STOP PRESS :

 SCOTTS FIELD PORK AVAILABLE ONLINE!

At Scotts Field Pork we take great pride in the relationship that we have with our butchers all of whom are either in Norfolk or Suffolk which proves somewhat problematic for those who have read about the meat from large black pigs and are not lucky enough to live in one of God's own Counties!

The good news is I have just offended more Suffolkians and Norfolkians by mentioning them in the same breath as I might have upset those living outside the two counties, the better news is that one of our butcher's Goddards of Norfolk have just launched an internet mail order business so where ever you are in the UK you can now taste Scotts Field Pork - just follow this link for more informaion 

The Brecks Food Festival

Started with a bang at the Harvest Festival in the beautiful church of St Peter and St Pauls which is in the heart of the market town of Swaffham. It was organised by the staff and pupils of The Sacred Heart Convent which is also situated in the town. All the baskets of fruit and vegetables that had been donated by pupils and parents were auctioned off over the rest of the weekend to raise money for the home hospice and the church maintenence fund.

The festival was officially opened that evening by Dr Pixie Mckenna of 'Embarassing Bodies' fame and our local MP Liz Truss both of whom were guests at the The Porkers Pop Up Restaurant that followed as were The Simonds Family. George, Paddy, Sarah and I were lucky enough to spend the evening with the guests of honour as well as Sr Francis and other members of staff from Sacred Heart.

The theme of the 'pop up' was 'A taste of the Brecks' and featured Scotts Field belly of pork and Heygates potatoes as well as Tim Kinnairds special Brecks Macarons, an amazing crayfish soup and Brecks English wines.

We ate some great food prepared by Head Chef, Sam Bryant of Strattons who was ably assisted by Mary Kemp and Vanessa Scott as well as pupils of The Sacred Heart. We also had a lot of fun with the other guests, chatting about Baltimore & Sherkin Island in South West Ireland, The Dalai Lama , pre-school education ....and food of course!

Saturday evening was spent in the company of a very old friend, Sarah Mills and her husband, Vic again at The Assembly rooms, this time at a talk given by James Parry about the history of The Brecks heathland.

 


We were joined again the following day by Sarah & Vic as they helped us to talk to people at the farmers market about Susan (one of our large black sows) and her litter of piglets who had come to Swaffham Market for the day ....so without more ado let the pictures paint a thousand words ....

 





 

Visit to The Houses of Parliament

On Thursday September 13th Keith Charlish of The Paddocks Butchery and I joined a group of Norfolk Food Producers that had been invited by Norfolk MPs to The Houses of Parliament. The trip was organised by local buying group Anglia Farmers. Click here for details of other producers attending the event.

We had an early start so Team Simonds were left at HQ in charge of pig feeding - not many of the other kids at Methwold High School feed 500 pigs before they go to school!

Meanwhile Keith and I had loaded our booty consisting of The Bunwell Banger  an amazing sausage made by The Paddocks Butchery to a secret recipe from Scotts Field Pork - and probably the only banger with it's own Twitter account which you can follow @Bunwellbanger. We were also taking along some Scotts Field ham cured by Bramfield Meats.

Upon arriving at The House of Commons we were greeted by enthusiastic interns who raved about everything Norfolk but particularily our pork products - the most common question was where can we buy this in London?

At lunchtime they were joined not only by the Norfolk MP's including our own, Liz Truss, but also John Bercow, The Speaker and newly appointed Minister of Agriculture, David Heath. David (himself a pedigree breeder of Tamworths - well you cant get everything right!) was extolling the virtues of rare breed pork. Although very new to the job he appeared to have a  positive view on local food production and farming in general.

Eric Pickles - the well known twitcher, a great fan of Norfolk and it's produce - is now also a fan of Scotts Field Pork, Charlie's ham and The Bunwell Banger!

We had a fantastic day meeting the great and the good as well as other Norfolk Producers - tasting cheese from both Fielding Cottage & Norton's Dairy as well as  pickles from The Elvedon Estate.

The Norfolk Food and Drinks Awards

We are very proud to have recieved this award as part of The 2012 Norfolk Food & Drinks Awards.

The 'Oscars' of the industry took place at The Norfolk Showground Arena on September 10th and were hosted by David Whiteley of Inside Out. As we had been nominated as part of The Food Hero Category our table was hosted by David Clayton, David Webster & Nicki Barnes of Radio Norfolk - our fellow contenders were Vaness Scott of Strattons Hotel   and Mary Kemp who were accompanied by their charming husbands Les & Neville. Sarah and I had a great evening also catching up with Claire of Breckland Orchard ,Chair of the Food Festival Richard Woolliams who is an old mate from Cirencester and Pete Waters former editor of The EDP and the victim of our posh pop disaster (see our waiting wellies blog - August 2012).

The well deserved winner of this award was the very gracious Vanessa Scott with whom we spent the following weekend at The Brecks Festival.