An early morning, a train journey and a mile walk, a quick (not so quick) stop in the promenade, a long stay in Jack Wills and eventually we made it to Montpellier gardens for the Cheltenham food and drink festival. It's basically a fat, rich mans reading festival. Free samples of food and booze whilst strolling round to some soft jazz music. Luckily the weather just about held out. I am now also officially a member of the Cotswold's foodie club. I shall list the stalls which particularly stood out for us and some links :)
The Fluffle
the fluffle is a mixture of truffle and fudge. It's a melt in your mouth creamy texture with no grittiness that you normally find in fudge. As someone who usually prefers savouries to chocolate this was such a winner for me. Flavours include, baileys, vanilla, tia maria, coffee etc.
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| The Fluffle, is it a truffle or fudge? |
Black mountain smokery
http://www.smoked-foods.co.uk/
Traditionally smoked salmon, gourmet food hampers and gift baskets, all locally made, this includes the Finest traditionally smoked salmon. You can have gourmet smoked food hampers of fish, meats, poultry and cheese delivered directly to your door. The smoked salmon was beautiful. I also managed to scoff some smoked makeral- a few handfuls actually. I went back a fair few times for free fish. We are thinking of getting some lovely smoked salmon delivered to our door. If it weren't for the fact I had to train it back I would have bought some there and then. But I didn't want to stink out first great western.
Fish in a box
This stall didn't do free samples. But I am 100% ordering their shellfish box at some point this summer, 350g fresh langoustines, 350g fresh uncooked King Prawns, 200g King Scallops, 1 Whitby Dressed Crab. YUM YUM.
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| Fishy in a box |
Bread Tree co.
A specialist in bruschetta toppings. They did an exquisite wild chicories and porcini mushroom spread.
The Fabulous Vodka Company
We loved the Caramel vodka. Few too many shots of this.
Hinton Marsh Farm
Hinton Marsh Farm is situated at the foot of the Wiltshire Chalkdownlands and has been a family run farm since 1956. They offer award-winning free range beef, pork, chicken and lamb to you online. My carnivorous friend fell in love with their Beef sausages which use lean, matured slow growing beef. There was many samples of the variations of sausages
Jimmy's farm
And talking of sausages, Anyone who watched the BBC TV series will be familiar with Jimmy’s ethos: using traditional farming methods to rear several breeds of rare pigs and produce quality pork for farmers’ markets.
Perfect Tipple
Sparkling Gold Cuvee this unique drink is produced with the finest Pinot grapes and infused with real, edible 23 carat gold flakes.
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| Champers with real gold. |
Smokehouse kippers- the winning stall!
my personal favourite of the whole show was the smoked kippers. Yes I had seconds, thirds, fourths... possibly more. I took slight liberty of the free "samples". People need to give kippers a chance. As we are running low on Cod, tuna etc we should all be embracing these smokey bad boys. I loved how they were all hung like bats in some sort of wooden cupboard. I guess that's how they are mass cooked. But boy they smelt good. Proper fresh fish doesn't have a nasty odour, contrary to anti fish myths. God damn they were good.
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| Fishy Fishy, look how happy is to have his face deep in fish. |
Pyman Pâtés
- link to website not working. it's a google jobby. These were gluten free, In fact, a lot of the foods here were gluten free, which is great because I'm not actually supposed to eat wheat. Then again the dipping breads were too good to resist so I deserve any crippling stomach pains. I also do not eat Pate. Anyone who knows about the immoral or unethical method used to make pate will understand why. But there was a trout pate and a salmon one which I sampled. I'm hoping the creation of seafood pate doesn't involve barbaric methods of feeding/torture as I'm sorely tempted to buy some.
Snowdonia Cheese Co.
I was already familiar with this brand of cheese. There was a vast variety of cheese stalls, and as a cheese connoisseur I sampled every type of cheese there- twice at least. Without a doubt I ate my own body weight in cheese, there's wasn't a single cheese I didn't like, which is why I'm not going to bother listing every cheese stall, I give them all the highest of accolades. But as my all time favourite cheese I'll give the Snowdonia Cheese company some golden prime time on this riveting blog with my millions of readers :p The Black Bomber truckle is something every one should buy at some point in their life if they like strong Cheddar's with a bite. I have actually bought this cheese when drunk before, that is how good it is. In 2010 it won the Silver Medal at the Nantwich International Cheese Show, 2007 World Cheese Award Bronze winner, It is Creamy & smooth and has a unique- almost crunchy- texture & taste that will entice.
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| Black bomber. Not racist. Not deadly. Damn Good. |
Other highlights.
My friend was desperate to try one of the Kangaroo, Ostrich, Wild Boar, Zebra or Angus burgers. Me, not so much. But another highlight was all the fabulous chutneys to try. We steered clear of the overly spicy ones but there was many gorgeous caramelised onion chutneys, red pepper relishes, money and mustard chutney's etc. There was also another stall with sachets filled with goodness that turned normal mayonnaise into creamy garlic dips, but I cannot find the link to the stall. But they were genius.
So that's my overview of the food and drink festival. It shall certainly be an annual thing now. Perhaps next year we will make the most of being in the beautiful town of Cheltenham Spa and go to a few bars in the night and get a hotel. I'd recommend in a heartbeat going if you are at all passionate about good quality, local foods. All the meats are organic and as ethically produced as possible (without being vegetarian). In a society where we care more about where our food is from and what goes into it, festivals like these will without a doubt be on the increase, and that's jolly good. :)
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