Food Frome

Food Frome will be at Frome Apple Day on October 17th at St. Louis School.  Check back later for further information on Frome Apple Day.

There is also Apple Pressing at Oakfield School on 3rd October, bring along your surplus apples for pressing and get some juice in return.

Diane Wells has contributed the following report on Food Frome activities at the Frome Festival.  Click on "Read More" below to read the full report including the recipes for Savoury Spelt Scones, Mushroom Pate and Chocolate Cake.

Fairy Tale Theme

For the second year Food Frome served teas in the café at Rook Lane Arts Centre for both week ends of the Festival. This year the theme in the café was Fairy Tales. Rook Lane Arts had worked with several artists and schools on this theme and we served teas that reflected the theme: we advertised them as:

“Tasty morsels from woods and meadows with mushroom, nuts and cheese,
Spiced and spangled cakes from the castle
And juices and teas to quench a dragon’s thirst”

Greco-Roman Spelt Semolina Pudding

After a long hard winter things are finally growing in the garden.  But the weeds always seem to grow fastest.  So while we are waiting for our first asparagus we have been resorting to some wild greens.  This is the best time of year to eat the common stinging nettle (urtica dioica).  The top 4 leaves are quite tender at the moment and can be made into several dishes.  The most traditional is Nettle Potage (soup) which I have tried but not found particularly good.  The recipes I do like are Nettle and Sorrel Risotto (or Speltotto) and Nettle Patina (an ancient Roman recipe from De Re Coquinaria by Apicius).  This evening I think I will try a Nettle and Wild Garlic Pesto.

Frome has won several awards in the BV Media Taste of Somerset Food and Drink Awards:

• Best Farmers' Market
• Best Food Town
• Best Farm Shop - White Row at Beckington

For more details see the Fosseway Magazine article.

Food Frome are running the cafe at Rook Lane Retro Fair this Saturday.

We shall be serving soups 

1. Thick parsnip and apple made with butter
2. Clear vegetable soup for vegans

Both served with Tim’s home made bread

Lentil Pate (V)
Creamy Bean Dip (V)
 With oat cakes (V)

Savoury Scones with home made chutney 
Cheese Straws
Pear Conde

All kinds of Retro Cakes including:

This is a two tickets for the price of 1 deal at a great little event in the Bath Literature Festival on Monday 1^st March. Here’s a link to the page:

http://www.bathlitfest.org.uk/richardshelton.aspx

Tim Manning made an excellent hay box, which was much admired at Potato Day. Brenda, Julian and Diane ran the stall. People who visited our stall put their hands into the hay nest and were surprised at how well it kept the jacket potatoes hot. Then whilst they ate pieces of potato dipped in herb butter (with herbs from Brenda and Julian’s garden) we explained the principles of the hay box. It can be used either to cook casseroles or to keep food hot such as the potatoes. See below for details.

Diane Wells has contributed 4 sets of Winter Recipes.

1. 4 Soups
   
2. Quince Dishes - One sweet and one savoury
   
3. Drawing on Stores
   
4. Food Memory from Hamburg - 4 Vegetables
   

I have added a more user friendly WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor to this website.  With this in place I hope it will be easier for others to contribute.  I plan to run an evening of training on contributing to this website in the next few weeks, please contact me if you are interested.