plum bread – Yellowbelly Food

Myers plum loaf is fit for the Queen

March 1, 2011 Samantha Viner Leave a comment

Myers Bakery in Horncastle. Photo: Samantha Viner

In 1977 the Queen tasted Lincolnshire plum loaf from Myers Bakery based in Horncastle. The fruity bread proved so popular that a request was made for more.

The business was born in 1901 when Charles Myers purchased a mill and village shop in Alford. Charles and his sons, Lewis and Reginald, then milled flour, baked bread and became known locally as Myers Mill.

In 1932 Lewis moved his family to Southery where they set up their own bakery and shop. After several successful years they moved to Mareham Le Fen where they bought the village shop and mill.

Lewis’ son, Derek, took a keen interest in the business and baking. So much so that he went to Grimsby College to study the craft of baking where he was awarded with the Renshaw Cup for being the best student. In 1970 Derek opened another bakery, to run alongside the Mareham shop, in Horncastle.

After 10 years, the decision was made to close the Mareham shop and concentrate on the business in Horncastle. Myers is still a thriving business 110 years later.

Walking around Horncastle you see numerous paper bags with the Myers logo splashed on the front. The bakery is so successful that there is also a cafe and a deli next door.

When you taste the savoury pastries and sweet delights it’s clear to see why Myers Bakery is so popular. The family are dedicated to running a successful business with locality being key.

Feature

Video: The Secret Supper Club in Lincoln

February 22, 2011 Samantha Viner Leave a comment

The Secret Supper Club at Mount Pleasant Windmill. Photo: Channel 4

In this first episode of Channel 4’s The Secret Supper Club, Olly Smith heads to Lincolnshire to re-invent our regions much loved traditional dishes.

Mount Pleasant Windmill is the selected venue for this secret supper and the working mill is transformed into a small restaurant for the night.

Olly and his team create a three-course menu from award-winning Goose Lincolnshire sausages to a bread & butter pudding made from Lincolnshire plum bread.

The Lincoln Red beef takes centre stage with slow-cooked shin and the Lincolnshire food producers invited to the Supper Club declare it a definite success.

View the episode on YouTube here.

Video

Grantham: famous for it’s gingerbread?

February 7, 2011 Emma Chapman Leave a comment

Grantham's white gingerbread. Photo: kevandem via Flickr

Grantham is well known as being the birth place of Margaret Thatcher, but Grantham is also apparently famous for it’s gingerbread. So much so it has references of origin dating back to 1740.

This gingerbread is different however, to the regular gingerbread you or I know. The unique traits Grantham gingerbread has are reported to be a result of a mistake by a man called William Egglestone.

The wrong ingredients were added into the cake he was baking at his Grantham home. As such this special gingerbread is white because it does not have black treacle in it, as well as being creamier than other sorts.

Whilst gingerbread is not celebrated by the town, local shops or people and isn’t produced commercially, it is apparently well known. If Grantham gingerbread is typed into a search engine indeed a lot of recipes are returned. However unlike another of the county’s treasures, plum bread, it doesn’t return pages upon pages of information, producers, debates over PGI status and mountains of recipes.

We wonder why Grantham gingerbread got lost in history and how many other treasures are we overlooking?

To have a look at why Grantham’s gingerbread is different view this recipe from The British Food Trust.

Feature

Welbourne’s Bakery, the home of Plum Bread

November 14, 2010 Emma Chapman Leave a comment

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.”