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| Posted by: Cecilia |
Monday, June 08, 2009 5:49 PM |
About 50 foodies travelled to Ewood Park in Blackburn on June 3 to have our say on which food products from the North West stand out this year.
There were chefs, food writers, food producers and foodie members of
the public. At our table the representative of the latter category was
Lucinda Bryant, food and nutrition consultant, who was more
knowledgeable than most of the rest of us I think! She's on the left in the pic above, followed by Sue Souter, director of the eponymous PR firm
who, among other things, produce the Food North West newsletter Blend,
Ellen Rogers, who is responsible for the Northern Hospitality Awards
and Leigh Myers, group executive chef for the Nelson (Northwest)
Hotels, based in Cheshire.
Each table judged about six or seven of the sub categories. Ours included cold meat pies, black pudding & white pudding, blue cheese and salamis & continental style meats (at least I think that's what it was called). In the latter category we had a really good black pudding salami, clearly the result of some serious product development. Unfortunately it didn't make it through to the final.
Once the sub categories were done, each table voted in two finals. Ours included Beverages, where we had the onerous task of comparing a sweet cider, a stout, a rasperry liquer and a herbal tea....the cider was our choice for the final.
In the end there were ten final products, of which we all individually had to vote for the North West product of the year. Not easy!
Head judge for the day was Nigel Haworth, who I don't think needs any further introduction...
Some of my fellow Cumbrians, who'd made it down south for the judging...fr left Justin Woods, executive chef at the Castle Green hotel in Kendal, Annette Gibbons, whom I shall describe as Cumbria's foremost food ambassador, and John Crouch, freelance chef.
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