A LOVE LETTER TO MY FAVOURITE FOODS
Taken from this month’s Cotswold Life magazine
Are the foods we love today just grown-up versions of childhood favourites or is there a deeper connection?
As I get older, my Proustian moments seem to be exponentially increasing as quickly as the years. Is it that the further away from our memories we are, the more importance we place on them? Of course, food has long been associated with stirring up memories, fleeting snatches of childhood stories that ebb in and out with different mouthfuls.
When I started thinking about this column and the local foods I really love, it was as an ode to Valentine’s Day, but it then got me thinking about the deeper impact food has on us. Do I love these foods because they really do taste great, or is it because they evoke some deep childhood memory that I associate with happy times?
As I ran through my list of my top five foods, there became compelling evidence that it might be the latter, albeit a more grown-up, refined version. Whatever the case, these are the five local foods that I could quite happily continue making memories with for the next thirty years or more…
Cotswold Meringues pavlova base
Whether it was Christmas, New Year or any other event, the occasion would always be topped off with one of mum’s billowing pavlovas, a pillow of meringue topped with rich thick cream and fresh fruit. I love everything about a pavlova, but it’s the meringue that holds it all together – light and crisp but with a gooey middle, that was mum’s signature bake. Finding that same texture in a shop-bought product used to be like trying to find the holy grail but then I came across Cotswold Meringues and it changed everything. Meringues.co.uk
Hayles Fruit Farm strawberries
Eating seasonally was something we did without thinking back in the day, and there was nothing like the start of strawberry season to get the juices going. Remember those days of heading to a PYO and eating your own weight in berries – they should really have weighed me on the way out rather than by the punnet to get their money’s worth! That’s still how I feel about English strawberries now, and luckily for us, we have Hayles Fruit Farm just down the road, which in my mind grow the best berries for miles around. Haylesfruitfarm.co.uk
Todenham Manor Farm fillet steak
For those of you who grew up in the ’80s, you’ll recall that the biggest treat you could expect as a child was a steak at a Berni Inn followed by a knickerbocker glory. The price was just as special - at £7.20 for a fillet you could afford to have the dessert; the quality of the meat was never even discussed! In my mind, steak will always be a treat although I might be a bit fussier about where my meat comes from these days – a dry aged, native breed fillet steak from Todenham Manor Farm fits the bill nicely! Todenhammanorfarm.co.uk
Three Choirs Vineyard Classic Cuvée
I don’t think it matters what age you are, anything sparkling is special. Back in the ’80s, we might have been talking Babycham or sparkling perry – champagne was a novelty and as for English sparkling wine, it hadn’t really been invented. Still, the excitement at popping a cork of anything fizzy for an important celebration hasn’t left me and the award-winning Classic Cuvée from this local vineyard is the first bottle I now turn to. Three-choirs-vineyard.co.uk
Godsell’s Holy Smoked cheese
There are certain cheeses I love eating, but thanks to a creeping fear of middle-aged spread, I can only indulge every now and again. That said, I distinctly remember the first time I tried Godsell’s Holy Smoked – I’d never tasted anything like it before. To this day, it is still the only smoked single Gloucester in the world, which in my mind makes it special enough to be the main event, not an after-dinner tack-on. Godsellscheese.com
All products available at Warners Upton-upon-Severn.