Best of British

Returning to the UK after a journey around the world for my first book, Eat my Globe, was an odd experience. I felt stateless, not just because I had been on the road for over a year, but also because I realised that although I was now acquainted with the furthest corners of the earth, I knew practically nothing of my own country, outside the few blocks of central London that are my regular stamping ground.

It was that disquieting feeling which prompted my latest journey and my next book, Eating for Britain, where I decided to discover my own homeland through my biggest obsession: food.

For the past few months, I have been pottering around the UK in a battered Ford Focus in search of the best of British restaurants and producers and, despite a few horrors (chicken tikka masala lasagne, anyone?) the quality has come as a welcome surprise, even if it is obvious that the relationship between them and us, the paying customer, remains a fractured one.

I still have a way to go before I am done, but with a good chunk of the journey under my belt, here are my top dishes tasted so far.

Simon is paid to eat for a living, which almost makes up for being fat, bald, 45 and ugly enough to scare small children

Dandelion and burdock
For those of us who are old enough to remember the sound of the pop man’s cart rattling along the road, the taste of real dandelion and burdock takes on a Proustian significance. Nigel Mawson of Mawson’s Traditional Drinks near Bury uses recipes that, a few required preservatives aside, are the same as those used in the family herbalists and temperance bars as far back as the late 1800s and taste, well, like ‘pop’ used to taste.
www.mawsonstraditionaldrinks.co.uk

Lancashire black pudding
A thing of great beauty, and one of the very best I have sampled was on a recent visit to meet with the beguilingly barking Andy Holt at R.S Ireland. A Knight of the Boudin, Andy’s puddings have received more trophies than Sir Alex and, with the required seven blobs of fat in each half of the shiny black pudding, are the perfect example of the genre. On a crusty roll with mustard and pickle, there are few things to beat a bit of boiled blood.
www.rsireland.co.uk

Arbroath Smokie
I am not a fan of the term ‘food hero’, as it reminds me that the UK’s relationship with food is so strained that anyone who produces something half-decent is considered unusual. However, if I was forced to choose one person to bear that burden it would be Iain R. Spink, the guardian of the Arbroath Smokie, easily the finest fishy treat I have encountered so far. Every haddock is cleaned and salted by hand and then smoked in earthbound barrels over smouldering oak chips until they are golden and dripping with hot oils. Eaten straight from the fire they are in my top five tastes of all time.
www.arbroathsmokies.net

Welsh Faggots
Across the border, in England, they may be called Savoury Ducks, but the Welsh Faggot made by Neil James at his butcher’s shop in Raglan is the real deal. A mixture of fresh onions, breadcrumbs and seasoning added to pig’s liver and two cuts of meat that, in this time of credit crunch are becoming ever more popular: lamb breast and belly pork. Minced together, shaped to the size of a cricket ball and wrapped in bacon before being baked and served with mushy peas and a good douse of vinegar.
www.nsjames.co.uk

Staffordshire oatcakes
Chris Bates stands in front of a sizzling hot plate for six hours a day, six days a week, making one of Britain’s truly local delicacies, the Staffordshire oatcake. A simple pancake made with flour, oatmeal, salt, sugar and water, the remaining bakers still make 350,000 of them a year and just about every one is sold in Stoke and its environs. Traditionally filled with enough cheese and bacon to fuel the workers in the potteries, they still make a manly alternative to the namby-pamby wrap.
www.staffordshireoatcakes.com

Melton Mowbray pork pie
If God could assume edible form, the result would be the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. There is, quite frankly, nothing better on this earth to eat than a large slice of pie, filled with exceptional quality pork, salt, pepper, protected in a layer of jelly made by cooking up the trotters and then covered in a layer of protective pastry. My own champion pies are those made by the Hartland family for Mrs King’s Pork Pies, which can be found at Borough Market or ordered via:
www.formanandfield.com

Rabbit pie
After a day spent ferreting with rural champion Stuart Blackman, I was invited back to his house to share in a meal made from our day’s catch of Brer Bunny cooked with a few root vegetables and then topped with a lid of short-crust pastry. It may not have been the most sophisticated dish I have eaten, but after hours spent tramping outdoors, it hit the spot better than any other meal could have.
www.thecountrybumpkin.co.uk