Rick Stein (one of my personal cooking heroes) did a couple of TV series on Food Heroes. He visited small producers who were standing out against mass produced food and the pre-packaged uniformity of the supermarket shelves. There was a second series and two books. Rick Stein's Food Heroes and Rick Stein's Food Heroes: Another Helping'.
Among these was Wenlock Edge Farm between Much Wenlock and Church Stretton and lying just below Wenlock Edge itself. This is typical Welsh Marches country, that land which was Welsh or English, depending on which army was stronger. Small family farms, interspersed with stands of trees and a feeling of being in a land apart with people who stand on their own two feet and make their own fortunes.
We were attracted to the farm by the tagline that they made ‘proper sausages’.
We love ‘proper’ sausages – fried and served with mash, cooked in the oven with roast veg, in a batter as Toad in a Hole, in a casserole, in a sandwich . . . shall I go on?
It is fun, and a cheap hobby to try different sausages everywhere we go. So far the gold medal goes to Bobotie sausages from a Farmers Market at Horsemonden in Kent. So spicy.
So we bought some Pork, Plum and Ginger sausages which were delicious, cooked in the oven with carrots, onions and potatoes and accompanied by home made fruit chutney and broccoli.
The shop and working space are being rebuilt and they are working in a temporary building at the moment, so hats off to them for making us welcome and allowing us to watch as one of the butchers boned out a piece of pork and tied it ready for roasting. His hands flew and became a blur but I didn’t dare ask him to slow down as he was using one VERY sharp knife. In the end, two photos were worth sharing.
We asked one of the butchers where the pork came from and he pointed to Wenlock Edge.
“Just over that hill there.” That’s local enough for me.
