It was in a farmers' market in Cheltenham last autumn that I came across the
sort of discovery guaranteed to brighten my morning. Among the breads,
vegetables and cheeses was a small stall selling Scotch eggs. Not ordinary
Scotch eggs, mind - these were not the battery-farmed, greasy offerings you
find in supermarkets. Handmade, free-range and made with pork from
traditional-breed pigs, these were proper Scotch eggs. And there were more
than 40 different varieties of them.
“We started off with five flavours,” says Neil Chambers, who founded the
Herefordshire-based Handmade Scotch Egg Company with his wife, Penny, in
2003. “There was the Classic Mac, which is the traditional one. Then there
was Smokie Joe, which is saddleback pork and smoky bacon; Black Watch, with
black pudding; Scrumpy, which is pork, apple and sage, and Vegetabularian,
with chickpeas, cheese and onion.”
Their success surprised even them. Selling mainly through farmer's markets and
mail order, the company still shifts up to 7,000 eggs a week - at between
£2.45 and £3 each, not bad going for what is essentially a snack food.
But the Chambers' Scotch eggs are one example of a growing trend. In recent
years the UK has enjoyed a boom in the gourmet food market. What was once
regarded as traditional, cheap and cheerful grub has now received a luxury
makeover - numerous varieties of artisan breads, hundreds of farmhouse
cheeses, fruit and veg that is not only organic but also biodynamic. It is
no longer enough for a sausage or pork pie to be stuffed with abattoir
leftovers; now they are made from choice cuts of meat from a rare-breed pig
with an impressive pedigree.
In many respects what we are seeing now is an extension of the trend that
first started with wine. Back in the 1970s most people in Britain were
content with a choice of red or white, or a bottle of Mateus Rosé if they
wanted to push the boat out. Then, in the 1980s, wine merchants such as
Oddbins opened the floodgates by importing Australian and other New World
wines, and soon everyone was talking about not just grape varieties and
regions but also concepts such as terroir and Grand Cru.
Chocolate and coffee underwent similar metamorphoses as our national
consciousness expanded beyond Nescafé and Dairy Milk. The term “single
estate” began to be applied to coffee and cocoa beans as the idea took hold
that where and how something was produced could have a distinct effect on
its quality and taste. Now the trend has snowballed. We have grand cru
beers, breads made from organic stone-milled flours, meat and poultry
traceable to individual farms. A cheesemaker in Wensleydale is as likely to
talk about terroir as a wine-maker in the Medoc.
The question is, how much difference does any of this actually make? Few
people would dispute that, after the BSE and foot-and-mouth outbreaks, a
greater awareness of what we eat is a good thing. But there are those who
would argue that the main attraction of gourmet foods isn't so much taste as
exclusivity - the cachet of buying something a little different. So are we
becoming more discerning in our tastes or just turning into food snobs?
“We're caring more about what we eat,” Alan Porter, of Speciality Farm Foods,
agrees. “We're wanting to know more about it because of the food scares that
have been floating about. But I think people are also caring more and more
not just about the food but about the people who are producing it. We don't
just want to know that Farmer Giles reared this cow that produced this milk,
we'd quite like to know that Farmer Giles has got a decent lifestyle as
well.”
Porter's company, based in Devon, sources the finest ingredients from artisan
producers all over the world - pure palm sugar from coconut palms in
Indonesia, teas and coffees from China and Nepal. His range of salts
virtually defines “high-end”: the Bali beach salt pyramids are tiny hollow
crystals delicate enough to be served without milling, but even they take a
back seat to the Salt Diamonds of Tibet - individual box-shaped crystals
painstakingly extracted by hand and billed as the purest salt in the world.
At more than £18 for 90g, they're also one of the most expensive. So can you
actually taste the difference?
“Oh, God, yes. Absolutely,” Porter declares. “If you taste Maldon salt against
ours it's a completely different flavour. The pyramids are much lighter,
much less salty on the tongue, with a really unique seaside taste. The
Tibetan crystals are very salty, so we advise you to use a microplane
grater. You get a very fine layer over your food. You can't actually taste
the salt, but the flavour of the fish or vegetables or whatever is much more
pronounced.”
Regardless of how good something tastes, though, the consumer still has to
have deep enough pockets, and the inclination, to pay for it. Which brings
us to another issue - given the present economic climate, are these sorts of
foods a luxury we can afford any longer? After all, why pay £2.45 for one
Scotch egg when you can buy a pack of four for £1.50 at the local
supermarket?
However, the artisan and luxury food market seems to be weathering the
economic storm very nicely, thank you. Stuart Oetzmann of The Metfield
Bakery, an East Anglian producer of artisan cakes, pies and breads, believes
there is a good reason for that. “I think people are fed up with the
over-commercialisation of food. There's a certain type of consumer who is
searching out products that are made with good ingredients and with passion
and love.”
Most of Metfield's products are based on traditional recipes that date as far
back as the 18th century. One of its most popular is a lardy cake, a
delicacy thought to originate from Wiltshire, although Metfield's is based
on a Welsh recipe. At £25 for 12 servings it is hardly cheap, but Oetzmann
argues that it is worth it. “All these things take time, and we use cracking
ingredients. We render our own lard, we use organic flour and good dried
fruit. Years ago these were basic products, made on farms and in villages.
Now they're high-end products because labour and good ingredients are more
expensive.”
And there is the nub of it. Whether it is lardy cakes, pork pies or Scotch
eggs, this is not gourmet reinvention but a return to how traditional
British food used to be, before rationing, factory-farming and
industrialisation changed - let's face it, lowered - our expectations. In
France, Italy or Spain, where traditional rustic cuisine is rightly
celebrated, no one is accused of snobbery for buying Serrano ham or Parmesan
cheese. Why should it be different here?
The simple fact is, good food made with top-quality ingredients might cost
more but it tastes better. What is sad isn't that we are rediscovering that:
it's that we ever forgot it. The Handmade Scotch Egg Company, 01885 490520, www.handmadescotcheggs.co.uk;The
Metfield Bakery, 01362 695340, www.metfieldbakery.com;
Speciality Farm Foods, 0845 8120128, www.specialityfoods.org.uk
Worth the extra? by Tony Turnbull
There is no limit to what can be given the gourmet treatment, from pizzas with
“hand-torn basil” to organic muesli with “Chilean flame raisins”. The
question is, are they worth the premium?
Pork pies: Mass producers do a pretty good job with pie pastry, but
it's what's within that counts, and if you like to know exactly what you are
eating (lean shoulder or sinew, British or Polish) it pays to upgrade.
Applies equally to sausages, and Scotch eggs.
Verdict Worth it
Soup: Remember when soup came only condensed and in cans? Now so-called
fresh soups are all the rage. But most just taste of dried herbs. And given
how easy it is to make your own, they are seldom worth the £2 premium over
good old Campbells.
Verdict Not worth it
Ice cream: The ice creams of my childhood owed much to the science lab
but now niche producers are often based on the dairy farm itself. The more
you pay, the more eggs, double cream and fruit you get, rather than
reconstituted whey protein concentrate, vegetable oil and beetroot juice
concentrate (oh yes).
Verdict Worth it
Crisps: Alas poor Golden Wonder, now defunct, we loved you once but
then came Tyrrells and Burts with their fancy balsamic vinegar and cheddar
cheese and chive. Walkers still flies the flag for the humble salt and
vinegar and cheese and onion, and no one can turn them down.
Verdict Not worth it
