Great Taste Awards

Now in their 21^st year the Great Taste Awards, organised by The Guild of Fine Food, have not only come of age, but are THE benchmark of a great product.

Thousands of products are tasted and tested,  from Anchovies to Zabaglione and all to ensure that the consumer gets the finest of product.

A volunteer collective of Chefs, Producers, Retailers, Food Writers and Food Critics do the tastings in sessions held across the UK - all seeking the perfect food that will earn a 3 Star rating.

Waiting to taste

Several sessions are held at Guild Headquarters in Gillingham, Dorset but the tastings take place in several cities which have included Belfast and Dublin and, for the first time this year, Cardiff.

Welsh producers have always taken the awards seriously, and with the Welsh Government behind them through its Bwyd a Diod Cymru (Food and Drink Wales) arm, a Cardiff heat was a chance to show the best of Wales. See what previous Great Taste Award winners from Wales had to say about the effect that winning had for them here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGdJhvRa7a0&feature=youtu.be

So, in early June I was invited to three days of tasting.

I have judged various competitions before, both here and in Ireland, but they have usually been of the complete dish, such as in The Celtic Cook Off, rather than single ingredients so there was a degree of uncertainty in the days leading up to the tastings.

I should not have worried, helpful notes for new judges were sent out in plenty of time and I was assured that you work in teams of 4 or 5 with a very experienced co-ordinator to collate your views and record them.

Experienced Coordinators

Each tasting session will have up to 10 tables of judges who will work their way through the list of foods presented for them. All foods are tasted blind with the tasting sheet having little more than a simple description, for example “Gluten Free Welsh Cake”. I did actually recognise one item from the description and obviously declared an interest and took no part in that tasting.

 After tasting, and discussing, each plate the team give a rating from 0 to 3 Stars. A 3 Star item is nigh perfection and they are limited in being awarded.  Getting a 1 Star award is a major triumph.

Once graded the items are collected, and passed to another set of judges for a second opinion.  If needed, third or fourth panels are involved to ensure that the ratings are fair and accurate. To get a 3 Star rating at least five tables of judges must agree that it deserves that accolade.

The upshot of this for judges is that you start a session with a list of around 15 tastings but with second tastings you wind up with 30 plus!

Session commences

As the aim of the Guild is to support producers every item has the judges comments sent to the producer. Judges are required to make positive comments, as well as criticism, so that products can be improved and a 1 star become 2 etc. All entries have positive aspects, even those which will not be awarded Stars, and the comments and advice given in tastings can lift the product to Star level, or raise it to the next one.l.

Food production and service is a major contributor to the Welsh economy so it was hardly surprising that on Wednesday morning we came under close scrutiny as both BBC and ITV sent camera crews to see us at work. (Confidentiality was maintained at all times.)

ITV interview the Deputy Minister

BBC Wales Economics Correspondent Sarah Dickins at work

It is the rigorous tasting and the experienced judges who ensure that the Great Taste Awards really do find great foods, and deserve the high regard in which they are held. Often called the Oscars of the Food World, they are much more like the Olympic Games of Food where getting a medal (Star) confirms you are at the top of your game.

Tastings will continue for some weeks and the results will all be collated and the final decisions revealed later this summer. How many 3 Star Awards will be given? I don’t know but we found some in Cardiff!

Did I enjoy myself, ABSOLUTELY!

Even though, as a Rookie Judge, seeing Charles Campion get his game face on and settle for some serious tasting was a little disconcerting at first, I had lots of help, advice and encouragement from fellow judges and would love to judge again next year.

Cheese, Caws, Cais

Cheese, Caws, Cais – no matter what language you use Cheeses of all varieties and from whatever country all have something to offer and all – being living things – are different.

In case you did not know Caws and Cais are the Welsh and Gaelic words for cheese, and entirely appropriate as they all came together at the Great British Cheese Festival in Cardiff. Held in the Castle Gounds the festival really does live up to the word Great, some of the finest cheesemakers around show their wares and compete for major awards.

I have always loved cheese, but I really got into a deeper understanding at Ballymaloe Cookery School. A cheese board was an integral part of lunch everyday – indeed my innovative use of fresh Mulberry Leaves from the fruit garden as a base layer for the range of cheeses got high praise from Darina Allen

Wednesdays were Theory Days but there was always a tasting from an Artisan Cheesemaker at the start of the day. Hearing about their cheeses and their production and maturing got my interest up massively. Oh yes and we had practical demonstrations of cheese making using the milk from the farm’s Jersey cow, and the chance to make cheddar style cheese was an integral part of the course.

Inevitably I developed a passion for Irish Artisan Cheeses. and there were a great range on show at Cardiff. There were also a huge range of English and Welsh Cheeses on show though I did not notice many from Scotland. Having hit the really good cheeses in the  cheese yard at the Abergavenny Food Festival fairly hard last week I did concentrate on Ireland ,but still tasted and purchased some brilliant offerings from the UK.

I was pleased to see a large number of Unpasteurised Milk cheeses, particularly as Raw Milk is under threat, the use of unpasteurised milk really does add a depth of flavour that treated milk cannot. Though the Irish Government is planning to end the sale of raw milk to the public they claim that its use in Cheese will not be affected. Over here the Food Safety Agency are also lobbying for a change but it is a lot less clear whether cheesemakers will be exempt.

Anyhoo, as I tasted my way around the main pavilion my bag began to fill with great Sparkenhoe,a Raw Milk Red Leicester just milk, rennet annatto (natural colouring) and a little salt. Made on the farm, Sparkenhoe is definitely the best Red Leicester I have tasted. The farm also makes a blue cheese which they cannot call Stilton as they are just outside the geographic area for DOP.

A Winterdale Shaw unpasteurised, cloth wrapped, cellar matured strong hard cheese from Kent followed rapidly as the rich taste teased my taste buds and awoke my underlying craving for strong cheese.

The brilliant Hafod, a strong West Wales cheese dear to Darina’s heart followed and a Smelly Teifi (think Stinking Bishop but with attitude) concluded my initial purchases.

At that point Mrs K reminded me that we were due in the “House of Commons Tent” for a tasting of Irish Artisan Cheeses so shopping ceased and education took over.

The session for about 20 of us was led by Jane Murphy of Ardsallagh Cheeses, an East Cork producer of Goat Cheese. I first came across Jane at Ballymaloe where she did one of the Wednesday sessions and gave us a tasting of her fresh and aged cheeses, two of which were on the tasting plate today. Jane also told us how she got started when; in a random act of kindness a travelling insurance salesman gave her an in-kid goat as the milk would help her children’s eczema.

Jane now milks about 1,000 goats from 3 farms and has most of her family working in the family business. Not bad for someone who was only given a goat for medicinal purposes.

Before Jane’s fresh and matured cheeses we tried a Killeen goat with fenugreek seeds. This had been voted the supreme champion cheese and tasting it you could see why. To accompany these cheeses we had a light Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon which showed why cheese and wine are natural partners.

The on to the washed rind tasters – accompanied by a Gwynt y Ddraig Cider. The first was a Milleens, the cheese which started the whole Irish Artisan revival. Milleens is recognised as the first entirely unique cheese type in Europe for over 200 years. Quite soft, with an extra taste delivered by the rind, the combination with cider again seemed natural.

The second was a Durrus again made in County Cork, probably the second cheese I fell in love with in Ireland. Again washed rind, again the rind gives a second flavour that rounds the cheese.

A discussion about rind washing ensued did producers use brine, wine, mead; vinegar etc. to create the mould that formed the rind over time?

This led us to discuss Gubbeen made by Giana Ferguson in Schull County Cork. (The Fergusons use the whey from their chesses to feed the pigs that become the excellent Gubbeen charcuterie.)

Giana doesn’t make cheese in January but was so worried that the spore that makes the distinctive rind might die during the layoff that she sent a sample for analysis so that, should the worst happen, she could locate a new supply of spore. Eventually the reply came that the spore had been analysed and was totally unique to Gubbeen. In fact it has now been named “Gubbeenensis”. As Jane joked “make cheese and name it yourself, and have a mould named after you as a bonus”.

Anyone spot the similarity with Sourdough bread where the yeasts in the air make each culture unique?

Finally with a citrus flavoured beer as the accompaniment we moved on to two iconic Irish Artisan Cheeses. Coolea, a rich Gouda style cheese “We can’t call it Gouda as our milk is too rich” which was at the forefront of the cheesemaking revival and Cashel Blue – possibly the best rounded blue cheese of all. Think young gorgonzola, but with a buttery creaminess and you are on the way. I love to bake a tart with Cashel Blue, Walnuts and sweated shallots!!

Tasting over back to the main pavilion to buy the cheeses that we had tasted and some others as well such as Crozier Blue, made by the cousins of the Grubb family who make Cashel but ewes milk instead and the absolutely outstanding Cais Dubh (black cheese named for its wax coating) from Fermoy. Only a little of this cheese is made each year so to find it in Cardiff was wonderful and a couple of hundred grams found its way into my bag. My only regret was that the superb hard cheeses Gabriel and Desmond (kind of Irish Parmesan) were not available at the show. Oh well, another reason to go back to Ireland.

The bag caused great hilarity to Jane and Siobhan Murphy when I bought from them. We have loads of sustainable shopping bags at home and randomly Mrs K had selected a Hurley's of Midleton bag. Jane sells in the Farmers Market outside Hurley's every Saturday and huge blow up photos of her can be found both inside and outside the store.

Eventually with arms extended several inches by the weight of cheese filling my shopper I left to plan menus and ensure that the cheeses would be used to their greatest advantage.

You understand why it is the GREAT British Cheese Festival when you go and I think it a shame that there are another 363 days before next year’s.

(Thanks to Janet for some of the photos)

Visit UK Food Bloggers Association