'A
spare evening? Tick. An appetite? Tick. An interest in local food in Norfolk?
Tick. With all those three - and some local friends to add to the mix - an
evening at Brown's Kitchen, Mundford was bound to be a success.
Success
in food is not always a given. As a society we have become accustomed to food
that is full of convenience and not much else. Too many of us have lost our
link to the food and how it is produced, let alone the people and places that
produce it for us.
So
this is a good time. Not just for those around the table that evening to savour
seven, yes seven courses in a Breckland Banquet, but for all of us who live in
a county brimming with good foods. As you eat you can meet the producers. I
don't mean that they accost you at mealtimes at your table but when you buy,
from butchers, grocers, farm shops or direct, there's a story to savour too.
We
talked. Soup with gently melting Fielding Cottage goat's cheese, then soup with
King's Lynn cockles and then marched before us a medley of tasty cuts of
Scott's Field pork with lightly crunchy Mr Garrett's carrots. And we talked and
talked some more. Every course prepared and presented beautifully by Mark and
his team at Brown's Kitchens.
Flavour
is important. Value is important. But most important of all? Connection. I
think getting and staying connected to food producers and places through what
you choose to buy, prepare and eat makes food what it's supposed to be:
sustaining - physically, economically and, yes, spiritually in the sense that
good food somehow feeds your soul as well as your stomach.
In
my work, at Green Shoots, I help food and farming businesses to shape what they
have to say about how and where they produce and then how to share that with as
many people as possible. In These digital technology days sharing food
supply stories is easier than ever. But we are lucky with the Norfolk Food and
Drink Festival, of which this September's Breckland Food Festival are a part, that
there are so many markets and other gatherings when we can meet our Norfolk
producers face to face.
The
Breckland Banquet at Brown's was a feast of an opportunity. We carried on
eating our way through the 'foodscape' of Norfolk. Fairgreen Farm blueberries
in one dessert and Barnham Farm apples in another.
Every
day cannot be a banquet day. But every day can and should be a day when your
food is good. How satisfying is that? '
