Gourmet Traveller
MENDIP HILLS, SOMERSET
Amongst the limestone peaks and valleys of the Mendip Hills, Helen Hokin finds ancient villages and artisan producers - a feasting paradise firmly rooted in ancient West Country traditions
High on the magnificent Mendip Hills there’s an ancient village called Priddy. Every August, for the last 600 years, farmers have shepherded their flocks to the village green for their annual social gathering – the sheep fare, where sheep go under the hammer or into the shearing competition and leave with a new look or a new owner. Folksy sideshows of weavers, spinners, potters and morris dancers keep the crowds entertained and West Country traditions alive. Since 1348 a fare hasn’t been missed – it means a lot to the villagers to host this prestigious shindig and they wouldn’t like to lose it. The ancient hurdle stack on the village green symbolises traditional sheep farming and the wool trade. They say as long as the hurdle stack remains so will the fare.
Sheep farming and ewe’s milk cheese-making predates the Mendip Hills’ more famous dairy export, Cheddar, by centuries. One of the joys of meandering the region’s country lanes is stopping at dairy farm gates, meeting the farmers and trying their cheese. Brothers James and David Bartlett are keeping up the tradition at Wootton Organic dairy on the Mendips’ pretty south-east slopes. The stone farmhouse and old dairy parlour-turned artisan cheese factory sit to one side of the lane, to the other their Friesland sheep graze contentedly on sweet summer grass and wild herbs. Ten years ago the brothers realised there was little future or profit in selling raw sheep’s milk alone. They needed a new revenue stream to keep them on the family farm. A meeting with sheep’s cheese-making pioneer, Mary Holbrook, gave them the way forward. For £1,000 they bought her recipe and set to work to make it their own. Seven years on the result is a soft, handmade, organic Camembert-style cheese they’ve named Little Ryding. Mould ripening gives it a smooth and creamy texture; it has a chalky unpasteurised flavour and the pleasant, natural sweet taste of ewe’s milk. The working day starts with milking at 4.30am when the sheep are ushered from the field to the milking shed along the lane. As the woolly mass comes careering down the hillside, someone has to stand at the gate and keep count of them before they swerve right and take off down the road bringing everything else on it to a halt. There’s a living to be made counting sheep.
For the full feature, see the August/September issue of Food and Travel.
ABRUZZO, ITALY
Mekissa KRonenthal finds home cooking and hospitality amongst the peaks and valleys of often-overlooked Abruzzo, a rugged region between the Adriatic and Apennines
I have a theory about Abruzzo. Something about its location – close to Rome, yet separated from it by the high, jagged shield of the Apennines – must render it invisible to the hordes of tourists travelling up and down the peninsula each year. Otherwise, there is simply no explanation for how a region as stunning as this, that offers some of the most beautiful landscapes, friendliest inhabitants and most delicious food in Italy, can be as little-known and as little-visited as it is.
Abruzzo unfolds like a wild and wrinkled green carpet about halfway down the eastern side of the Italian peninsula. Barely an hour by car from the bustle and glamour of Rome, the region nevertheless occupies a different world; high mountains (the highest in the Apennines, the ‘spine’ of Italy), extensive parkland (over 70 per cent of the region is protected wilderness area), and miles of undeveloped coastline are home to another Italy entirely – one that at times seems to be barely touched by the modern world.
While geographically central Italy, because of its history Abruzzo is officially classed as part of the southern mezzogiorno. Conquered by the Normans in the 12th century, it became the northern reach of the Kingdom of Naples and, despite frequently finding itself at the front line in many north-south conflicts, remained so until the unification of Italy in 1860. Nevertheless, culturally Abruzzo is very much its own entity, thanks to an impenetrable mountain landscape that kept much of its territory cut off until well into the 20th century. In fact, this landscape is said to define just about everything about Abruzzo, from the character of the people – contemplative, hard-working and eminently hospitable – to the simple, hearty, intensely local cuisine.
For the full feature, see the August/September issue of Food and Travel.
