taste
Taste! that's what it's all about - whether it’s a handmade pork pie, artisan cheese, or a bottle conditioned ale plus cookery books and kitchenware from Joseph Joseph and
Kuhn Rikon.
Hello, I'm Alexander Evans, Rheged's food and drink buyer for our Taste food hall.
After Christmas, and especially this year, we still need to find some foodie treats that will cut through the winter gloom.
So, with that in mind, here are some of my favourite products.
If you are reading this before going to a New Year celebration, may I suggest that you take a gift from the fabulous range of nuts by The Blue Crab Bay Co Virginian company. My favourite is the Crab House Crunch: a tin of old fashioned peanut brittle; sweet from the sugar, salty from the nuts, with the added fire of Chesapeake seasoning. Trust me, they are addictive! £6.95 a tin.
Taste was the first outlet to stock Hesket Newmarket Brewery’s bottle-conditioned beer range which includes Haystacks, Scafell Blonde and Doris’ 90th (£2.45-£2.65).
The Old Smokehouse, from Maryport, supplies specialities such as oak-smoked salmon (£3.62 for 100g) and duck breast.
Adam Marks, of Mr Vikki’s spiced chutneys, pickles and sauces, and his partner Mary Ballantyne, make Mary’s Cumberland Sauce (£3.95) especially for Taste.
Chapel Down from Kent produces well-regarded English Champagne-style wines such as the vintage reserve Century Extra Dry (£17.95). The Chapel Down sparkling wine truffles are made by Artisan du Chocolat (£14.95).
Nisi’s Italian-style biscotti (£3.95) with chocolate and hazelnut.
Vacherin Mont d’Or cheese from the French-Swiss border, available between October and February (£7.95); wooden serving platter by Olive Design, based near Kirkby Stephen (£10.95).
From Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty to Great British Cheeses, there is an interesting mix of unusual cookery books.
Last September saw me wandering the stalls at Abergavenney Food Festival, when I met Simon Gaskell from The Real Boar Comapany. Inside each very smart cardboard tube is a whole salami (in this instance wild boar salami with red wine and peppercorns) and oh the flavour! Rich and intense, I suggest you team it up with one of our beers. £23.95 for 400g and worth every penny.
The Great Strickland-based potter Dave Drewery makes a range of terracotta items for Taste such as this garlic baker (£12.95).
A couple of weeks back, the food programme on radio 4, devoted a whole edition to the new wave of micro gin distilleries that are re-inventing this drink for the 21st century. We are proud to stock gins from two micro distillers. Firstly, Bedrock gin takes not just Lakeland water and botanicals but uniquely, also uses oak bark chippings in the distillation of the spirit. If you haven't yet tried it, this is the smoothest gin on the market and it's local! £24.50 70cl.
Looking for a full directory of cheese suppliers? Vist cheeseweb and search your local area.
