Fisher food and more in fabulous Fife!
Culinary treasure was promised on our gourmet journey to the ‘East Neuk’ of the Kingdom of Fife and that was exactly what we found.
Our first stop was to meet Jane Stewart of the St Andrew’s Farmhouse Cheese Company, who develops a range of traditional, high quality artisan cheese. Despite a viewing window & looped DVD showing the production of the cheese onsite, one of the things that makes a tour with Tasting Scotland so special is that you actually come face to face with some of Scotland’s food heroes and heroines. By providing you with a unique insight into what makes their product so special; be it in terms of the traditional process they use; the quality of the base ingredient; the role the Scottish climate plays; or quite simply the love and attention they inject; you get a real taste of Scotland’s traditional food heritage. In Jane’s case it is all of these things . Using the milk from the from the 200 home-bred Holstein-Friesian cows, her tasty range includes a mature St Andrew’s Farmhouse cheese; Anster, a dry crumbly, full-flavoured signature cheese, that also goes particularly well when smoked or with a ‘Fife Cut’ Oatcake and Red Anster, naturally flavoured with garlic and chives.
Our second stop was to a rather grand family home or to be precise, an historic castle. Within its walls lives a stunning 400 year old, 1.25 acre kitchen garden, which is based on organic principles. To list the produce grown would create an impressive list not dissimilar to the entire index of a book perfectly suited to a gourmet gardener. So, let’s start with ‘A’ for Apple, 75 different varieties…..are you ready? Actually let’s not, you just really need to see it for yourself! One of the many surprises were two perfectly prime for fruiting Kiwi Fruit Trees (Did you know you need two to ensure cross pollination?) Mark Armour, the Head Gardener & Diane his assistant gardener gave us a guided garden tour. Between them they provided a fascinating account of the work they and the many volunteers (some 100 hours between them) do each week to keep the tearoom at the castle and the little shop stocked with produce as fresh and local as can be.
Lunch was in Crail, one of the region’s idyllic historic coastal fishing ports. Sitting by the little wooden hut that is The Lobster Store, slap bang on the harbour front, we enjoyed a veritable feast of freshly caught crustaceans from local waters, a glass of chilled Chablis, freshly baked hunks of bread and some good Scottish butter. As the sun peaked out from behind the clouds, we decided that life did not indeed get much better than this.
Our final stop of the day was to visit Matthew at the Steamie Bakehouse on our road home from the picture postcard coast back towards Edinburgh. Despite his premises being incredibly small (he bakes in a shed in which he custom made his own bakery oven) he produces a wonderful range of organic hand-made breads. Amongst the range is an oat bread, particularly fitting as Fife is considered to be the premium oat-growing region of Scotland. Another is a Sourdough with a touch of honey, made from Spelt flour (the precursor grain to modern wheat). It has a wonderful rich, malty, nutty flavour – perfect with a little of that left-over Scottish butter. The White Bloomer uses organically grown and stone ground heritage, creating a bread with an open texture, packed full of flavour.
Next tour to Coastal Fife is on 6th October 2012. Join us with friends, family or colleagues or with a view to meeting like-minded, savvy foodies.
To book contact us at info@tastingscotland.com or call +44 7974 212529. Special price of £99 available.
