Authentic Italian Cuisine at Masseria Il Frontoio, Puglia Slow Food, Farm-to-Table Dining, and True Puglian Hospitality I’m in the mood to talk about proper Italian food. Partly thanks to an old Rick Stein programme I’ve ust watched. Not just any Italian food, but the kind that makes you want to pack your bags and head straight for the heel of Italy's boot. I'm referring to Masseria Il Frontoio , a place that's not just a restaurant—it is something of a shrine to the Slow Foo

Easter Food Traditions: Lamb, Eggs, and the Easter Bunny The Exmoor Mystery: The Lamb Of God There's an Exmoor tradition which, in days of yore, would see the people of the high lonely villages climbing Dunkery at Easter in the hopes of seeing the Lamb Of God. Now, I'm not exactly sure what the Lamb Of God is, but I do know that Exmoor's highest hill was venue for this phenomenon and that there is a place called Easter Hill on the flanks of the great furzy down. I've always u

Cornwall Road Trip Delights: Award-Winning Beers, Butchers, and Harbour-Side Sourdough Pizzas We are creatures of habit, and one example we discussed recently in these pages is the regular port of call people make when they are travelling to certain places. I mentioned calling into Appledore on a drive back from Cornwall. If I’m going the other way I’ll often make a point of leaving the A30 at Launceston so that I can visit the truly excellent Philip Warren butchers’ emporium

The Joy of Jersey Royals: Spring’s First Great Harvest Cornish Earlies will be with us soon, offering their own delightful contribution to the new potato season. But in the meantime, a kind soul from the Channel Islands has sent me a generous bag of Jersey Royals — a potato which many would describe as the king of spring spuds. Not that I need to try them, of course. I buy them the moment they appear each year. Jersey Royals have a special place in the British culinary calen

Why Wild Garlic is the Star of Spring 2025 I know we’ve talked about the virtues of wild garlic before in these pages, but I’m going to do it again because this really is a fantastic year for the stuff. Moreover, I have recently learned to enjoy the value of a simple wild garlic omelette. Fresh eggs, a few of the pungent leaves finely chopped, a touch of salt and pepper and a generous dollop of butter. Nothing could be easier – a great way to start the day… Foraging Wild Garl

A Food Lover’s Paradise in the Atlantic Imagine an archipelago of sun-kissed islands surrounded by clear, warm waters teeming with marine life. A place where the climate is so mild and fertile that nearly anything can grow. This is the Isles of Scilly , a destination that’s not just a natural paradise but increasingly, a gourmet one. For years, this potential wasn’t fully realised — but all that is changing. Food and drink on Scilly is undergoing a remarkable renaissance, pla

Last week I was on the Isles of Scilly meeting food and drink producers - and I will put an article onto this site in the next day or two all about that journey of discovery. But I thought I’d also add this article which I wrote when visiting Scilly many years ago… Surf and Turf the West Country Way It’s difficult to be hungry where sea meets land, especially here in the West Country where fertile soils produce crops in a climate that is heated by the warm, fish-rich waters o

A Taste of Policy: Learning from Denmark at the Danish Embassy, London At a special food and drink seminar held at the Danish Embassy in London , I found myself thinking how, here in the UK, we barely score one-out-of-ten when it comes to joined-up thinking around food policy, nutrition, and sustainability . That’s not to say there’s no progress. Across the South West, I know many individuals, businesses, and small organisations working tirelessly to improve access to local,

A Stand Against the Virtual World Hesp Out West is based on something I call the Campaign for Real Experiences (CARE) , vaguely inspired by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale . More and more, people are finding themselves living in a virtual world —we spend too much time on screens and rely on digital technology for almost everything. There’s even news of a device that will allow you to taste or smell something you see on your screen , like a steak sizzling in a pan. Whatever n

If there is one good friend capable of doing a great deal of the heavy-lifting for the home-cook over the festivities, it is cheese. Wonderful, versatile, delicious, easy-to-serve cheese. Or, “preserved sunshine”, which is the way I’ve heard several cheesemakers describe this amazing dairy product down the years. From Sunshine to Cheese: Nature’s Alchemy Sunshine makes the grass grow, we can’t eat it but cows can and so we take their milk. Alas, it will not last long unless w

Some of the best ideas are simple and straightforward. Take the selling of freshly prepared food… There is a temptation to offer a wide and extensive menu with the idea that it’s going to both impress and offer a selection which can’t be seen or tasted anywhere else. But is that always a good thing? Not according to one young Westcountry woman. How MasterChef Finalist Kate Attlee Created a Salad Empire . Kate Attlee, a former MasterChef finalist, was thinking about dishes tha

Discovering the Wild Delights of Cornwall Whatever floats your boat… There are folk who prefer spending a November day in a crowded shopping mall , but I am not one of them. Give me a clean, remote, rocky, Cornish beach and a couple of top chefs to go foraging with, and I am one happy old newspaper hack - one who happens to love the idea of cooking with wild ingredients . 🐚 The Joy of Cooking with Wild Ingredients One of the joys about being a keen home-cook is that there’s

I have recently been beach-foraging with a couple of well-known Cornish chefs and I will be writing about that adventure in the coming weekend’s newspapers - in the meantime I recall writing another piece about beach foraging a few years ago… Here it is… There are few human pursuits more primeval than scavenging for food on a beach. Our early ancestors spent thousands of years practicing this skill as Homo sapiens began their slow migration out of Africa. In fact, it's reckon

There are times when you come across an idea so good, you wonder why no one has done it before. That was exactly what I thought while standing in a Somerset field recently, listening to an eloquent young man talk about bees and honey. The concept he outlined was simple yet brilliant: There's a lot of honey on supermarket shelves, but much of it isn't as natural as you'd think. Many cheap brands have added sugars, and experts even claim there's more honey sold than bees could

A short break in Marbella—a surprisingly wonderful town on Spain’s Costa del Sol. Surprising, because to many of us, it has a name for hen parties and that rather boozy world of short breaks which, in reality, is often exaggerated. There’s plenty of that in evidence, but Marbella also has a lot of laid-back charm.  It also has a lot of very good food. Dining on the move in the tapas joints is, of course, one of the town’s must-do activities, although it is a tradition that ha

It’s pumpkin time in the UK. All across the Northern Hemisphere, in fact. For 25 years, it was my job as a feature writer to track down various pumpkin farmers around the South West region of England so that I could write newspaper articles all about what kind of season it was… Were this year’s pumpkins bigger than ever? Were there new varieties that were tastier than ever? You know the sort of thing. Anyway, thinking about pumpkins caused me to remember the most pumpkin-ish

As the winter cold settles in, the body often craves something light, easygoing, and simple to digest. Somehow, even in the midst of frost and chill, we long for the brightness of fresh plant-life on our plates. So why not bring some Mediterranean sunshine into your winter kitchen? 🥗 Craving Fresh Salads, Even in Winter? Nothing beats a big, garden-fresh salad during summer. Imagine leafy greens, greenhouse tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers. Though winter isn't the season for

When in Rome... well, you know the rest. In the spirit of embracing local culture, when I was down in Cornwall last week, I did as the locals do—I bought some fresh, local fish. Why wouldn't I? Cornwall, with its coastline jutting into the Atlantic, is teeming with an abundance of fabulous, fresh, and sustainable seafood, arguably the finest in the UK. It would be a shame not to take some home! One of the best places to source fresh seafood in Cornwall is the Great Cornish Fo

It was a burning hot morning the day we visited this famous market situated in the heart of Provence. If I’m honest, I was beginning to dread facing the crowds and overheated streets, but then, I’d never been to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue before. The first thing I realised was that it features a great many cooling waterways, and these really did have the effect of reducing the sun’s heat.  L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is a picturesque town which plays host to one of the region's most popul

Anhui Province, in eastern China, often sits in the shadow of its more famous culinary neighbours such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang. However, its cuisine, known as Hui cuisine (徽菜), offers a distinctive flavour profile that is said to reflect the rugged landscapes, abundant rivers, and rich history of the region. Anhui’s culinary traditions are deeply connected to its geography, drawing on local ingredients and time-honoured techniques that emphasise simplicity, freshness, and the