Nothing like a food festival of almost any sort to catch my interest, so it's no surprise that the Melton Mowbray Cheese Festival caught my attention while visiting family in the Midlands. Even better, it turned out to feature far more than cheese—Melton Mowbray calls itself the Rural Capital of Food.
As it happens, the two items listed on the plaque at the fairgrounds where the festival was held are among my very favorites. What a winner!
The towns and villages around Melton have given their names to cheeses I've known at home, like Colston Bassett, never realizing they were town names. One anomaly: the protected status of Stilton limits its making to three counties, but the town of Stilton is in another county. They can still make cheese, but they can't make Stilton!
Speaking of cheese names, have a look at the humorous assortment above.
Somehow, among all the cheese pictures I took that day, I missed the one I bought a chunk of and ate through the rest of the trip, a wonderful richly-flavored Red Leicester, whose orange color would have made a good contrast here.
In addition to the wide variety of local---area cheeses, there were also a few vendors with cheeses from Wales and Scotland, as well as some seeming anomalies: Below, a brie from Kent in southeast England. To my surprise, there isn't a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) for brie, only for Brie de Meaux.
But, while we nibbled our way around the halls tasting cheeses, there was competition for our attention—so much temptation for someone like me, always attracted to anything brown and crusty, or filled with sausage, or... or...
Meet the cruffin: essentially a croissant with sweet filling baked in a cup. Eccles cakes, a local favorite, and a display of charming Polish pottery.
More treats and sweets...
Speaking of sweets, there were large displays of local jams and preserves and honey as well as a variety of things to put cheese on.
Local beers and spirits were on display as well as on tap...
Savory flavors... an assortment of flavored rapeseed oils, tasty tidbits and an amazing variety of salamis and sausages.
Alright: Now we come to the pies. The Melton Mowbray Pork Pie is different from others in three important respects: it has a PDO that limits production to a 10.8 square mile area around the town; it's made with uncured pork so its filling is gray, not pink and its pastry is hand-shaped and baked on a pan, unlike others that are baked in molds.
The Leicester Pork Pie, seen below, is identical except for being mold-baked. The crust is a hot-water thick crust that goes back to medieval times, when the crust was used to protect delicate foods and was discarded, not eaten. Leftover whey from cheesemaking was cheap feed for pigs, making pork pies a logical step for Melton Mowbray.
There are numbers of makers, including some who produce on a large scale for supermarkets, but Ye Old Pork Pie Shoppe is the oldest traditional maker; some of its pies go to London's Borough Market where they are sold under the Mrs. King name.
A non-traditional but local maker offers a variety of similar pies, but made with mutton, lamb, venison and other game meats.
And, for those who like to put two things together, a true Melton Mowbray combination: a pork pie with Stilton cheese topping the crust.
Perhaps not surprisingly, when we finished our visit to the festival, we were not hungry for lunch!
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