The Shropshire town Ludlow raises many images to my mind. Its castle is renowned by historians for serving as Edward IV’s Council of the Marches of Wales headquarters up until 1689, the place of Arthur Tudor’s (Prince of Wales) death in 1502 and where Queen Mary I was raised for much of her childhood. Today Ludlow also boats its elite status in the world of British gastronomy with its vast range of food shops, markets and award winning restaurants including La Bécasse owned by Michelin starred Chef Alan Murchison. I could therefore hardly decline the offer of a trip to the Ludlow Food Centre the other Saturday.
On entering the site, I was in admiration of its idyllic setting, with its cobbled buildings (excluding the modern infrastructure of the shop) and quaint pub surrounded by beautiful farmland. It meets what British rural architecture should be, and if it was the size of a village one could quite easily envisage it being a rival to the Cotswolds. My companions and I decided to have lunch at their Conservatory Barn Cafe. Indeed as the second word of its name hints, the venue is situated in a reconverted barn. Naturally, my expectations of the food standard were of it being at least reasonable, not only because of its location but, giving the various awards that this centre has achieved such as one of the “Top 50 Farm Food Shops” by The Telegraph and runner up in The Times’s “England’s Best Places to Eat Out” both in 2009.
Once sampling the Pork Pie Ploughman’s, my view was in fact quite the contrary. Besides the menu being rather too bland in my view, my meal was certainly not worth paying £6.95 for. The Shropshire Blue possessed its typical distinct salty flavour for sure, but there was nothing unique about this one, which is inexcusable whenever sampling produce in its home county. Not only did the pork pie lack any flavour, but it was also unforgivably dry. My mother occasionally purchases Sainsbury’s Melton Mowbray pork pies x 4 for £1.89 and even these are a cut above. Admittedly the sweet onion chutney served alongside was satisfactory and the portion size was generous, yet I find it difficult to give any additional praise to such an overpriced dish.
After a disappointing meal, I took a trip to the shop. This was pleasing I am glad to say. The choice in cuts of meat and types of fish were undeniably excellent. It is not often that you find a rib of beef or delicacies such as eel on offer, even in farm shops. We in the end purchased a chocolate cake, made on the premises. It did lack a chocolate filling in the middle and it was not the most superlative chocolate cake I have ever had. Nonetheless, I can say from a chocoholic’s point of view that it was most certainly not deficient in taste, besides the sponge being exceedingly moist. Frequently do I find that chocolate sponge cakes from shops are dry and have a detestable cheap sickly flavour. True, one would expect a farm shop cake to be of good quality, but surprisingly it cost no more than £3. When you compare this to somewhere that produces cakes of a similar quality such as Waitrose, which charges £1.50 on average for just a single slice of cake from their patisserie, I would say that this cake was exceptionally good value for money.
So it seems that Ludlow Food Centre’s lunches are a rip off, but their cakes are much the reverse, with a shop that has a delightful selection. Despite my cynical view of the former, surely we need food centres like this or at least supermarkets selling more of this local produce? With a country facing obesity and heart problems, this nation needs to revert back to the old times when people would purchase local farm produce instead of all this manufactured unhealthy foul tasting dustbin material. Increasing the amount we grow, not only supports local producers, but it would equate to a more sustainable environment. One where we do not heavily rely on imports by increasing pollution levels, through the use of airplanes, and leaving people of the third world to starve by wiping out their crops. I am not saying I am a true believer in organic food, and for me to claim that I buy only home goods would be total hypocrisy. Yet, could we all just not at least expand the amount of native crop we consume as an alternative to high dependence upon overseas yield? Indeed there is the possibility of solving future shortages through technology, but would you not rather devour a cake composed of the purest ingredients, not only because it unarguably tastes superior, than one consisting of numerous E numbers prone to causing several illnesses? I know which one I would prefer.
