Interview – Page 2 – Yellowbelly Food

Mount Pleasant Windmill and True Loaf Bakery

March 15, 2011 Emma Chapman

Mount Pleasant Windmill. Photo: Emma Chapman

Built in 1875, the traditional four sailed brick tower mill is now owned by Mervin and Marie-Christine Austin, who bought the mill in 2000.

The Austins reside in the house next door to Mount Pleasant Windmill, which was purchased as one big complex with the land around it as well.

“I’ve always wanted to buy a windmill,” says Mervin. Prior to the windmill Mervin was a baker in London so when it comes to the technicalities of milling he says: “I know what flour looks like, or what it should look like, and I’m not totally stupid as far as engineering is concerned so I worked out roughly how to get it and worked out what to do. I taught myself when we came up here. The guy gave me four hours instruction and then went. Never saw him again”.

The mill now offers 10 different pure stone-ground organic flours using organic wheat from Britain. The flours are unbleached, untreated and nothing is added or removed.

The mill is operated daily throughout the year and therefore freshness is guaranteed in all of their products as well as the flour. Their bread is sold at farmers’ markets and from the tea shop located next to the mill. The flour is sold wholesale at the co-op, a few bakeries and from mail order.

An 18 tonne wood fired oven was built next to the mill, and bakes the 20 types of organic breads as well as cakes that are sold in their tea rooms and from their website.

Mervin uses organic oats to make his bread. Photo: Samantha Viner

This iconic windmill has attracted media companies to feature the business on programmes such as The Hairy Bikers, Secret Supper Club and Radio 4, Mervin says: “The media attention is good for business, but it doesn’t keep people interested for long unfortunately”.

When it comes to income Mervin says the business isn’t a big money maker, he has to rely a several sources of income. People visiting the mill, the café, flour sales and baking classes that Mervin has recently started teaching.

This is the first year that the tea room has been closed over the winter period. Mervin says: “I think it might have been a bad move because the result is like this now [empty]”. However, Mervin did say that the previous weekend, when they opened again, was successful. He says: “We need a build up of people getting to know we’re open again”.

The organic factor is very important to Mervin, he explains why: “You should think about what you eat. I don’t want to eat pesticides basically, especially in wheat. Any grain is sprayed, and it can be sprayed up to 13 times a growing season, and it’s not washed. So it goes straight into the combine, straight into the mill and it’s in your food. With organic, because of the traceability factor, you can be pretty certain it hasn’t been sprayed at all”.

Organic flour is hard to come by in Lincolnshire according to Mervin: “Occasionally I’ll buy off dealers; sometimes I’ll buy off the farmers. But I can only buy organic so there is very little in Lincolnshire. There is a lot of imported stuff about at the minute from Kazakhstan, it’s a big organic growing wheat area but it’s not very good wheat, it’s very hard, doesn’t mill very well”.

So what’s next for Mervin? He says: “I quite like the idea of a watermill”.

Jenny’s Jams – sticky with success

February 2, 2011 Emma Chapman

Faradays chutney and raspberry jam. Photo: Emma Chapman

Jenny Smith worked as a chef for over 20 years until 2005 when a strawberry picking session opened new doors. After picking too many she decided to make jam for family and friends.

It was so well receivedthat Jenny decided to take it further and Jenny’s Jams was born. “At first I was a little dubious, I continued working as a part-time chef until December 2010. At that point I decided it was going to be more than a paid hobby,” said Jenny.

Jenny explained, “The business has grown very well despite the very tough trading climate. At times it has been slow going however, the preserves seem to be very well received by those who taste them”.

With her business growing so successfully Jenny is grateful for her friends and family that have volunteered to help out with “various tasks such as paperwork, labelling, and doing deliveries”.

The jams and chutneys come from traditional recipes and Jenny’s experiences as a chef. She said “I always look in old recipe books for ideas”. Expanding into chutneys and marmalades, however, came from customer suggestions and experimentation.

Jenny's raspberry jam on fresh, soft white bread. photo: Emma Chapman

Jenny’s products have been so successful that she has won several Great Tastes Awards, saying, “They were one of my best moments so far. They are considered the Oscars of the food industry, so recognition by my peers is fantastic. A very encouraging moment”.

Jenny also appeared on BBC2’s Working Lunch programme in 2009, she said, “Any media attention is also welcome, as it is all good advertising for the company. I do find I get very nervous though”.

Jenny uses Fresh from the Fields, a company based in Lincoln, amongst others for her ingredients. She said, “As far as possible I obtain ingredients locally. If they are grown in Lincolnshire, so much the better”. As well as trying to keep her ingredients local, Jenny’s products are also free of preservatives and additives.

Jenny supports the Lincolnshire economy further by getting her jars from Patteson’s Glass, near Brigg and her labels designed and printed by printing.com in Newark.

Jim Sutcliffe: Young Butcher of the Year

December 7, 2010 Samantha Viner

Jim Sutcliffe won the title of Young Butcher of the Year in 2009. Photo: Samantha Viner

Question

Which job requires being surrounded by death, cold temperatures and a good sense of humour?

Answer

A butcher.

Jim Sutcliffe was, until recently, the Young Butcher of the Year. His title ran out in November but his enthusiasm for his trade seems to never end. Jim spoke to us about what goes into making a good butcher. It’s not just the skills, it’s also personality.

He said that you “need to be hard working and dedicated and you need to take pride in the finished product. Some people don’t care what something looks like when they’ve finished with it and you need to be prepared to work long hours and enjoy the cold and have a good sense of humour really.

“When I was training, I trained under nine different butchers and every one of them did it differently but the one thing that was consistent with them all was that everybody liked to have a bit of a joke. Everything from prank phone calling people to hanging up on meat hooks in the fridge.”

Jim won the title of Young Butcher of the Year last year and the recognition meant a lot to him. “It meant a great deal to win it because it’s a trade that’s not very recognised in the sort of wider world. If you speak to people in the street a butcher is no different to a car mechanic or something else, people don’t see the effort that goes into it.”

The programme hopefully meant a lot to the public too by revealing what really happens behind the scenes. “In the supermarket culture that we’re in when you go in there and everything is done, it’s done by a machine and it’s prepared, they don’t think about the traditional butcher and all the effort that has to go in behind the scenes.

“The programme itself was good because it exposed the back room work to the general public and it recognised a trade that doesn’t get a lot of mention and sort of on the back of that hopefully it sort of inspired younger people to come into it.”

Jim Sutcliffe is the manager of Meridian Meats in Louth. Photo: Samantha Viner

Jim believes that winning the programme meant that he was more trusted in the butchery community as well as by customers. This original lack of trust is most likely due to his age- the average age of a butcher in the UK is 55 and Jim is only 24.

“Probably the biggest effect it had was it exposed me to the outside world and people cared a little bit more about my opinions…So that was a good thing and it was also nice because it’s a trade where you’re not really recognised until you’re a lot older, so people don’t take you seriously customers come in the shop and think ‘how can you have a butcher of my age that knows anything about meat’ and so it meant people took me a bit more seriously.”

Jim also believes that Lincolnshire is one of the best producers in the British Isles. “In Lincolnshire people accuse us of being stuck behind the times, and we’re 50 years behind anywhere else and that’s one of the things that makes our meat here very good, because the farms are small. They tend to be mixed and they’re growing their own grain, make their own fodder, it’s not intensively reared.”

“We’re very lucky, in this county we’ve got meat, vegetables, fish, fruit, all sorts. We’re one of the only counties in the British Isles that has all those things coming in…so it’s something that we’re very proud of. It means that if you’re a chef or something like that you’ve got a huge great big larder of produce to use that’s all local.”

The Tetford herd is a family business

November 30, 2010 Samantha Viner

The Tetford Longhorns are an extremely docile breed of cattle. Photo: Samantha Viner

The county may well be known for it’s Lincolnshire Red beef but Charles Sutcliffe raises Longhorn Cattle, a specialist breed.

The Tetford herd was established in 1993 by Charles and his wife Debbie. Since then the herd has gone from strength to strength with two Royal Show Male Champions: Tetford Clansman and Tetford Kingpin.

The Longhorn cattle are an extremely docile breed and this was evident upon walking through the herd. The cows and calves stayed bedded down while we walked around with Charles.

The herd means a lot to Charles, he raises each calf for about 22 months until it’s ready to be taken to slaughter. He often drives the cattle to the abattoir himself. This is a difficult task after being attached for so long (rearing some of the cattle by hand) but he does this for a reason.

Mass farming and transportation to the abattoir puts a great strain on cattle. The adrenaline from stress and other factors affect the quality of the meat. Calm transportation allows for the beef to be unaffected by these, resulting in a better quality.

Charles chose to raise and breed Longhorns because of their mild nature and the quality of the meat. Longhorns don’t need to build large layers of external fat before they begin forming “intramuscular fat”. This allows for the marbling which is responsible for succulence, tenderness and of course flavour.

The beef from Tetford was voted Britain’s best but Charles isn’t certain how this happened. “I’m not completely sure it is that much better. It’s one man, or in the case of this competition, half a dozen’s people opinion on the day, but no two animals are the same so no two carcasses are the same. It’s just on that day ours was tastier, tenderer and more succulent than anything else they tried. I happen to know that some of what they tried was bloody awful but there is a lot of good beef out there, it’s just finding it and being able to get back and get it again or similar to it again.”

“There’s not much good beef in the supermarkets, not necessarily because what they started with was inferior but you can’t produce anything good, be it meat, vegetables, furniture, anything without striving to achieve perfection and there are a lot of elements that make up good meat.

“Start with a good breed, which I believe we’ve got. You give it a stress free life as possible because stress produces adrenaline which doesn’t improve meat quality. Every day of an animal’s life has an influence on the end product, some days have a much bigger influence than others. Diet, okay they’re out there and eat grass but supplementary feeding is important.”

The beef from the Tetford Herd is sold in the family butchers, Meridian Meats, in Louth where son Jim Sutcliffe is the manager.

Welbourne’s Bakery, the home of Plum Bread

November 14, 2010 Emma Chapman

Welbourne's Bakery in Navenby. Photo: Emma Chapman

Welbourne’s Bakery was established in 1896 in the village of Navenby. The family-run business sells plenty of local produce including sausages, cakes, wines, juice drinks and pies.

Welbourne’s use local produce where they can and the meat in their homemade pies is caught locally.

Ashley, a shop assistant at the bakery, wrongly believes that the wheat from the UK is not good enough for baking. He said: “The wheat we use for the flour comes from Russia and or Canada. The wheat produced in England is not suitable for comsumption as it is predominatly grown for animal food.”

The bakery is famous for it’s plum bread- made from the traditional recipe that dates back to the 1890s. There has only been one adjustment to the recipe, which was the change from lard to vegetable fat, which made the bread suitable for vegetarians. According to Ashley, 60,000 loaves of plum bread are made every year, averaging 1,500 loaves a week.

So, where did the name ‘plum bread’ come from when the recipe contains no plums? Ashley explained: “Plum is an old term for dried fruit.” Hence the handfuls of dried fruit found in each slice.

Plum bread has recently been submitted to gain PGI status. PGI stands for ‘Products of Geographical Indication’ and is a part of European Legislation concerning regional speciality foods.

This means a foodstuff has to be either produced, processed or prepared in a certain geographical area and have the reputation, features or certain qualities attributable to that area. Ashley said: “we were going to try for it, but it’s a lot of work and would need all the producers of plum bread to get together and standardise their bread.”

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