Walk The Pork - The Finale

In this last of our series of blogs about our 2013 Farm Walk we pay tribute to the people without which it would not have been the huge success that it was .

Walk The Pork - The Photographer

A huge thank you to Maria Mercer. One of the things we forgot to organise was an official photographer so one of our guests Maria stepped into the role at the last minute. She took some of the best photos of our herd of pigs that we have ever seen - she has a real empathy with 'our girls' as the amazing photos she has kindly given us to use show.

Walk The Pork - The Cook

Our Secret weapon, Mrs Hartley, Norfolks best kept secret and the reason why both press and guests return year on year - not only to sample some great pork but also her cakes and biscuits.

Both Debbie & Maria are available for weddings, funerals &  bar mitzvahs and we are immensely grateful to both of them.....as we are to our great friend Lynda Eddy (sorry no photo) who as usual ensured that the day went without a hitch. She has missed her vocation as an events organiser!

A big thank you also goes to Kim Riley and his team at Look East for their part in raising the profile of our herd of beautiful Large Black Pigs - You can see his piece here

Plans are already under way for next year's event when we hope to introduce Wissey Valley Lamb and our herd of Romney & Jacob ewes as well as re-visiting some very photogenic pigs!

Walk The Pork & Visit Norfolk

We were joined at Walk The Pork by Keith Brown of Visit East Anglia as well as Pete Waters former editor of The EDP who now heads up Visit Norfolk.

Keith spoke briefly about the importance that micro businesses play in the tourist offer of East Anglia and this was expanded upon by Pete with particular reference to Norfolk.

‘The tourist industry is worth 2.8 billion pounds to the Norfolk economy and employs 54,000 people – half of these are employed on a full time basis.

The individual landscapes throughout the county provide different attractions to our visitors -  from the bucket & spade holidays in Great Yarmouth to the waterlands of The Broads and the gentile villages of North Norfolk to the untamed beauty of The Brecks. In addition we have a city of culture in Norwich and we are a royal county – Sandringham being a very important tourist destination.

These individual landscapes also provide individual food & drink experiences – something that in the past Norfolk has been very poor at promoting.

Rob has already explained why The Brecks are so good for outdoor pig production but why are Cromer crabs so good? It is because there is a reef just off the coast providing a unique habitat for these world famous crustaceans.

The North Norfolk Coast also provides the perfect environment for malting barley – again as a county we produce some of the best barley in the world – which explains the success of the fifty or so micro breweries that we have in this county.

About six years ago we set up The Norfolk Food & Drink Festival to help promote the individual offers that the different parts of Norfolk have to offer. It has grown since then into a month long celebration of everything that we have to attract tourists to our county. Food & Drink are the cherry on the cake as far as our tourist industry is concerned and foodwebs are becoming an increasingly important part of the attraction.

When Vanessa & Les Scott (of Strattons) have guests staying with them, these guests want to know the provence of the food that they are eating. They do not want to come to Norfolk to eat Walls Sausages what they want is to eat & to be told about Scotts Field Pork.

This is why local food webs are so important to tourism in our county as they add to the visitor experience of this amazing place.

Didn't we have a lovely time The Day we went to Banger .....

A Bunwell Banger Fan

Saturday September 7th and the day of the famed 'Battle of The Bangers' which takes place each year outside The Forum in Norwich.

'Battle' commenced at 10 am and as well as The Paddocks Butchery from Mulbarton there were eight other butchers taking part. These included The Norfolk Sausage Company; Tony Perkins Butchers;  Archers Butchers; F L Edge & Son Butchers; Thorpe Butchers; Walsingham Farm Shop; Brambles Farm and Blofield Farm Shop.

The next few hours were frenetic as butchers cooked and over 4000 people tasted and then voted for their favourite sausage - Team Bunwell banger cooked and chopped over 900 sausages in five hours!

As well as the public vote there was a panel of judges judging a blind taste these included Anthony Isaacs of BBC Radio Norfolk, Nick Harris, Executive Chef at Jarrolds plus The Fry-Up Inspector and The Sausage King.

At 4 pm poor Bunwell fell on his sword as the winner of both votes was declared as Archers of Norwich.

We got feedback from one of the judges (The Fry Up Inspector) who awarded The Bunwell Banger 9.5/10.
His full report can be found on his blog. 

 

The World has gone Bunwell Banger mad

One of our butchers, Keith Charlish of The Paddocks Butchery at Mulbarton & Bunwell has come up with a very special sausage called The Bunwell Banger, made of course with Scotts Field Pork.

Keith has been asked to enter his great sausage into The Battle of The Bangers which takes place on Saturday 7th September at The Forum in Norwich.

As well as training hard for this once in a lifetime contest the sausage has been giving interviews, one with EDP award winning columnist Stacia Briggs and others with The Breckland View and Future Radio in Norwich.

If you are in Norwich this Saturday or indeed know anyone who is - come along to The Battle of The Bangers and have a lot of fun whilst tasting Norfolks finest sausages...