Day two of the Abergavenny food Festival saw us trekking out
sleepily, early on Sunday morning for the short 30 minute drive to Abergavenny.
Given that Day One had been rather hectic to say the least,
we had decided to take Day Two rather more leisurely...
We arrived a little later than planned but still managed to
park just one space next to the place we had parked in the day before. Being
Sunday, the car park was free as an added bonus. Then just a short stroll
uphill in to the town centre and then we were very comfortably ensconced in the
leather sofas of the Angel Hotel for a very relaxed morning cappuccino and
biscuits... The Angel is an old coaching inn built in 1829 on the main street
of Abergavenny. The staff are superb and the food is wonderful-their afternoon
teas have won awards! Highly recommended if you are visiting the area and want
to indulge in a little luxury...
Nestled deep in the leather sofas we carefully planned our
day to avoid the huge crowds...then refreshed and energised we sallied forth!!
Of course cheese stalls were on our list,
Of the others,
One of our favourites was Cnwd (it rhymes with food), which
is a new food producer specialising in local Welsh food traditionally caught
and made. Their Smoked Salmon and Smoked Sea Trout (known as Sewin in Wales)
was incredibly delicious and morish. Both are caught through the centuries old
tradition of coracle fishing on Welsh rivers.
I was delighted to hear later that Cnwd won the Best New
Food Producer at the Festival. As they attend The Cardiff Farmers Market as
well as sell their delicious produce on line I will be able to get further
supplies- thank goodness!
At lunchtime we were able to sit down and rest for a while
whilst watching Michelin stared Indian chef Atul Kutcher give a Masterclass.
This event had been a sell out from very early on when tickets had been
available and with good reason. I have been very fortunate in the past to have
spent a day intensively cooking with Atul and had learnt a tremendous amount
about high class Indian cooking to Michelin standard and with the added bonus
of it being without meat.
This Masterclass concentrated on using fish very simply with
regional Indian cuisine recipes such as from Sri Lanka. As he cooked, the
aromas were delicious and at the end of the demonstration we did get to taste
all the dishes which were wonderful!
After that we visited a few more stalls and then attended
our final booked event.
And what a great finale it was!!
Tom and Henry Herbert i.e. The Fabulous Baker Brothers for
those of you that have watched them on television, were booked to do a
demonstration at the lovely old Victorian theatre in Abergavenny.
Apparently the tickets
when they went on sale, went like hotcakes!!
In the past I have done a bread making course with Tom at
his fantastic bakery with its wood fired ovens in Stroud in the picturesque
Cotswolds-very, very strongly recommended if you are seriously into bread
making.
And so on to their demonstration...
Tom is the baker and Henry is the butcher.
Both are highly passionate about using good local
ingredients and lots of love and passion to produce good, hearty food.
Tom described in detail how important flour was and
recommended the fabulous Shipton Flour-highly recommended especially if you are
looking for those rare artisan flours such as Chestnut or Khorasan flour.
Tom enthused about ‘real bread’ and had a huge jar of some
of his family’s original 57 year old ‘monster’ as they call their sour dough
starter. Each member of the audience that day were given a small jar of it and
instruction came via email in the following day enabling us to make our own
wonderful sour dough bread.
Henry meanwhile talked about meat and they then both cooked
an old fashioned trencher of bread and meat.
Tom described baking bread with good flour and baked a long
loaf which could be sliced in half with the top half traditionally in medieval
times going to the ‘top table’ who were fortunate to then enjoy the ‘upper
crust’ and the lower half would then be used as a base or trencher for the main
meal of traditionally meat and gravy to be placed upon. The bottom half of the
loaf in olden times might contain coarse dirt from the bottom of the oven and
as such might have been a little hard but would often soften with the juices of
the laden meat and gravy.
Henry wanted to promote lesser known cut of meat with
excellent flavour such as Hanger steak.
To show the audience which part of the body the hanger steak
comes from he volunteered to get up on the table and be a model for a cow-to
huge applause from the audience!
His brother Tom very
enthusiastically assisted by adorning Henry with a dishcloth for a tail and
wooden spoons for cow horns...
The demonstration was hugely entertaining and great fun and
a fantastic end to the festival for us.
If you would like to see and hear the brothers enthuse about bread then click on the link below.
http://vimeo.com/50108566
If you would like to see and hear the brothers enthuse about bread then click on the link below.
http://vimeo.com/50108566
After this we wound our way sleepily but replete both in
food memories and full tummies home.
Until next year’s Abergavenny Food Festival-eat well and
heartedly!!
