and nowhere else… www.fork2fork.wales

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The sign of the black ox

Commercial exploitation of the Welsh Black breed meant that drovers would herd them long distances to English markets. A difficult and hazardous job as the well-worn routes attracted highwaymen and drovers often carried large sums of money. As a result, droving banks were established along the way, including the Banc yr Eidon – the Bank of the Black Ox in Llandovery, renowned for its black cattle and a central meeting point for the Carmarthenshire drovers.

The bank was later purchased by Lloyds Bank.

WOOL FIRST

Sheep were bred for their wool initially and many of the first flocks were cared for by the monks of the medieval abbeys.

They established the spinning and weaving industry in Wales and for centuries woollen cloth was a main export.

Mutton – from lambs that had spent at least one winter on the mountains – was the meat originally eaten and has become more popular today because of its special flavour.

In the soup

Is ‘cawl’ the national dish of Wales?

Historically made with salted bacon or beef (now lamb) plus swedes, carrots and potatoes, in North Wales it’s known as 'lobsgows'. ‘Cawl cennin’ uses meat stock and leeks and is served with bread & cheese (bara caws).

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Mutton Prized dressed possessions as…

Rolling Old boar rivers

The agricultural pig breeds of today originate from the old wild boar found in Welsh woodlands. According to the legends of the Mabinogi the first pigs were gifts from the Celtic underworld and they were first seen in Dyfed.

Many Welsh rivers are named after the pig family – Hwch, Twrch, Aman, Banw, Machno a Soch. Rivers burrow or cut through the land, like a pig searching for acorns, roots and mushrooms. The pig also enjoys rolling in mud – not because it’s a dirty animal but because a layer of mud keeps it cool and protects it from the sun’s rays.

The Welsh farmland has been home to native breeds of cattle for thousands of years.

Early Celtic tribes rarely slaughtered their animals for meat, doing so only for special feasts. The owner’s wealth and status would be reflected by the size of his herd. The word for cattle still in use in south Wales is ‘da’ (meaning ‘money’ or ‘possession’).

For some, mutton is meat from a ‘wether’ (castrated male sheep) and to others, from an older breeding ewe. Either way, the best meat (especially the Welsh Mountain breed) is produced from October – March after long summer grazing. ‘The leg of mutton of Wales beats the leg of mutton of any other country.’ George Borrow, Wild Wales.

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Lamb boulangère This is so easy and the results so heavenly, that it’s almost a crime not to make it at least once a month.

Shoulder of lamb on bone around 2kg in weight 1½kg peeled, thinly sliced white potatoes 3 large white onions thinly sliced 1 head of garlic separated into cloves Handful of thyme leaves ½ litre chicken stock

1 In a large roasting dish or deep casserole

layer the potatoes, onions, garlic and thyme leaves.

2 Place the lamb on top and sprinkle a few

further thyme leaves over and season well.

3 Pour over the chicken stock and place

uncovered in an oven at 160ºC (140ºC fan) for 5-7 hours.

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TalkinG Fork2Fork.

Abergavenny Food Festival

Flying the flag Abergavenny is something of a flagship with a huge profile and a reputation as one of the most significant food events in Europe.

Martin Orbach is a farmer, ice-cream maker and one of the founders of Abergavenny Food Festival in 1999. He was the Director and latterly Programme Director until his retirement from the Festival in 2013.

In the beginning...

We thought small farms could produce higher quality foods in more environmentally friendly ways and could therefore deliver a big service to the country. It was very much about celebrating the small farm and small producer.

The first festival...

I remember we had about 30 stalls in the market hall. We did a sort of community banquet, which was very stressful because we lost our caterer about a week before the event. And we did a few talks including Franco and Anne Taruschio talking about the history of the Walnut Tree and we had Marguerite Patten! So we had all the elements that are still there – a market for high quality food producers, a celebration and discussion and debate.

Abergavenny is special because...

We wanted to be something more than a market for food producers. We wanted to create a festival whose subject was food.

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“They’re being more ambitious in the kind of products that they make and they’re marketing to a new, younger audience.”

“...small farms could produce higher quality foods in more environmentally friendly ways...”

The early days were scary...

It used to be really terrifying. But tremendous elation at the end of it. A lovely experience of working with a small team, lovely feedback from producers and visitors. It was really nice to be in a festival where everyone, young or old, every class or colour, got it. Because everybody likes food. It was a wonderful party.

The festival today...

It’s put together much more professionally. You don’t quite get so much of the festival director with his hand down a manhole trying to unblock a drain at seven in the morning.

Now they’re doing what they’re supposed to do!

The rate of visitor growth has been enormous...

In that first year we had something like 3,000 people; there are now well over 30,000. It’s very, very busy but Abergavenny has got a unique atmosphere; it really is special. I’ve not seen anything like it elsewhere. And that takes a lot to create.

...and so has the variety of food...

We now have perhaps 250 stalls and at least 60% are

Welsh. We have far and away the biggest concentration of Welsh stalls of any food festival. There’s a second generation of really sophisticated producers who are doing some fantastically interesting products. They’re being more ambitious in the kind of products that they make and they’re marketing to a new, younger audience.

The people are the highlight...

There have been so many wonderful people who’ve come to the festival but the real highlight is the way that, time and again, the atmosphere in the town and the street is quite extraordinary. It’s so busy just with people enjoying themselves.

What next for food festivals...

I think the way forward is about people understanding what they eat, being better informed. Events like food festivals, where people can talk to the producers, help to reconnect people with food. A huge amount of the pleasure of food is in understanding where it comes from.

Across Wales each year there are a plethora of food festivals, both large and small. To find one in your area visit www.fork2fork.wales

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Fishing for SEcrets The ways of the fishermen can seem almost as weird and mysterious as those of the fish they pursue. Simon Wright takes a trip downstream to uncover the life of brine.

Words Simon Wright Photography Warren Orchard

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D

riving through Carmarthen in the small hours of the morning, sometime in the early nineties when I was new in town. On my left the river, a flicker of silver in the blue black between the silhouettes of trees. Nothing moves, the town is in its bed and on the road it’s just me and the moonlight. In the car the heater’s on, the radio is playing soft and my mind is somewhere far, far away.

And then, in the blue black, six figures of dread. Weird sentinels, bigger than men, marching in sinister file along the river bank. Creatures with great shells like mutant turtles or immense black beetles that have reared up on their hind legs. My heart freezes at the sight, I hit the kerb, recover on instinct and look urgently in the mirror. There is nothing to see but the night and that’s enough – I drive on and away, shaken, disturbed, at a loss, in truth, petrified. I know not what I have witnessed.

Twenty or so years later and I’m standing on the same waterside shaking hands with one of these monsters. His name is Malcolm and he has a boat on his back. Strapped into a carapace of black fibreglass, half-egg, with D6 daubed on the side in white paint he introduces me to David, Andrew and five others of their ilk all similarly armoured, holding paddles and clutching silky bunches of gathered nets. These are the odd beings I beheld with a shiver that dark and distant night. They are the coracle men and they come neither from a distant planet nor the sewer, but their ways are strange, as we shall discover.

Whilst I know little of the coracle men I know far less of the fish they pursue. But then it’s not just me; much of what goes on under the surface of the water remains murky to mankind in general. Even these fishermen, who hunt with the instincts of seals, whose wily ways distil the tricks of a dozen generations in their rituals of entrapment, know little of their prey. These wonder fish who are born in the high

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reaches of the river but journey deep into the mighty sea, who may return to their birthplace once a year or once a lifetime, who may live to fifteen or twenty years and who may, on that journey home, be caught by two men in boats the size of puddles with a forty foot net stretched between them - but most likely will not.

Here in Wales the fish is known as the sewin, elsewhere it’s a plain sea trout. The latter title might lack the magic but it tells you the simple truth – what we have here is a river trout with wanderlust. Whilst others choose to remain in the waters in which they were born, the sewin makes its teary farewells and disappears out of sight, heading downstream, until the River Towy widens between the towns of Llansteffan and Ferryside and the straitjacket of the river gives way to the freedom of the open sea, where the final drops of fresh water are drowned in brine.

Like all epic travellers they will come back changed. The flimsy adolescent will return a powerful, majestic, imperious adult. Six to twenty pounds of sleek, wild, mercury muscle, fattened and seasoned in the Irish Sea and now whipping its way upstream in the Towy. A beautiful fish – perhaps the most beautiful. Around here they have a saying that “God practised on the salmon but with the sewin made perfect”.

Well, as far as the eating goes, I have no doubt they are right – but to talk of eating is to get way ahead of ourselves because first we must catch a fish.

In the hat, brass discs, each bearing a number. It’s hardly the national lottery but I’m aware that I’m honoured to be asked to pull out the tokens. This draw will go some way to deciding the success or failure of their night working the river. Come out first and you get the pick of the water and the odds on netting fish that may be worth around sixty or seventy pounds are significantly shortened. Come out last and you have your work cut out. I feel the gaze of eight men hard upon me.

Fishing for Secrets

“‘in the blue black, six fifIGures of dread

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Fishing for Secrets

There are two sets of rules to this game. There are the ones written in black and white by the authorities; statutes about net lengths, licenses, length of seasons, tagging and the like that have become ever more complex and constraining as the years have gone on and the sewin have become ever more scarce. Once the rivers teamed with these fish but now they are sparse. As to why? It depends who you ask – seals, super trawlers, dams, acid water and the net fishermen themselves are all cast as villains by one group or another depending on who they want to get their hooks into. It seems far-fetched to imagine that the archaic methods used by a handful of coracle men, barely changed for centuries, are much of a factor but they are way easier to net than a foreign factory fishing vessel way out in the Irish Sea. Something has to be seen to be done and as ever the small fish are easier to fight.

Then there are the other laws, the ones passed down through the generations of fishermen in defiance of anarchy and in the knowledge that the ultimate legislator is nature itself. The rules that have been bickered about, bent and forged straight again for centuries. The ones that demand that these little metal tags are drawn without prejudice from a fisherman’s cap and the ones that insist that once the men are upon the water no nets are set until seven stars can be seen in the night sky.

For this pursuit must take place in darkness. These fish are not twp, if they see a net they know it is to be avoided, a trap set by the men now cupped in the delicate palms of their tiny craft. Skating the surface making scarcely a ripple, their paddles – flicking figures of eight – barely tickle the river, their silent shadows disappearing into the night as the light finally

fades. Above them on the roads and bridges, modern life rumbles on – headlights, the hum and cough of motors – but on the river, time lags centuries behind, moving only at the pace of this gentle dance of coracles – two boats kissing and then parting, joined by the lattice that now sweeps the wide water between them, moving downstream together in perfect time, but hardly moving at all.

Within ten minutes there is almost nothing to be seen or heard of the fishermen from my place on the riverbank. The only sign that the eight men I saw enter the water are still out there is the occasional charcoal figure drifting across a patch of orange light cast by a street lamp. Time passes slowly and then, the flash of a torch, voices raised for the first time in half an hour, the slapping of water and a sharp rap that echoes off the stone walls of the bridge. A first sewin of the night and there it is, lying in the short grass beside the path, shining in the torchlight a fish of about six pounds in weight, one of only half a dozen that will be caught in the four nets tonight, eight men working for up to six hours – it’s like panning for silver, a triumph of hope over expectation.

The sun is up and the river has turned to mud. Driving back along the riverside and past the cages in which the coracles are kept, the giant turtles are now sleeping in their racks.

Leaving the Towy behind as it bends south towards the coast I head through the hills in the direction of Cardigan Bay – that greedy bite in the West Wales coastline that stretches all the way from Bardsey Island in the north to Strumble Head in the south. I’m driving through Pembrokeshire now, just before

A dozen or so stalls with green and white striped awnings.

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Fork2Fork on tour

there’s a warmth of its own

in this little community of food producers and the place has already crept its way into my affections it becomes Ceredigion. In the village of St Dogmaels there is a sign for the local Food Market and I follow it into a narrow lane that quickly opens up into a place of unexpected quiet beauty. To the right there’s a green field with an abbey in the distance, to the left a village pond; still, duck strewn water held back to power the wheel of the whitewashed mill. Between these two is the little market of a dozen or so stalls with green and white striped awnings.

I’ll confess it’s the kind of cheerful scene I’d more associate with rural France and I can only wonder how it is I’ve never been here before. In truth I’m slightly ashamed.

There may only be a handful of traders but they fit the space perfectly. There is flour from the neighbouring mill (the bread they bake with it has already been snapped up), sausages, goats’ cheese, jams, chutneys and honey, cider and juice from local orchards. It’s getting towards the end of the market and the stallholders are wandering over to chat to each other, commentating on the day’s trading, helping each other to food and drink. It helps that the sun is shining but there’s a warmth of its own in this little community of food producers and the place has already crept its way into my affections.

And that’s before Mandy Walters presses lunch upon me.

The freshest dressed Cardigan Bay crab with a couple of Welsh cakes – “just in case”. Mandy’s husband Len and son Aaron fish in Cardigan Bay and on the River Teifi. All year round they catch crab and lobster. In the summer there is spider crab too and they hand line for mackerel, sea bass and pollock. In the winter there are scallops. From April to August they fill the hours that remain by fishing in coracles and seine netting on the River Teifi too. In this master of all trades way, it is still possible it seems to make a living as a small fisherman on the West Wales coast.

Twenty one year old Aaron picks me up on the shore at nearby Patch and we motor out to the Glas Y Dorlan where his father is waiting for us. The boat is a gnarled

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mass of heavy iron, winches, ropes and nets. I spot early on that the back appears to have been sliced off leaving an open slipway to the sea. It reminds me of a car ferry when the doors have been opened, but I’m also reminded that is something that only happens when they are in dock otherwise the consequences are grim. Len says it was a brainwave he had a few years back to make it easier to put the lobster pots out and admits he was nervous about it at first. For me that feeling persists.

But it’s a fine day and the sea seems pretty calm – until we get past the headland into the open ocean and the little peaks grow jagged and steep until we are slamming into them at a rate of one every couple of seconds and I learn too late that standing vaguely behind the cabin is insufficient protection from the spray that spews back with increasing ferocity. The wind is colder out here too, especially when you are wet through.

About half a mile out we stop to pull in the pots. A line of two dozen or so stretched out on the seabed. Len and Aaron bring them in, empty them of brown crab and blue black speckled lobster and stack the empty cages. It’s tough work carried out at pace as the tubs fill with a writhing mass of shellfish and the pile of empty pots grow higher.

And just as with the coracle men it’s as if there is a ballet for big blokes going on here in the cramped confines of this tiny boat, littered with machinery and equipment – father and son not speaking a word but knowing exactly what the next move must be and who will be doing it. For them this is an easy trip on a sunny day, there will be many more on dark grey days in freezing temperatures and ugly seas and I wonder at youthful Aaron who has chosen this life from among many. But then these are not just jobs, they are crafts, demanding skills known only to a few. In these ways, steeped in tradition and culture, the greatest things to eat are gathered from the rivers and the seas, sourced and sold locally – they are all the sweeter for it.

Fishing for Secrets

these are not just jobs, they are crafts, demanding skills known only to a few

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Food Lore & Legends

WELSH SUPERFOOD

IN THE PINK

Sewin (sea trout) will only feed at sea and the colour of its flesh will be affected by its diet which may include mysids and shrimp, giving it a distinctive light pink colour with good muscle tone and a fresh fish smell.

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Laverbread has a very high vitamin D content and miners were fond of it as it helped mitigate against long hours spent underground with no or low exposure to the sun’s rays. Richard Burton called laverbread ‘Welshman’s caviar’ and early records refer to laver being eaten as a survival food by people fleeing from Viking invasions.

LARGE COD & CHIPS The Welsh rod-caught record for cod was caught off Barry Island in 1976, weighing in at almost 20kg, enough to make over 350 portions of fish and chips.

Something fiFIshy

Tenby was one of the earliest Welsh herring fishing centres – its Welsh name Dinbych-y-Pysgod means ‘little fort of the fishes’.

For centuries vast herring quantities were landed, salted and exported to the Mediterranean.

Herring preparations include kippers, bloaters, rollmops or soused and Swedish fermented and canned ‘surströmming’ is allegedly the world’s most unpleasant smelling food!

ALIVE, ALIVE OH Cockles are small saltwater clams widely used in cooking throughout the world, but are especially popular in Wales. The Magna Carta grants every citizen the right to collect up to eight pounds of cockles from the foreshore.

ANCIENT DEPTHS

Bala Lake is the largest natural lake in Wales being four miles long and one mile wide and is home to an endangered white fish called the Gwyniad.

Found nowhere else on the planet it came to be in Wales when its ancestors were trapped in the waters there at the end of the last Ice Age.

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Whole poached sewin or salmon This is a good way of cooking the fish without too much risk of overcooking and drying it out.

1 fresh sewin or salmon gutted and cleaned Bunch of dill 1 lemon sliced ½ litre dry white wine

1 Put the fish in a large roasting tray, place the dill and

lemon in the cavity and season lightly, pour the wine into the tray and cover with baking parchment and foil.

2 P lace in a pre-heated oven at 180ºC for around ½ hour.

3 Serve with home-made mayonnaise, local new potatoes and greens.

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Fork2Fork’s guide to food events and festivals Meet the producer and experience food direct from source at your local farmers’ market or farm shop. Enjoy new and different products and the pleasure of meeting the people who grow and prepare real, fresh food.

Food festivals are a great day out and a fun way to taste, smell and chew over food matters with expert growers and artisan foodies. Fascinating cooking demonstrations and sampling also means there's something for everyone.

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TalkinG Fork2Fork

Conwy FEast

Showing off their mussels Jane Hughes has been Director of Gwledd Conwy Feast since it started in 2004.

She explains how it has grown into one of the biggest food festivals in Wales and a showcase for the ‘best mussels in the world’.

Starting small...

The event started quite small with one main venue and two small marquees in the town. It now takes over the whole of the town and we have about 25,000 people coming – the busiest weekend of the year.

...in a special setting...

The quayside in Conwy is a wonderful setting with the castle in the background. Food and the sea and the castle and music and art... it’s a winning combination.

Impressive mussels...

The mussels are the star of the show. The event was started to coincide with the mussel season. We consider our mussels in Conwy to be the best in the world. They’re still raked in a traditional way from the bed of the estuary, not grown on ropes.

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“...they’re huge and wonderful and bright orange and very, very special.”

“Food and the sea and the castle and music and art ... it’s a winning combination.”

No ordinary mollusc...

Everyone a winner...

The combination of the salt water and the fresh water and the fact that they’re left to grow in the summer and only harvested during the winter means that they’re huge and wonderful and bright orange and very, very special. The queues are right along the quayside for the mussels that are sold during the Feast.

Each one is a highlight. Each one is more exciting than the last. One highlight was when we started the collaboration with the digital art festival that has involved light projections onto the castle and other buildings. We started a project last year called ‘Hiraeth’ – an untranslatable word (that hints at longing for home) which has a very special meaning for Welsh people. It’s based on traditional skills. This runs alongside our farming tent, something else that’s very special. A group of organic farmers bring their animals and it links people directly with the source of their food.

Painting a picture...

It’s very colourful. The first year, one of the residents who’s brilliant at sewing made approximately 20 strings of beautiful hand-made bunting to go up and down the High Street. Most years we have a bit of a bunting party and add a few strings... it really looks as if there’s something special going on.

If music be the food...

People just respond to food. It’s the basis for any event... food and music... and we’ve built up the music as well. We give priority to small producers, local producers and Welsh producers. We’ve given the square over to the very small producers that go to the farmers' market.

Something in the air...

The atmosphere is always brilliant. Seeing so many people in the town enjoying themselves and having such a good time is always very rewarding. It makes it all worthwhile.

Gwledd Conwy Feast has rapidly become one of the most celebrated food festivals in the country – you can find many more at www.fork2fork.wales

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Sweet Dreams in Dairyland

QQ It’s the liquid gold of our lush landscape Manon Steffan Ros travels through green pastures and meets the people that turn milk into something more.

Words Manon Steffan Ros Photography Iestyn Hughes

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“It is a family business - Sam and Rachel Holden use the milk produced

by Sam’s father’s cattle herd to create their cheese.”

S

omehow, through a kind trick of fate, the stars have aligned and I have won the lottery of luck.

It’s a sunny Wednesday in spring, and I am going to be eating cheese, ice cream, and staying in a lovely hotel. I can hardly believe it! And actually, for a while, I don’t believe it – but gradually, I realise that it really is happening. I will spend two days visiting producers and sellers of dairy products.

And that is how the photographer Iestyn Hughes and I find ourselves putting our faith in the sat nav through the winding roads of Carmarthenshire. Credit where it’s due – the matronly voice leads us straight to Bwlchwernen Fawr Farm, home of Hafod Cheddar.

It is a family business – Sam and Rachel Holden use the milk produced by Sam’s father’s cattle herd to create their cheese. The farm is situated on high ground that looks out onto the gentle patchwork countryside, and it feels wonderfully remote.

After donning our protective clothing – hair net, wellies and a white coat – Rachel leads us into the room where the cheese is made. Rachel is reserved and softly-spoken, explaining apologetically that they are busy, and would we mind if she and Sam get on with the cheese-making as we chat?

Sam is sloshing a huge tub of milk with a large paddle, back and forth, over and over. The process of turning milk

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into cheese has begun, but to me, it looks as though a load of scrambled eggs has been tipped into a huge bath of milk.

With an easy smile, Sam explains the process of making cheese, adding a bit of his own history. When he mentions that he used to live in London, I can’t imagine it – he fits so perfectly here, and as he begins to separate the curds and whey, he looks as if he’s always been doing this. He tells us that this is how they would have made cheese a hundred years ago, before huge blocks of cheddar were produced for supermarket shelves.

The cheese-making is surprisingly tactile – Rachel runs her fingers through the milk quietly, rhythmically, and later, after draining the whey, Sam wraps the cheese in cloth as gentle as a father tucking his child into bed.

Fervour and passion – that is what drives Sam and Rachel.

Though she leaves most of the talking to her husband, there is a lovely stillness and serenity to Rachel, and a peaceful contentedness as she works with the cheese. As Sam shows us the huge, cave-like room where the cheddar is matured, and points out the pretty patterns of the mould on the outside of the cheese, Sam is like an artist showing off his paintings. (Admittedly, the mould is captivatingly beautiful – some cheeses look like the surface of the moon, and others like tree bark.)

As we drive away from Bwlchwernen Fawr, Iestyn stops the car to take a photo, and the only sound that can be heard

Sweet Dreams in Dairyland

are the songbirds and a few fat bees buzzing between the wildflowers. This is beautiful country, and the way Sam and Rachel make their cheese shows it the utmost respect.

Our next destination is Teifi Cheese, a business that was started in 1983. Once again, there is a homely family feel to Glynhynod Farm outside Ffostrasol, with childrens’ bikes on the grass outside the large room where the cheese is made.

Clothes dance in the breeze on the washing line.

John Savage-Onstwedder, who greets Iestyn and I, is a tall man with piercing eyes and firm, powerful voice. As he leads us around the farm, he occasionally pauses and looks directly into my eyes before making passionate statements, like: “There is nothing new about organic!” After half an hour in his company, I am utterly convinced about the benefits of raw milk (i.e. unpasteurised).

Teifi Cheese produces gouda and cheddar, some of which have added ingredients (Pavarotti was a fan of the seaweed cheese). They have won countless awards, and are consistently popular and it’s easy to see why – the cheese has a strong, creamy flavour, a million miles from rubbery supermarket cheeses.

It would be rude to refuse John’s offer of a tour around his other business – Dà Mhìle distillery. It produces an array of organic spirits, and the huge copper distiller in the centre of the building (which is powered by firewood) is impossibly pretty. After leading us into a cold, dark room full of casks, John pulls out a stopper from a cask of apple brandy – “Take a sniff in there!” The smell is sweet and thick and wonderful.

A tasting gallery will open in a room above the distillery in the next few weeks, and John leads us into the bright, warm space. The sun throws its light over the tasteful furniture and the wooden beams on the ceiling. Thought-provoking paintings line the walls, and, again, John becomes animated as we discuss the skill of the artist or the originality of the idea.

And then, he gets out the gin.

Only a tiny amount, just to taste – but John insists that we taste it properly. Firstly, we must smell it (“It reminds me of the smell of flowers along a small country road” says Iestyn, and he’s right – the smell of long-ago summers, when the sun always shone). Then the all-important tasting. Good gracious!

It is spectacular. I can taste all the ingredients, every herb

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and flower. For a few seconds, I am silent, and John looks at me with a small smile – he knows that he’s found a new customer.

The next stop is our home for the night – Hammet House hotel in Llechryd. As soon as I see the menu that evening in the hotel restaurant, it is clear that we’re in for a feast. As well as the high standard and originality of the food we have ordered, small titbits are served between courses (I shall never forget that perfect chip with the line of black, pearly caviar smeared on it).

As we eat, I think of all the times I eat without considering the taste, the look. The chef, Matt Smith, has crafted the meal beautifully, a celebration of produce and taste.

Then, the smiling waitress brings a cheese board to our table, and though I proclaim that I couldn’t possibly eat another morsel, I almost immediately tuck in. All the cheeses are local, and each has its own individual flavour and character. These cheeses have not been selected because they’re Welsh: it’s because they’re of the highest standard.

Something odd happens to me as I read the list of cheeses, a peculiar feeling as I read Teifi Cheese and Hafod Cheese. I remember Sam and Rachel in Bwlchwernen Fawr,

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and John in Glynhynod Farm, and feel glad and a little proud that the fruit of their labour and passion are given starring roles in this esteemed restaurant. I feel loyalty, and above all, I have utmost respect – to the producers for creating something wonderful, and to the restaurant for giving them a platform.

I should be worried that I’ll have nightmares after all that cheese, but somehow, I think I’ll be alright...

The next morning, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and after last night’s feast, I look... well... pregnant. Four months, at least. I decide to skip breakfast.

The thing is, they serve baked borlotti beans with chorizo, roasted tomatoes, thyme and maple syrup. I eat it all, as well as toast and home-made yogurt. Then I go back up to my bedroom to change into something loose fitting.

Our first stop today is ultracomida, a cafe and deli in Narberth (there is another branch in Aberystwyth).

Everything is so pretty here! Honey, nuts, huge bottles of olive oil, chocolate, wine and beer. In the back, the cafe is busy – a few people reading the paper over steaming cups of coffee, a group of friends enjoying brunch and a chat.

The main attraction is a wide selection of cheeses

Sweet Dreams in Dairyland

available in the shop. The shelves are loaded with the golden discs of cheese, and the lovely sharp smell mingles with the scent of ham, sugar and coffee. There are soft, creamy cheeses, golden hard cheeses, goats’ cheeses and cheeses wrapped in leaves. The blue cheeses are mouth – watering, speckled with tiny, ink-coloured veins. I ask Shumana from ultracomida how they select the cheeses.

Shumana is a sparky, energetic woman with a huge smile and eyes that shine. Her enthusiasm and admiration towards the produce that is on sale here is infectious, and she is warm and welcoming, although it’s a busy day with everyone competing for her attention.

“Do you choose cheeses because they’re local?” I ask, and Shumana shakes her head vehemently. Everything is chosen on merit, and Welsh cheeses are of the highest standard. They deserve their place amongst the best cheeses in the world.

Hafod Cheddar and Teifi Cheese are available in ultracomida, and I experience the same proud, loyal feeling

I had last night as I enjoyed the cheese board in Hammet House. Seeing the thick wheels of cheese beautifully lit on the shelves here reminds me of Rachel’s hands in the whey, Sam wrapping the curds in cheesecloth, and John proudly showing off his antique cheese press.

We have one place left to visit – Cowpots near Whitland.

The sat nav sends us the wrong way, before solemnly demanding “turn around!” – but eventually we reach Pen Back Farm and The Cowshed ice cream parlour.

The Bowman family started making ice cream a decade ago, and the business is going from strength to strength.

In July 2014, The Cowshed ice cream parlour opened on the site, and that is where we head to see the ice cream that is produced here.

The atmosphere is laid-back and relaxed – lots of natural light, white walls and a wood stove in the corner, filling the space with warmth and the scent of wood smoke. Cowpots is a family business, and Rachel leads me to the freezer. She is brimming with enthusiasm for the ice cream and the cafe-

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“Everyone is creating produce that they’re proud of, and no-one is willing to compromise on quality.” she smiles throughout our visit. She passes samples of the ice cream over the counter so that I can taste – gooseberry, ginger and chocolate, something called Cowmix that has too many delicious ingredients to list here. And lastly, raspberry, and this is a stunning taste – as if the raspberries have just been picked and the cream just churned. Rachel smiles in a way that says, I know, it’s wonderful, isn’t it?

And yes, it really is.

We meet William, who is responsible for making the ice cream. He is a quiet young man, and he is scooping burnt toffee ice cream into pots, ready for selling. I can’t help but stare – the ice cream is so soft and yielding, a dark golden colour. William explains that his parents were dairy farmers in Hampshire, and after years of hard graft and dedication, the family had to accept that the price of milk had fallen to an unsustainably low rate. They took a chance, moved to Pen Back farm, and Cowpots was born.

On the farmyard, we chat with Brian Bowman, William’s father, and he explains further. They are a farming family who had no other choice but to diversify, and they’re determined that anything which bears their name is of the highest standard. Brian is a lovely, warm character with a glint in his eyes and a mischievous smile. He gesticulates with his farm-weathered hands as he speaks, and is confident and funny. It is important, says Brian, to pass

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things on to the next generation, and he’s proud of his family for maintaining and developing a business that is successful and respected. Iestyn asks for a photo, but Brian declines: “Take a photo of William instead!”

Later, I ask Rachel if there’s any chance of convincing Brian to allow us to photograph him eating ice cream – she grins conspiratorially and promises to try. Five minutes later, Brian is in front of the camera, his spoon plunged into the depths of his sundae.

Before we leave, he insists that we stay for lunch, and I have the pleasure of enjoying a tasca with apple chutney and Mouldy Mabel blue cheese, another of the Bowman family’s products. It is the perfect end to a perfect trip.

As we travel home in the car (the sat nav directs us from b-road to b-road, through villages we’ve never heard of), Iestyn and I discuss the things we’ve seen, and the people we’ve been fortunate enough to meet. One thing they all have in common is enthusiasm. Everyone is creating produce that they’re proud of, and no-one is willing to compromise on quality. I am not praising producers because they’re in Wales – I am praising dedicated producers of wonderful things.

Now, on to the dieting – after I have a nibble of this lovely Hafod Cheddar...

Sweet Dreams in Dairyland

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Food Lore & Legends Brine tenths of the law

medieval A clause in the de known Welsh legal co Hywel Dda as the Laws of suggests (AD 880-950) as commonly that cheese w e. According soaked in brin le the cheese to the law, whi brine it was still in the e wife, once belonged to th e (and ready out of the brin ed to the to eat) it belong distinction husband. This in divorce was often used settlements.

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Salty but nice

The Celts were big believers in the culinary and preservative miracles possible through the heavy use of salt. As well as a preservative for meat, salt was central to the production of Welsh butter, a practical way of bringing luxurious fats and flavours to an otherwise frugal peasant diet. Proper Welsh butter still contains enough salt to make a cardiologist weep. Delicious though.

Silent treatment

American cartoon ist Winsor McCay ha d an intriguing insight into the effects of Welsh ra rebit, where characters often awoke from dream s after eating the dish. Hi s comic strip titled ‘Dream of the Rarebit Fiend’ was published in news papers from 1904 to 1925 , and made into a silen t movie of the same name in 1906.

Holy cheese

The idea that Welsh rarebit, (‘caws pobi’ in Welsh), was a dish irresistible to the Welsh has existed since the Middle Ages. In ‘The Hundred Merry Tales’ (1526) God, apparently, grows tired of the rowdy Welshmen in heaven and instructs St Peter to do something about it. St Peter responds by shouting ‘Welsh rarebit' and all the Welshmen run out. St Peter locks the gates behind them, which is why, apparently, there are no Welshmen in heaven.

A salty tale

It is rumoured Ca erphilly cheese was develo ped over time, to prov ide the coal miners of the area with a conven ient way of replenishin g the salt lost through ha rd work over ten hour shifts underground, and so was a staple of th e coal-miners' diet.

Alternative bangers

Glamorgan sausage is a traditional Welsh vegetarian sausage made from cheese (usually Caerphilly), leeks and breadcrumbs. Mentioned

by George Borrow in his work, ‘Wild Wales’ (1862), and originally made with Glamorgan cheese which is no longer made. Caerphilly cheese is a direct descendant of the old traditional Glamorgan cheese recipe and lends the same general texture and flavour.

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Red onion, butternut squash and blue cheese quiche uiche has been a little devalued, courtesy Q of the ubiquitous soggy bottomed versions widely on offer. That’s a shame as it can be a real pleasure with the right pastry and a generous filling.

For the pastry 500g plain flour 300g butter 1 egg yolk or the filling F 2 large red onions sliced thinly 1 large butternut squash cut into 1cm cubes 200g Perl Las cheese crumbled 4 eggs well beaten ½ litre double cream Bunch of chives chopped finely

1 Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles

small breadcrumbs, add the egg yolk and a little cold water to bind. Leave to rest in a cool place for an hour. Roll out the pastry to line a 25cm loose bottomed flan tin, bake blind at 170ºC for around 20 mins until pale gold and set.

2 R oast the squash in the oven in a little olive oil

until soft. Soften the onions in a little olive oil in a frying pan. Layer the vegetables in the cooked pastry case and sprinkle over the cheese, season the eggs and mix with the cream and pour over the pastry case, then sprinkle over the chives.

3 B ake at 170ºC for around 30 mins until set and starting to colour.

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Add recipes, news or events

Top tips for successful direct sales

Recipes

Fork2Fork’s Syniadau slic – top tips series has been widely distributed as a free DVD to promote ways in which farmers and producers can improve direct sales to consumers.

Five 10 minute features show you how to set up and get more effective selling at a farmers’ market, transform your farm shop, create successful packaging and design, as well as getting a box scheme off the ground.

Fork2Fork TV

Limited stocks of the DVD are still available from info@fork2fork.wales or catch the series on Fork2Fork TV via the website.

Upcoming Events Portmeirion Food and Craft Fair

SCE644 - F2F Briefing Notes A5 16pp_Layout 1 16/11/2011 09:19 Page 1

Syniadau slic ar werthu bwyd yn uniongyrchol!

Top tips on how to sell food direct!

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od direct

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Dylun io/De sign: www .fbagroup .co.uk

Mae’r a chy DVD hwn nh ar eu he yrchwyr sydgyfer ffe rmwy lw trw d eis r i’r cw smer. y werthu’n iau cynydd This DV union Os ydy gyrcho u produ D is for far l yn bar ch yn gynhyr profitscers who wa mers and od dyma’r neu’n me chydd bwyd consumby selling nt to maxim ddwl ara DVD i a diod direct er. chi llgy ! feirio, to the ise Bydd Wheth 4 er you ‘syniadaudarn 10 mu pro ’re alre duc slic’ i chi nud y DV ac yn D yn this is er or thinkin ady a food aw ar and the DV g hynny grymu’r pet sut i sefydl rhoi D for youof diversifyi drink all The DV ng, the i’ch llin wneud cym hau bach ychu’ch busnes ! , ell wa D's n ain wa four 10 provid elod, gan t o wahan negol ● e iaeth Gwert gynnw set-up you with ‘topminute featur hu ys: es wil tips march mwy effe that canthrough to ithiol me nadoed those ’ from how l make d to ext wn bot ● ffer all ra tom mwyr Siop y line, inc the differe touches luding nce to gwert fferm - traw ● : More you hiant trw snewid r effe y ailosod eich ● at a farm ctive selling Pecyn y siop nu ers’ ma i lwydd - brandio ● rket Farm a dyluni o sho o ● with you p - transfo Cael cyn rm r shop llun bly ● layout sales chau ar Rhann Packa gin wc ei draed perffor h y DVD for suc g - brandi hwn gyd mia ng ces and d s cyffred cwsm design ● eriaid inol - sy’a staff i we Gettin i gwert lla’ch g a box hiant. ddod nôl ac n sicr o gae schem Share i gynydd l e off the u all rou this DVD wit ground nd per h staff to attr act ret formance - to improve gua increa urn cus se sal tomers ranteed es. and

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TalkinG Fork2Fork.

UPLANDS

Much more than a market Lucy Beddall from Swansea based Urban Foundry is one of the co-ordinators of Uplands Market, one of the best in Wales.

She is responsible for marketing and promotion.

Making it happen...

It was a group of very pro-active people who got together and discussed the idea of a street market in Uplands and said, ‘let’s make this happen’.

It had to be food…

Everyone loves food! We wanted to bring really good Welsh produce not just to Uplands but to the whole of Swansea and the surrounding areas.

We’ve got a huge spread of food, giving people the opportunity to come away with a bagful of goodies and treats that they wouldn’t otherwise get.

Only the good things...

We always make sure that the food has been farmed or made by the people selling it, with no massive brands slipping in and taking over.

Everything’s got a bit of an edge to it as well.

People sell bread, for instance, but it’s bread with wonderful flavours.

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“People talking to the producers who’ve actually made it.

Asking them about the stories behind their beetroot or bread...”

“It’s an experience, it’s an event.

It’s a lovely social buzz.”

The Uplands experience...

Shop till you drop...

A massive street market, buzzing. People talking to the producers who’ve actually made it. Asking them about the stories behind their beetroot or bread and for the best way to prepare the food. We have a performance stage. It’s the social buzz. It adds vibrancy to the area.

I have my little favourite stalls that I go to. I buy sauces and bread; I buy something for my lunch and stuff to put in my freezer, so I always walk away with a massive bag. I do keep promising myself to stop spending when I’m there but I just love it.

Not just a pretty place...

The pleasures of buying direct...

It looks beautiful, but it’s the smells as well. All the senses are alive. Sometimes I have to stand back and not run towards it saying I want to buy everything.

It’s an experience, it’s an event. It’s a lovely social buzz.

It’s really important that we celebrate living in this fantastic country with fantastic food producers.

Build it, and they will come...

Wales and the world...

We counted just under 3,000 one Saturday. It’s just getting busier and busier. On a hot summer’s day, it’s jammed. It’s fantastic to see.

You can go there and try something new. Although it’s all made in Wales it’s got influences from all over the world, which I think is fantastic.

A whole lot to talk about...

A former Londoner’s view of Welsh food

On the day of the market, twitter just goes mad. You can follow the story as the day goes by. You’ve got people and stallholders tweeting, ‘we’re going to the market’ and then you get people tweeting what they’ve cooked, saying ‘I’ve just made this, isn’t this great’ and there’s this wonderful buzz.

It’s superb. Because we set the standard so high, there’s nothing you can find in a London market that you can’t find in Uplands and in other street markets in the area. If you took that to London, they’d be bowled over by how amazing it is.

Each week across Wales you can find a farmers’ market near where you live. To find one in your area visit www.fork2fork.wales

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Beer and cider is undergoing something of a renaissance in Wales. Like wine in France, it is increasingly seen as an expression of the land that produced it. Michael Smith goes on a mystery tour, meeting the makers and sampling some of the local magic...

Words Michael Smith Photography Warren Orchard

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CRAFT CWRW

D

riving down the wide sweep of the M4, gliding above the South Wales coast, rugged hills rising from the sea above the relics of heavy industry, steel towns and coal ports for the pit villages up the valleys, petering out into miles and miles of lush countryside behind them; as always, I felt a funny, familiar kinship with this magical land, a place that reminds me of my home in so many ways, but is at the same time still essentially a mystery to me.

I remembered a summer evening with friends in a field in Wales once.

“What’s Wales’ national drink?” I asked.

“Magic mushroom tea” was the cheeky reply.

Fortunately, I wasn’t here to sample that exotic and metaphysically challenging beverage on this trip. I was here to explore some far more straightforward and tasty expressions of the land – the craft beer and cider that’s been evolving at an exponential rate in Wales over the last five or ten years.

Our first stop was Tiny Rebel, housed in a small factory unit in a light-industrial estate on the edges of Newport.

A lad with a bright green mohican was scooping boiled, steaming hops out of a copper kettle. “Nice little sauna,” he joked. Tiny Rebel is the most urban ale we tried, in several ways - with its punky, graffiti’d branding and aesthetic, it feels like a beer on a mission: to introduce a younger crowd to the subtle delights of craft beer, and wean them off the blue WKD in the process.

There are ten people working for the company these days, but it started three years ago with two of them, both engineers, home brewing in a garage. “80% of the time the beer was terrible, but that was how we learned the most.” The tiny old copper and mash tun from that garage is still what they use to experiment with their new brews (20 litres are easier to make, or mess up, than 20,000).

They showed me the fridge they bought off gumtree for £20, using its insulating effect to opposite ends, sticking a

heater in it to ferment the beers. I opened the fridge door, a mad scientist mist emerged, clearing to reveal a single conical lab flask full of very cloudy beer. “Just us messing around again,” they said – but it struck me this was messing around with all the rigour of engineers.

Tiny rebel’s best seller is FUBAR, an American style pale ale; “Would you like one?”

“Have you got something a bit less full-on hoppy than an American pale?”

“Here, have a try of the Cwtch.”

“What does Cwtch mean?” I asked, trying to pronounce the impossible word on the bottle, “Cwtch is kind of untranslatable, but it roughly means a cuddle, sort of.”

They describe it as a Welsh red ale. What a lovely, three-dimensional, complete flavour it has: beneath the fresh, fruity high notes, hints of toffee, and a distinctive “roast” flavour that made me think of pork crackling, an unexpected taste that was completely new to me.

“What’s going to happen to craft beer next then?”

I wondered.

“It’s still very early on in its evolution. A lot of the people drinking it are young, so it’ll be their evolving tastes that define how it develops.”

Tiny Rebel is certainly a brewery with youth on its side the oldest partner’s 32. Judging by their lovely Cwtch, the future of beer is in safe hands; and if this is what the kids coming up in Newport are drinking these days, then there is hope for humanity yet.

Next, we drove away from the coastal conurbation into the gentle hills of Carmarthenshire, up through the most beautiful tunnel of trees, all golden and glowing in the late afternoon sun, heading for the Handmade Beer Company.

Handmade was just that: a far smaller and more eccentric proposition than Tiny Rebel, a one-man band

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Real ale’s got four ingredients: barley, hops, yeast and water. Craft beer’s got two more: Facebook and Twitter.

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in a barn. With his big fluffy beekeeper’s beard, has the air of a wise beer magus. He used to be a graphic designer in Cardiff – like the ex-engineers, a combination of the creative and the technical – before escaping up here to his farmer’s barn to brew.

He does almost everything, from brewing the beer to designing the labels and sticking them on the bottles.

47 now, he started homebrewing when he was 20 to save money, but gradually got more and more into it as an artistically fulfilling pursuit. Three years ago it became his job.

Ian’s beer is generally more traditionally British in style than the hoppy American style that kick-started the craft beer revolution, but he’s keen to experiment - with basil in a porter, and even lapsang suchong.

The small scale means this is possible, because he only has to throw away a small amount of beer if it all goes wrong. “Big companies can’t experiment.

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They’d prefer it if people just wanted the same thing all the time, like the old boys in the pub every day.”

“What’s the difference between real ale and craft beer?”

“Real ale’s got four ingredients: barley, hops, yeast and water. Craft beer’s got two more: Facebook and Twitter. It’s the same thing as far as I’m concerned.”

“Has the Welsh beer scene changed a lot recently?”

“Oh massively – there are probably ten times more small brewers than there were ten years ago. Cardiff’s becoming a mecca for the British scene, with half a dozen little producers. It’s a nice size – everyone’s connected, we all know each other, small brewers are all really helpful to each other.”

Ian sells locally at the moment, and has two barrels on tap in Y Polyn restaurant down the road, where I drank a perfect pint, his CWRW, that evening. I had no idea how to say that strange world written on the

Craft CWRW

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The yin and yang of craft beer is the creative tension between tradition and innovation. But the most important thing is that you want your beer to be drinkable.

beer pump (nor did I know it was Welsh for ‘beer’), and when I tried to repeat “kooroo” in my Vic’n’Bob North East accent, it was met with a round of laughter. I remember being struck

by CWRW’s tasty complexity, a dark, rich amber ale with mysterious depths, and a certain spicy, fruity, indefinably drinkable taste.

“What does this taste of?” I asked Y Polyn’s boss, trying to hit the nail on the head, “It tastes of beer!” he shouted at me enthusiastically.

I would like to be more specific about this taste, but unfortunately the boss, a Scottish bloke who settled in Wales after “living amongst the heathens” in London, has a penchant for vintage Old Poultney whiskey, and was keen to share the wealth, so my tasting notes are not what they should’ve been. You’ll just have to take my word for it that CWRW is delicious, and better than that, try it for yourself.

With a slightly sore head the next day, we drove west, into the hills of North Pembrokeshire. Up the side of a hill whose slate mine roofed the Houses of Parliament, we found our destination, a farm house with “SEREN BEER” written in chalk on a slate outside, next to a smaller piece of slate saying “EGGS 50p.”

We went inside to meet a bloke called Ali who took us through to his back room, full of pewter tankards hanging up on hooks, gold medals and rosettes saying 2nd or 1st, a mash tun, and a beery smell.

“Welcome to maybe Britain’s smallest brewery.”

Brewery? I thought...

“I have a wall in my house with beer taps coming out of it,” he said, as if this strange fact was a perennial source of bemused delight.

“What does that thermometer do by the door?”

“Oh, that’s for the ham.”

That’s when I noticed the leg of prosciutto on a hook, airdrying in his cupboard below the stairs.

“We keep pigs in the garden.”

“Do you sell prosciutto too?”

“Oh no, the laws round that are a nightmare – it’s just for personal use.”

The fact it was all so d.i.y., so one-man-band, made the exquisite joy that came out of the taps all the more of an epiphany. There was genius in those beers. One was a sour, smoky porter that reminded me of bacon and balsamic

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vinegar; my favorite, however, was the Factory Steam, a ‘steam beer’ made the same way as a lager, but at a higher temperature, which makes the yeast produce different flavours, much brighter and fruitier and tastier. We just started getting into the history lesson behind steam beers when a chubby bloke knocked on the door: “Hello, I’ve come for some beer... ” He’s currently struggling to keep up with increasing demand. “Friday nights are the busiest. I know when it’s the weekend once I’ve had all my regulars round. My wife says I should install a revolving door on the house.” For now it’s part-time, the day job being Professor of 20th Century Russian Politics at Aberystwyth University. He also fancies teaching a course on the history of beer – “It’ll probably be the most popular student course ever!”

“What’s the future of craft beer?” I wondered again.

“The whole thing started off in the US, and we’re still five years behind. In the US, beer’s now seen to be on a par with wine in terms of quality, and as good with food as wine. The market is also prepared to pay for it, in the same way we’ll now pay £15 instead of £5 for a bottle of wine over here.

Flavour-wise, the next frontier after hops is sour beer.”

Sour beer might initially seem weird to a palette used to bland beer – imagine a cooking apple sourness rather than the bitter dryness of hops providing the kick. He’s about to start making a rhubarb-infused sour beer as a collaboration with a food shop over in Carmarthenshire.

“The yin and yang of craft beer is the creative tension between tradition and innovation. But the most important thing is that you want your beer to be drinkable.”

“How would you define drinkability?”

“Drinkability is when you want another, but know you shouldn’t.”

“What’s it like having unlimited beer in the house?”

“I don’t go out as much as I used to.”

And why would you, if you called a place like this home? He took me to see his chickens, ducks and sheep, “lawnmowers that ultimately become lamb,” in the fields where he’d love to build a barn to brew in one day, spreading out to the reservoir over the road, which provides his water, “my most local ingredient.”

“I come from a d.i.y. ethos – brewing as a way to ‘escape from the man’ as it were. There’s a freedom in doing it for yourself.” To a city dweller like me, living in a cramped, expensive flat, completely alienated from the dinner I probably picked up in a mini-supermarket in a train station, his life seemed idyllic. Something in me wanted to stick two fingers to the man and come and cure my own ham up a hillside too.

Last up, we pootled back east up the Ebbw valley, its lush, steep hillsides soaring above us, little veins of workers’ terraces clinging precipitously to the sides like ivy. We got off the main road and climbed up an unnerving slope full of hairpin bends, huge slate quarries dug into the hillsides, and the road dropping off at the side to a certain sudden death, and magnificent sweeping views.

Craft CWRW

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We got to the farm to find the lads finishing off their Friday fish ‘n’chips, reassuringly drinking their own Hallet’s Cider in the process, which struck me as a great food and drink combination. I got passed a bottle of the ‘entry’ cider: ‘beautifully simple’ it said on the label, and it was – lovely, balanced, bright, but subtle...

Martin Hallet took us out to see where the magic happens, a farm shed with a dozen tall steel drums and a big Marshall amp blasting out Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ across the valleys.

“So how do you brew this cider then?”

“You don’t brew cider, you make cider,” “Ah, right – what, like wine?”

“Yeah, very much like wine – I’m experimenting with a few winemaking techniques at the minute as it happens, stirring the lees, like they do with white Burgundy, which gives it a more robust mouth-feel. Dunno if it’ll work yet mind... ”

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Some experiments fail spectacularly, but that's all part of the fun.

“Do you experiment a lot?”

“Oh yeah, I’m experimenting all the time. Some experiments fail spectacularly, but that’s all part of the fun,” he said, taking me to his little lab out the back, with its refractometers, microscope slides and lab equipment.

“My most important instrument’s this though,” he chuckled, holding up an empty wine glass, “this and my nose and my taste buds.”

“What are the microscope slides for?”

“Understanding the yeasts and microbes is the key to nursing and navigating the natural process of fermentation from juice to cider. It’s all about understanding the biotechnology, if you like. People do too much by rote.

We’ve got electricity and technology and steel drums these days, you don’t have to plough a field in clogs with a clay

Craft CWRW

pipe for it to be craft cider.”

“What makes it a craft cider then?”

“The difference between a craft cider and a factory cider is that a factory cider’s only tradition and provenance is that factory; it’s designed by a food technologist, it’s a form of culinary technology, using Chinese apples shipped over as a concentrate. It’s just a factory process, a standardised product, churned out the same forever.”

As he talked about these placeless factory products, I spied a pallet of what looked like mini champagne bottles gathering dust in the corner of the barn.

“What are those?”

“Oh, that’s an experiment that didn’t work out. A vintage cider that completely fermented in the bottle, like methode traditionelle champagne. Between you and me it tasted bloody horrible.”

He opened a bottle, expecting the worst, pouring it into the wine glass, a lovely, weighty amber colour. To everyone’s

delight, it had matured and fermented in the four years it’d been sitting there, becoming a delicious, delicate, biscuity luxury, almost a champagne made out of apples instead of grapes.

“They’ll never go on sale, these, mind – far too much sediment in the bottom. Glad you asked about them though, I’d forgotten they were there. Maybe I’ll stick a couple in a competition. Here, do you want to take a couple?” He said, spotting how captivated I looked. I pulled out a few from the four-year-old pallet, a forgotten experiment gathering dust, thrilled that he’d offered. I’ve still got a couple of them on the wine rack in the kitchen right now. Just writing about this rare, refreshing treat is making me want to drink some.

In fact, dear reader, I’m just going to go and stick one in the fridge. And then I shall toast all the makers of the fine beverages I tried in this green and magical Land. What a delightful array of eccentrics those blokes were. I doff the proverbial cap to them all.

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DRINK LORE & LEGENDS

FROM THE DRUIDS At least as early as the sixth century, the druidic legendary person Ceridwen is associated with cauldrons and intoxicating preparations of grain and herbs in many poems of Taliesin. This preparation, ‘Gwîn a Bragawd’, is said to have brought science, inspiration and immortality.

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CANNED PRIDE Beer is the national drink of Wales and Felinfoel Brewery was the first brewery outside the US to sell beer in cans.

JD TO YOU AND ME Joseph ‘Job’ Daniels emigrated to America in the 18th century from Aberystwyth. His grandson Jack became the creator of the ever popular Jack Daniels whiskey that people all over the world enjoy today.

MONASTIC BREW The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 852 records a distinction between fine ale and Welsh ale, known as ‘bragawd’, as somewhat between mead and modern day ale. This Saxon-period Welsh ale was a heady, strong beverage, made with spices such as cinnamon, ginger and clove as well as herbs and honey. Often prepared in monasteries, including Tintern Abbey and the Friary of Carmarthen, until Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1536.

WATERED DOWN The London Dry Gin, Bombay Sapphire, uses purified water from Lake Vyrnwy in Powys to bring the strength down to 40%.

IRISH OR WELSH Some historians claim Arthur Guinness used a Welsh recipe from Llanfairfechan near Bangor for his stout.

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WILD GARLIC AND CIDER SOUP Wild garlic is an early spring gift that cries out to be harvested – but cut it at the stem and don’t pull out the roots.

2 large white onions thinly sliced 2 large white potatoes diced small 100g butter Half a carrier bag of wild garlic, well washed and shredded ½ litre cider Salt and pepper

1M elt the butter in a large saucepan and soften

the onions and potatoes, add the cider and simmer until the potatoes are soft. Add the wild garlic and cook for a further minute.

2 Use a blender to blend in a couple of batches, season to taste and serve with a little crème fraîche, bread and Welsh cheese.

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TalkinG Fork2Fork.

Snowdon Honey Farm & Winery

Land of Honey Deryl Jones is the owner of Snowdon Honey Farm & Winery, a tiny business at the foot of Snowdon.

But his honey and mead are unique.

The sweetest work...

I had another business and started to keep bees in order to stay sane. It’s only a small business, but a unique business. As a small band of local beekeepers, we collect the honey every fortnight on average and get the different colours and the different flavours. Most of what I do is pleasure while I work, especially preparing and presenting the products at their best, for sale at my little shop and cafe on the high street.

All kinds of flavours...

It depends on the season and the weather. The idea is that you get the flavours from different plants because of time and place and that’s what makes it special. Some people like tea, others like coffee – the difference in honey can be that great.

We have about 30 different flavours on sale at the moment.

Making mead...

I had some leftover honey and started making a little mead for myself. Then people would ask for some. Foreign visitors are wild about it. It’s a

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“Our product contains 95% honey - the legal requirement is only 75%.

We don’t heat it.”

“It’s golden in colour and golden in quality and goodness.”

better drink than champagne. This was the drink that was used in the past on the honeymoon. It’s one of the true drinks of Wales.

Beauty runs through it...

It’s golden in colour and golden in quality and goodness.

As natural as possible...

We put it through just one filter – that’s all the processing we do. Our product contains 95% honey – the legal requirement is only 75%. We don’t heat it. The more you process honey, the more you lose the strength of flavour and the nourishment in it. It’s like the difference between shipping food from abroad and getting food straight from the garden.

Golden goodness...

It contains antibiotics. I remember cutting my hand with an axe and I don’t have much to do with stitches and doctors and the like. I put a load of honey on it and a bandage over that and left it for a fortnight. It really hurt, but it healed on its own and there’s not a mark.

People use it for allergies too...

You can’t describe the goodness. People think it’s miraculous.

And hospitals are forever getting in touch to ask for honey for treatments. And it’s the pure honey they want.

Live more like bees...

There’s a nasty side to people, but I see that the bees can work and live together. I think that they show us how to live. There’s an old tradition, certainly throughout Europe, for people to talk to bees... for instance when someone dies.

Or when there’s a birth, you share the good news with the bees. They’re part of the family.

Being small makes a difference...

I remember a honey producer from Turkey coming here, and he managed hundreds of tons of honey, and me with only a ton or so. He was bowled over. He didn’t realise that there were so many flavours.

Special place, special product...

Wales is a small place. We must specialise and do everything to the highest standards. Our landscape is special, unique – and it’s reflected in the honey.

The taste for honey is spreading across Wales with small producers popping up in all parts of the country – you can find more of them at www.fork2fork.wales

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“

From Fork to Fork - journeys in local food

...stallholders are wandering over to chat to each other, commentating on the day’s trading, helping each other to food and drink.

...leaning on the wheel of his Massey Ferguson. “Is this farmery enough?” he asks, wrily.

“I can chew on a straw and go ‘ooh-arr’, if you like.”

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I tried to repeat “kooroo” in my Vic’n’Bob North East accent, it was met with a round of laughter. everything we do here, everything we grow or raise or cook or make is sold in our shops, and nowhere else...

And lastly, raspberry, and this is a stunning taste – as if the raspberries have just been picked and the cream just churned.

Rachel smiles in a way that says, I know, it’s wonderful, isn’t it?

"The sourdough starter was born ten years ago...

You feed it and watch over it and in return it makes your bread something special."

Some cheeses look like the surface of the moon, others look like tree bark.

We just started getting into the history lesson behind steam beers when a chubby bloke knocked on the door: “Hello, I’ve come for some beer.”

“God practised on the salmon but with the sewin made perfect.”

These fiFIsh are not twp

...then James is back on his tractor and off to plant some peas and tend to his garlic and do farmer stuff.

...father and son not speaking a word but knowing exactly what the next move must be and who will be doing it.

It’s an experience, it’s an event. It’s a lovely social buzz. It’s really important that we celebrate that we live in this fantastic country with fantastic food producers.

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We're now at our journey's end... ...however to start your own food and drink odyssey visit www.fork2fork.wales and chose one of the hundreds of direct food locations available just a stone's throw away, be it a farmers’ market, farm shop, festival or at a farm gate.

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