Say cheese
Andrew Kay reports on the hugely successful response given to Sussex cheese and wine in the Veneto
Over the last few years life has changed in so many ways and perhaps the biggest change has been brought about by the creation of International Chef Exchange, or ICEx as we like to call it. It started small, really. I came back from Maastricht full of enthusiasm for a young chef called Audrey Eussen who I met at Beaumont Hotel. My enthusiasm was taken up by my colleagues at the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival and then by colleagues here at Ciné La Test, the name I like to give to our exciting new TV adventures, the launch of which is now only a few months away.
By combining forces on the ICEx project we have been able already to film in Maastricht and recently in Rotterdam. All very exciting and also great fun. We are now negotiating away like fools to make a foray into Canada – Toronto, to be precise. Dubai, Malaga and even Western Australia are also on the cards.
I am about to edit the first two-hour long TV programmes and the footage is looking superb, with lots of fun along the way but the real excitement lies in the superb international response we are getting for Sussex produce.
A few years ago the food festival was nominated for a Sussex Business Award. I was interviewed with Nick Mosley by the Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex Peter Field and the organiser of the awards, Caroline Brown, not an unpleasant experience but a grilling none the less. When we discovered we had won we were of course delighted, and Peter later explained that much of it had hung on the fact that we were promoting Sussex as a food destination to an audience beyond the county.
With that thought in mind we pressed on and indeed it has been key to what we do. Here in Sussex we have a dedicated audience of food lovers who will always buy local. On the continent? Well, there is still pretty much a belief that we live on boiled beef and carrots. That is until we unveil the stunning produce the county has to offer.
In Rotterdam the gathered foodies and civic dignitaries were blown away by the stunning sparkling wines from the Ridgeview Estate in Ditchling and by the amazing cheeses being produced by Mark and Sarah at the Highweald Dairy just north of Haywards Heath, in particular the very new and very delicious Brighton Blue.
One of our favourite food lovers in the city is Laura Lockington, a great cook, food writer and novelist. After our autumn harvest she informed us that she would be attending a food festival in the Veneto and spending a week with the rather remarkable Stefania Dal Ferro of Dada Events who is very much the lady behind that event. Ms Lockington asked if we could arrange for some Sussex Produce to take over to present to the Italians which we duly did with a hamper of Sussex Cheeses prepared by our friend David Leaves at La Cave a Fromage in Hove, to this we added a bottle of Ridgeview or two and crossed our fingers.
We need not have worried, Laura and Stef returned not only full of praise for the Sussex cheese, in particular High Weald Dairy’s Brighton Blue and Flower Marie made at Golden Cross dairy, and for the inimitable Ridgeview wines but also for the enthusiasm for great food that we have here in Sussex.
Even better, they returned our gesture by sending back a huge hunk of rather good parmesan cheese. Now you may not know, but parmesan cheese is very hard to cut. In fact the parmesan style cheese being produced in Sussex was sent to Italy to mature and to be cut, as only there did they have the cutting equipment required for commercial purposes. Of course Mr Deaves knew that this was not the traditional way, so Ms Lockington wheeled her wheel of cheese down to his Hove premises where we gathered to see how the pros do it. Amazingly it was done by inserting two rather small spear-shaped knives and causing it to crack open. It was a beautiful sight and a deliciously pungent experience, and I’m glad to say I got to take a chunk home.
This kind of activity is at the heart of what we at the food festival stand for, the promotion of what is best here in Sussex, not only to the people of Sussex, but across the world. We take great wines, and now spirits, with the Blackdown gin, vodka and vermouth that we have all come to love, and we are particularly fond of the elderberry port coming from Lurgashall Winery.
Ms Lockington, as well as working hard on the press and publicity for Brighton’s excellent City Reads project also runs the Bookish Supper Society, a literary salon with great food and wine that attracts top authors. She is also a novelist with many books under her belt and always a new one on the go, busy like so many of us, but still happy to go that extra mile, or miles in the case of The Veneto, to promote the good foods of Sussex.
So with ICEx ready to edit and my new TV project Cook It! in pre-production, I believe that is the correct terminology, my foodie life is busier than ever!
The Bookish Suppers take place in Brighton, hosted by Laura Lockington & Sarah Hutchings at The Naked Eye Gallery, 5 Farm Mews, Farm Road, BN3 1GH. Their next event is 11 December 2013, check them out on Facebook.
www.highwealddairy.co.uk
www.goldencrosscheese.co.uk
www.la-cave.co.uk
www.blackdowncellar.co.uk
www.lurgashall.co.uk
The Parmesan was supplied by Brazzale spa, 2, v. Monte Pasubio – 36010 Zane’ (VI)
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