A feast fit for a bishop
Apr. 27th, 2023 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustIt's been a funny, fragmented week - nothing major, but it seems to be taking all the running I can do to stay in the same place. So here's a hasty account of last Sunday, when - not for the first time - we went to the Bishop Auckland Food Festival. It might have been wiser to go on Saturday: stocks were runnibg low, there was no blue cheese to be had for love nor money and Lacey's had sold everything but a few pieces of their excellent brie. But I hadn't slept well on Friday night, and SaturdaY was dull and rainy, so Sunday is when we fancied an outing: and we enjoyed a bright sunny day (the forecast showers came just as we were leaving).
This is purely impressionistic, but I think there were fewer stalls than last year, and the crowds were less, too. As always, more sugar than anything else: artisan chocolate, elaborately iced and filled cakes, preserves (chutney rather than jam, for some reason) and rum seems to have overtaken gin as the spirit of choice. I bought very few of these things, but plenty of interesting conversation, and I learned a lot about rum production: it seems that id you import your rum at cask strength, and then temper it with Harrogate spring water, you can sell it as Yorkshire rum. You can't actually distil rum in the UK, as we don't grow sugar can, and beet sugar doesn't produce a palatable result.
Also enjoyed conversation with a couple of cheesemakers from Teesdale: they are based in Butterknowle, and we reminisced about the brewery. "The couple who live in their building - it's the old schoolhouse - are among our best customers..." They have a café, and we are planning a visit.
We lunched at Breaking Bread bakery, whose bread I know from Sedgefield farmers' market. Excellent wild garlic soup and bread, disappointing coffee and cake. And I enjoyed the entertainment:
There was a sequence of street performances, of which these alarmingly affable chefs were the only ones I photographed. Granny Turissmo zipped about on shopping trolleys, accompanied by loud music. But I wish I had seen more of the Human Hedges, who were retreating into the Town Hall just as I arrived: they were dotted with apples for the occasion, which I thought a properly appropriate touch. All of these entertainments were offered by twosomes, which made me wonder whether they were the different faces of one very versatile duo. If that is the case, the internet isn't letting on.
This is purely impressionistic, but I think there were fewer stalls than last year, and the crowds were less, too. As always, more sugar than anything else: artisan chocolate, elaborately iced and filled cakes, preserves (chutney rather than jam, for some reason) and rum seems to have overtaken gin as the spirit of choice. I bought very few of these things, but plenty of interesting conversation, and I learned a lot about rum production: it seems that id you import your rum at cask strength, and then temper it with Harrogate spring water, you can sell it as Yorkshire rum. You can't actually distil rum in the UK, as we don't grow sugar can, and beet sugar doesn't produce a palatable result.
Also enjoyed conversation with a couple of cheesemakers from Teesdale: they are based in Butterknowle, and we reminisced about the brewery. "The couple who live in their building - it's the old schoolhouse - are among our best customers..." They have a café, and we are planning a visit.
We lunched at Breaking Bread bakery, whose bread I know from Sedgefield farmers' market. Excellent wild garlic soup and bread, disappointing coffee and cake. And I enjoyed the entertainment:
There was a sequence of street performances, of which these alarmingly affable chefs were the only ones I photographed. Granny Turissmo zipped about on shopping trolleys, accompanied by loud music. But I wish I had seen more of the Human Hedges, who were retreating into the Town Hall just as I arrived: they were dotted with apples for the occasion, which I thought a properly appropriate touch. All of these entertainments were offered by twosomes, which made me wonder whether they were the different faces of one very versatile duo. If that is the case, the internet isn't letting on.
