Slow Food West Scotland Supper

Good, clean and fair in the West: A trip across country reveals some of Ayrshire's local delights

Earlier this month I was delighted to attend a recent supper organised by the Slow Food West Scotland convivium. After various Slow Food groups setting up across the area over the years they have now joined forces to grow the Slow Food movement in Glasgow and more rural areas. With the long standing Ayrshire Food Network and Glasgow's varied and expanding food scene, there is plenty of potential for Slow Food in the west.

The dinner had been organised to celebrate some of Ayrshire's finest producers and raise money for Slow Food. A wiggly but beautiful two hour drive from Edinburgh on the back roads, we arrived at the village hall in Dunlop for the dinner, the village associated with the traditional hard cheese of the same name. It really is incredible countryside once you leave the M8 behind and looked stunning on a warm spring evening.

Nearly 50  local producers, friends and supporters were there, with some making the train journey from Glasgow. With the support of the aforementioned Ayrshire Food Network we enjoyed a delicious meal starting with cheese canapes from Dunlop Dairy and Barwheys Dairy, with Haggis Scotch Eggs from Aye Love Real Food. Wines were provided by wine expert Pieter Rosenthal.

 The meal continued with onion soup and delicious sourdough bread from a baker in Oban. We then helped ourselves to a buffet-style meal of wonderful cold meats, raised pies and colourful salads. The emphasis was on local and on taste. The meats and pies from Nethergate Larder were incredible, with the pies full of herbs and a good crust.

The danger of a buffet!

For dessert we tried ice creams from two different producers, Lime Tree Larder and Wester Highgate Ice Cream. One more vanilla-ry, the other contained the spice of black pepper. They were served with a pipette of balsamic reduction - I haven't used a pipette since school! We relaxed with coffee from new Ayrshire artisans Roundsquare Roastery, and handmade chocolates. There was also a showing of short films about Ayrshire's many wonderful producers, which can be found on the Ayrshire Food Network website.

What really impressed me on the night though was Slow Food West Scotland's hard work to make the supper happen. They did everything themselves to organise the evening, including devising and cooking the menu and serving it. With generous help from suppliers and supporters, a raffle to raise funds included prizes such as whisky, coffee, Easter eggs and even artwork from a local artist. I came away empty handed from the raffle but delighted to meet so many inspiring food producers making good, clean and fair food happen on the other side...

A Slow but Busy Time

It's been a bit quiet on here recently, but that's not the case in the offline world! As well as my recent projects, I've recently taken over as the Chair of Slow Food Edinburgh. The Edinburgh convivium is one of the largest and most active in the UK, and it's a privilege to take it on. We here in Edinburgh are very fortunate to have some of the country's best producers on our doorstep, not to mention the many great chefs and restaurants that have made Edinburgh a city with a world-class restaurant scene.

Thriving

On top of that, we have a thriving community of foodies, bloggers and the like, but more importantly a vast network of people and organisations campaigning for a better food system in Edinburgh and beyond. To name a few... Nourish and Edible Edinburgh (with whom Slow Food worked with on last year's Feeding the 5000), Edinburgh Garden Partners, Abundance, Transition groups, Soil Association Scotland, Greener Leith, Pilton Community Food, Shandon Food Group, The Engine Shed, FEDEGA, Federation of Community Gardens and Farms, Edinburgh Community Food Initiative, Bridgend Allotments.... and there's more out there, if you have a similar group or project to tell me about, do let me know!

London Calling

It's an exciting time to be campaigning for good, clean and fair food, for a better way to eat here in Edinburgh. Not only do we have all this activity going on in Edinburgh but for Slow Food itself. One of my first actions as Chair was to attend the Slow Food UK AGM in March. A quick flight down to London and along with some fellow Slow Food members from north of the border I was there to vote on some important proposals which would shape the future of Slow Food in the UK. Armed with my proxy votes from fellow members I arrived at the University of West London in leafy Ealing, all daffodils and English quaintness as the city sprawl gives way to the suburbs.

After meeting many of my fellow convivia leaders and members of the Slow Food UK board and team, it was time to get down to business. The big vote for the future of Slow Food UK rested on a proposal to set up Slow Foods Scotland, England and Wales/Cymru, and then a vote for representatives from each to sit on the UK board. The aim is for the devolved groups to be able to campaign more effectively and have a real voice at a local level. The new structure will also help revive old convivia, grow existing ones and help new groups get started. The votes were passed nearly unanimously and everyone was positive about a new future for Slow Food in the U.K.

Inspirational

Following the voting, we were treated to a cookery demonstration by young chefs at the university, and then talks from Slow producers, including our own Richard Briggs. Finally we were inspired by a speech from Paulo Di Croce, Secretary of Slow Food International. Listening to Paulo's experiences in Africa about Slow Food in action was really thought provoking and insightful. In it he takes the example of the cost per 100g of raw potatoes, straight from the land being sold at a market trader's stall. He then compares it to the cost per 100g of potato crisps being sold in a western-style supermarket. It's a simple but ingenious way to explain the differences between Slow Food and 'fast food' and why what we grow, how we grow and how we eat matters.

For us up here the formation of Slow Food Scotland should mean good things for the people that make, buy and eat the food we care about. The next steps will see the formation of a regional body that will see other convivia grow and bring producer and co-producer closer together. For Slow Food Edinburgh, we're committed to growing our membership to 100 members this year, to working closer with food communities, to promoting Ark of Taste products and of course telling everyone about upcoming progress on our 10,000 Gardens Garden in Africa, which we successfully raised funds for in 2013/14.

Pleasure

Of course Slow Food is also all about the pleasure of eating, enjoying and appreciating good food. To this end we've been enjoying the Slow Food Big Table Dinners this year, the second Monday of every month. we've had some great producers, speakers and dishes so far, and these are set to continue in 2014. To get a flavour of the Big Table and what it's all about, see a previous post from me or check out food blogger Sophie's review here.

We've also got plenty going on with upcoming Farmers' Markets, Slow Food Week in June, Film Nights as well as visiting Terra Madre in October. For me, as Chair and leader, I see my role to inspire new people to get involved with Slow Food, and help to make those connections between us that can strengthen a better food system.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a dinner organised by Slow Food West of Scotland and Glasgow last week, a gathering of food lovers and producers in a tiny village in the heart of Ayrshire. I'll be posting an piece about it here shortly, but in the meantime read about it here.

If you'd like to get involved with Slow Food Edinburgh, don't hesitate to visit the website!

#ScotFood Chat on Twitter, 4 November 9pm

Love Scottish Food and Drink? Like chatting on Twitter about it? Want to know more about what's in season and what others are rustling up in their kitchen on a cold winter night? Well make sure you're there for the next #ScotFood chat on Twitter, 4 November 9pm.

Following previous #ScotFood chats covering regions across Scotland, November's chat will be all about Edinburgh and the Lothians. I'll be one of the four co-hosts tweeting the questions and finding out more about the food, restaurants and recipes to be found this side of the M8. Here's a little more about my fellow hosts, the #ScotFood format and how to get involved!

Susan @HulaJuiceBar - Juice bar, coffee house and gallery: Hula Juice Bar 103-105 West Bow, Edinburgh – near the Grassmarket and frequent venue for #EdinHour meetings (but that’s another story…).

Danya  @Pickled_ in_Scot – a new venture we’re keen to hear more about: “grow plant forage preserve eat enjoy – Scotland season by season”

Danielle @edinburghfoody – Discovering, enjoying, eating and writing about food and ingredients in Edinburgh, Scotland and beyond. You’ll find Danielle’s blog at: http://www.edinburghfoody.com/

Follow the hosts, invite your friends to join in and answer the questions by using A1…#ScotFood to ensure we scoop up your answers and save them for posterity (and so others can find you).

9:00 Q1 Introduce yourself to #ScotFood: first name, first part of postcode, your company and what it does?
9:05 Q2 As the nights get darker what Scottish comfort food have you been enjoying? #ScotFood
9:15 Q3 What Christmas baking/preserving have you been doing? Any family recipes/traditions you’d like to share? #ScotFood
9:25 Q4 What foraged ingredient has been your “wow” this autumn and why? #ScotFood
9:35 Q5 What new producers/suppliers/restaurants in Edinburgh & the Lothians are you excited about this year? #ScotFood
9:45 Q6 What Scottish street food would you like to eat at a street party? #ScotFood
9:55 Q7 What would be on your menu to celebrate St Andrews Day? #ScotFood

You’ll find tips for hosts here.
Hints for participants here.
Calendar for future #ScotFood chats here.
Read more from October's #ScotFood chat here

Look forward to seeing you there!

Review - Three Birds Restaurant Edinburgh

I first visited the Three Birds in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh shortly after it opened last year and I've been keen to return and see how their imaginative take on local dining is getting on. The sort of place oft referred to as 'a  neighbourhood gem', the Three Birds pickles and smokes many of its own ingredients, sources from local, seasonal, sustainable suppliers, and all with a deft hand of foraging thrown in.

They feature good value lunch menus, gregarious sharing platters and fab in-house touches such as the 3Bird dukkah to nibble on and bespoke artisan soap in the ladies (can't speak for the gents). The menu is a world   away from typical restaurant offerings, instead of chicken liver pâté there's venison or beef tongue to start and a range of mains and specials featuring what's good here at this point in the earth's journey round the sun.

3Bird dukkah

The restaurant has a neutral but cosy interior. Sitting there on a midsummer evening with the door open and watching a bit of Bruntsfield go by was a good start to the evening. Hearing the hubbub of fellow diners building around us we settled in for a promising night, the ambiance only slightly dented by the guilty pleasures/Elton John soundtrack in the background.

First up was the 3Bird Dukkah to share. A middle eastern mix of toasted spices, seeds and chopped nuts, it's served with extra virgin olive oil, syrupy shallot vinegar and bread for dipping into. It had an excellent, smoky flavour with hints of coriander, cumin, almond, pine nut and possibly cashew. I loved the shallot vinegar too but the bread was a bit thinly sliced for me, almost too refined for the rustic dukkah. Personal choice but I'd prefer chunkier pieces that would better accommodate the oil and spices.

For the first course were one of two halloumi dishes on the menu. I chose the special, fried Halloumi with pickled red cabbage, black garlic, spring onions and an orange dressing. I have never eaten black garlic before and it's produced by  fermenting the bulbs at a high temperature with balsamic vinegar for 24 hours. It's a different taste, with mild garlic undertones; it's almost sweet but bitter, a bit like dried fruit that's been baked in a Christmas cake. It does however go very well with small but juicy pieces of halloumi (not too waxy) and some joyous pink picked cabbage. The spring onions and a few leaves were great too. I didn't catch too much of the orange flavour but it was there to pull it all together at the back of my palate.

Halloumi (above) and the curious black garlic clove (right)

Smoked Mackerel

The second starter was Salad of Smoked Mackerel, Oyster Mushrooms with a Caper and Egg dressing. Another colourful, well presented dish; the mackerel was strong and punchy and stood up to the dressing. Again, the raw ingredients were of a high standard. Both starters were served on small wooden boards (possibly olive) and though they were starter sized in terms of portion control, the boards made them look slightly smaller than they actually were, my only criticism.

Main course and I chose another special, the Oven Baked Sea Bass, intrigued by the home-smoked treacle bacon in the dish. The fish was perfectly cooked, served with the bacon, crayfish, sea aster (a sort of flat samphire we were told) new potatoes and a sun dried tomato butter. I loved the flavours, the generous piece of fish, the slightly crispy, buttery potatoes and jewel-like crayfish hidden under the bass. The bacon though, while having a great, smoky, sweet flavour that didn't overpower the delicate fish, was just a bit too flabby and chewy in texture for me. I'd prefer it crispier and I loved the tiny bit of rind on it, more of that please! The sea aster was more like tarragon than samphire but I enjoyed the novelty of it, there was bite to the leaves with a hint of the sea air in them. A few of the yellow sea aster flowers had been added as a garnish but these were a bit too bitter, the only thing that threatened to overpower the fish.

Sea Bass

Schnitzel

The Second second course was from the main menu, breaded pork schnitzel with a creamy leek sauce, potatoes and boiled eggs. An interesting dish to see on a menu these days, a slight retro feel but rich, comforting if not hugely summery. The pork wasn't too dry and the sauce was really tasty, the only thing missing was a bit of colour on the plate but we still enjoyed it immensely.

The dessert menu too is not short of imagination, I was torn between the Coconut and Cardamom  Sponge and Heather Honeycomb and Truffle Oil Vanilla Ice Cream. In the end the ice cream won, despite a warning from a waitress that the truffle oil flavour was very strong. Apparently this dish has divided customer opinion so far! It wasn't overpowering in terms of taste, which was slightly salty, savoury, but more the texture, which was quite oily but not off-puttingly so. However my dining companion picked up engine oil somewhere in the mix,  as have previous customers!

Old school wafers

Far more interesting was the honey rippled through the ice cream, it tasted like nectar, like wild flowers, like sun on a rocky hillside, I felt like a fat greedy bumblebee. We shared the ice cream, but for one person it was too big a serving. Because the whole combination is quite intense, half that amount would be enough. The restaurant buys its ice cream from Over Langshaw Farm who make it specially for them. They've several other interesting flavours including blue cheese and Guinness and Baileys. Although they prepare a lot of their other ingredients such as the bacon perhaps outsourcing this is a cannier move to take the pressure off the kitchen.

All this was being washed down with a carafe of gluggable Spanish white wine, 100% Macabeo grapes. Not too dry but not lacking personality it was good value, working out at £4 per large glass. There is a small, reasonable wine list with a nice Prosecco I tried last time I visited, and the usual teas and coffees, none of which we had on this occasion. Like the wine, The Three Birds can be summed up by good value; considering the imagination, sourcing and flair that goes into their menus it's hard to beat in terms of cost, with all this coming in at £65 (including wine). It's the kind of place where you spend half the evening excited to be there and be talking about the food itself which is no bad thing. We're lucky to have places like this on the doorstep in Edinburgh.

Three Birds Restaurant
3-5 Viewforth
Edinburgh
EH10 4JD
0131 229 3252

http://www.threebirds.co.uk/

Crail Food Festival - 16 June

Tucked away in the furthest corner of the East Neuk of Fife is the seaside village of Crail. This part of the world is has more in common with Cornwall than other parts of the Scottish coastline. White washed cottages, cobbled streets rolling down to a picture perfect harbour, a rocky shoreline only smugglers would brave and of course some of the tastiest food that side of Edinburgh.

Now in its third year, the annual Crail Food Festival takes place in June and I headed up and over the bridge to Fife to enjoy some of the best of the region's produce. Organised by a loyal community of local volunteers, the festival takes place over a weekend. Because this is Scotland, the Saturday featured an indoor market with cookery and tasting area, followed by a fabulous dinner and music event in the evening, this year featuring a three course Fife menu with King Creosote and friends bringing the tunes (a sellout!) Then, on the Sunday, the festival takes its chances and sets up shop on the famous harbour, the most photographed in Scotland apparently!

2013 must have seen some sun dances taken place, or perhaps a pact with the foodie gods as Crail basked in some of the best temperatures this year. Sadly unable to make a weekend of it and drove up only for the Sunday, but were rewarded by the journey nonetheless; inland or taking the coast road, it's spectacular. A worrying band of cloud stayed over the hills and the sea sparkled as far as the eye could see.

Set up as a celebration of local food and drink and a showcase for some of Fife's finest produce, the festival aims to encourage visitors to make the journey and enjoy all this in a fabulous setting. It had done the trick as the place was packed but luckily the trusty Micra was small enough to find a parking space. We joined the throngs of people walking down the pretty streets to the harbour. Approaching the harbour from the east is one of the best views from Scotland on a day like that. Blue, blue, blue and East Lothian visible in the distance.

On arrival at the harbour it had been transformed with stalls selling a diverse range of goodies including Arbroath Smokies, sweet waffles and chocolaty crepes, fresh pizza from an oven in the back of a horsebox (really) and pigeon on the menu from Wild Rover Foods. All this against a backdrop of boats, lobster pots, rambling cottages and the tangy air of the sea. Priorities, after the drive we needed sustenance so we headed to the lobster shack after seeing people walking past with their plates filled high with local crustacean. Cooked lobster with a squeeze of lemon juice and dressed crab ready to go we sat on the harbour wall and picked every scrap of juicy sweet meat out of it in the sun.

As well as the stalls along the harbour there were foraging walks from professional forager Galloway Wild Foods and the Fife Diet team who also brought their carbon-neutral smoothie bike! Continuing the emphasis on local food were Food from Fife who had a prime spot at the edge of the harbour wall with info, recipes and chef demos from Christopher Trotter, Paul Wedgewood, and Scott Davies. They also had some shellfish demos from local seafood expert Jim Knox who put a lobster through its paces. More on him soon on this blog!

As part of the build up to the festival, myself and other food bloggers have been contributing to the Crail Food Festival blogging project with guest posts about the producers and people attending the festival. Mine was all about the Food from Fife initiative and the work they're doing in Fife. Read about that and the rest of the posts on the Crail Food Festival website here.

Back in the village, the shops and tearooms were open and we visited the butchers and the greengrocers, snapping up a punnet of the tiniest, sweetish local strawberries. Ostensibly for the week ahead, they barely made it back home! back at the harbour, there was just time to pick up a couple of goodies including incredible patisserie from Sucre Coeur, before we headed back up the road.

It was wonderful to see the harbour busy and buzzing, and to see so many people coming together to enjoy all this great food. It's also good to see a real community project come together and be a success; so many events now are corporate, sponsored and identikit, let's hope if the festival expands to meet demand it won't loose any of the charm and character that marks it out as a must see on the foodie calendar.