Food for thought : finding quality food and produce

The force of circumstance

I’ve never experienced a white Christmas. This rarity value meant that I was unlikely to be alone in my fond imagining that snow would make the seasonal holiday period somehow more cosy and special for everyone. Until this year! I can’t previously remember snow hanging around on the ground for more than a couple of days or so.

Whenever travel becomes disrupted, by force of circumstances, people tend to stick to trips within their immediate local area, and I’m no exception. After a few days,  boredom, or a feeling of cabin fever can set in, and eventually sheer necessity means that you have to venture out for supplies. So it might have been for the first time this year, with snow underfoot and icy conditions on the roads, that it became necessary for people to find out what was available, by way of produce, in the immediate neighbourhood or general vicinity.

Benefits of shopping locally

Potentially, shopping locally has the added benefit of accessing fresher, and therefore better quality food, since it’s likely not to have travelled far; and if you can get used to buying seasonal produce as well, you might well also benefit from keener prices and have less packaging to throw away,  than if you buy from a supermarket.  Watch the video Ninjin – vegetable assassin from Do the Green Thing if you want to see this point made with real impact.

Hotels and restaurants usually find they can benefit by highlighting local delicacies, especially if they’re cooked to order, something which allows guests to appreciate locally sourced  ingredients from local suppliers in peak condition.

In fact I believe that it’s something that helps differentiate a hotel or restaurant from the crowd, if producers of local specialities are highlighted on menus, and in some cases, the producers are actively promoted as places to visit. This is something I’ve recently seen done with great success at the Beechwood Hotel in North Walsham in Norfolk, which actively promotes it’s  ’10 mile breakfast’ with all ingredients sourced inside that radius. The reviews on Trip Advisor speak for themselves.

Supporting local producers can be a winning move for everyone, as it increases awareness for producers, might also gain them incremental spend from people taking goods home as a special, or even unique edible  souvenir or gift, and it creates goodwill for the person or business who makes the recommendation in the first place.

How visitors can find the best local suppliers and retailers in the area

Common Ground provides information online, concerning their Producing the Goods project which showcases food producers and markets across the UK. However, I have to acknowledge that generally consumers are likely to have a problem in finding beacons of originality, quality and freshness when they’re on unfamiliar ground away from home, unless they’re literally stopped in their tracks by a sign (which might be the case when there’s snow on the ground). It’s happened to me.

If you fail to discover any intriguing signs on the street, there’s no real substitute for local knowledge; so in many places I’d urge visitors to seek recommendations from staff at their nearest local visitor information centre,  ask their hotel concierge, accommodation provider, or host.

In my particular area, Kent, as well as a local producers network called Produced in Kent, that offers downloadable food trails and online information about members; there’s a great scheme that helps meet the need for a more personalised service. It offers visitors the opportunity to meet a ‘volunteer friend’ called a Greeter. A Kent Greeter can answer questions and take you on an orientation walking tour as well as providing you with information and tips to help you make the most of your visit – completely free of charge. The Kent scheme is modelled on the Big Apple Greeters scheme of New York City, and is part of a network of similar schemes around  the world, known as the Global Greeters Network.

Here are links to a few more sources of online information about local food producers and retailers in areas of England outside London that are popular with visitors:

The Lake District Cumbria

The Peak District

Cornwall

The New Forest

Isle of Wight

Farm shops

I’ve also recently come across a food safari operation in Suffolk run by an old girl of my former school; although I haven’t tried it out yet. See my post dated 11 September 2009 for information about Daylesford in the Cotswolds.

If you have any tips about ‘foodie places’ in the UK, or other online resources that helps you find them, let me know. Until next time…

What makes a genuine souvenir?

I’ve been doing quite a lot of travelling in the UK over the past three months. As a result, I’ve spent a fair bit in hotels, restaurants, visitor attractions and yes, shops. So my expenditure, whether I’ve been travelling for business or pleasure, has also benefited the local economy everywhere I’ve visited, from Newcastle to Salcombe, from Liverpool to Ascot, The Cotswolds, London, Durham and Bath, to the Isle of Wight, Stratford Upon Avon and Windsor. Or has it?

My definition of a souvenir

Souvenirs are physical reminders of places you’ve visited. My husband abhors them, and is always reminding me ‘not to bring home any more knick-knacks’. However, in my case, my desire to take home a souvenir of some description, runs deep. I rarely throw one away, unless it totally disintegrates, which drives him nuts.

Souvenirs should carry meaning, be about memories and local identity. The preponderance of chain stores you now find in the high streets of so many towns and cities all over the  world makes finding something different more difficult. More often than not nowadays, it’s frustratingly difficult to findsomething  locally made, that you can’t get anywhere else, apart from rocks.

I have a thing about rocks, fossils and shells. I’ve got a great collection, picked up from beaches and roadside verges all over the world. They make great free souvenirs. They’re not actually displayed anywhere, they find themselves scattered about in odd drawers, bathroom shelves or in the garden. Most are too small to be of any use, except the collection of pumice I picked up on the beach at Monte Circeo in Italy at the age of 14. There’s nothing like pumice for rough skin; and these little pieces, that probably came from Vesuvius,  form a keepsake that still transports me back to a windswept teenage day out from Rome with my Italian uncle and aunt, digging my bare feet into the cold beach sand of late March, resolving  to remember the moment forever.

Can my recent purchases be criticised?

Turn over many obvious souvenirs like the small red plastic telephone boxes or double decker buses, or mugs, that you see in souvenir shops in London nowadays and you’ll find the words ‘made in China’ stamped on the bottom. I tried this exercise with what I considered the best souvenirs I’ve picked up in the UK recently, and was shocked by the results. In particular I thought that major art galleries would be places keen to support well designed home produced artifacts.

On closer inspection I discovered that the cute little ‘Handy Bookmarks’, made of multi-coloured wire in the shape of hand signs (£2.50. from NPW),  that I bought in the Baltic Gallery in Gateshead, were made in China. So were the fredandfriends.com ‘Gin and Titonic’ ship and iceberg shaped ice cubes ‘to sink in your drink’, from the same place ( priced at £5.50). The latter appear to have been designed in the USA; but on inspecting the packet it confirmed that they were manufactured in China.

I’ve also discovered that The Cavern Club fridge magnet I bought in Liverpool Visitor Information Centre, was made in China (mysteriously I found I couldn’t buy souvenirs in the club itself). Finally I looked at my much admired Tatty Devine acrylic keyring in ‘symbolism black’ (available in other colours such as ‘post modern pink’), that I purchased at Tate Liverpool in  Albert Dock (£14.68 from Tate online), and was delighted to find that it was made in the UK.

How we can promote locally distinctive souvenirs

We may live in an era of globalisation, but we can do our bit for the local economy whether we  are on ‘staycation’ in the UK or travelling abroad, if we buy goods that are locally made. That’s what I believe ‘responsible tourism’ is all about.

Common Ground is an organisation that devotes itself to promoting the value and importance of the local: our ordinary cultural heritage, popular history, everyday buildings and commonplace nature’. Back in 1983 they invented the term  local distinctiveness, which they define as ‘ the richness of difference between places that reflects meaning back to us, through the particular accumulations of story upon history upon natural history’. It’s something all of us can look out for in the souvenirs we take home from a trip.

Common Ground’s ‘Manifesto for Souvenirs’:

Souvenirs should be:

1. true to their place, full of meaning, reinforcing identity
2. locally distinctive, unique to the locale
3. produced nearby
4. making use of and building on the natural and cultural assets of the place
5. made from local renewable materials
6. ambassadors for their place
7. authentic and of good quality
8. offer good value be ethically derived and fairly traded
9. of benefit to local makers and the broader tourist industry as well as retailers
10. clearly labelled with sources of material, name of designer, maker and place of production, feeding back into local culture
11. capable of reuse, recycling and simply packaged
12. exemplary of sustainability

What we can do next

Common Ground goes on to suggest what we can all try and do as tourists and travellers, locals and makers or manufacturers, commissioners of goods and traders, to search out locally distinctive souvenirs; amongst other things by demanding authenticity, good quality and fair value whenever we buy  souvenirs. Read more.

Check your most recent purchases, and see if you can find proof of whether they were locally made.  How practicable do think Common Ground’s ideas are? I think it’s a particular challenge for retailers to source items that can be sold as souvenirs at the lower end of the price scale. Why not let me know what  you think; or tell me about the special items that you’ve purchased as souvenirs and found to be found made locally here in the UK.