The county that fuelled the war effort

Jul 8 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

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Emma Pinch talks to the men and women who hold the key to great food – keep it local and seasonal

SOFT Lancashire cheeses, tender lamb and sweet green peas, all bursting with freshness. Liverpool’s neighbouring county has a wealth of traditional foodstuffs to offer the Merseyside table and, before the supermarkets took root, its farms provided the region with most of its vegetables.

But the quality of Lancashire’s produce is garnering deserved recognition in national food circles and will be further put on the gastronomic map with the launch this month of The Ribble Valley Food Trail, listing shops and restaurants where its finest produce can be found.

Some of it can be found closer to home, as I found out.

PETER ASCROFT, from Tarleton, farms 250 acres of land and produces 2m cauliflowers per year, plus cabbage and potatoes, and sells to Booths in Knutsford and Waitrose in Formby.

Peter’s grandfather bought a horse and cart and sold potatoes direct to Liverpool shops as early as the 1930s, and during the Second World War supplied most of the city with their caulies and cabbage from the wholesale market on Scotland Road.

“For the best food, you just need to eat in season,” says Peter. “You can get tremendous lettuce, celery, leaves, endives, cauliflower, potatoes, cabbages from Lancashire. I even grew gold beetroot for chef Nigel Haworth, so it wouldn’t colour chicken dishes.

“Often, chefs claim they source their ingredients locally, when actually often they only mean the meat and they’ll get their veg from anywhere, even abroad.”

Cauliflowers are best eaten during the summer within days of being picked.

“You can harvest cauliflower from July until the first frost in November. Cauliflowers always freeze and after that you are left with a sorbet that tastes like chalk. Buy it in the summer – with a bit of salt and butter it melts in the mouth.

“You’re born a cauliflower grower, you don’t decide you want to be one. I left school at 15 and wanted to be a farmer but I hated cauliflower growing because it’s hard on your hands and back.

“Creating a consistent supply over months is hard to do.

“You have three days to cut them when they appear and you have to scour the fields to find them. But somehow it gets in your blood. It’s a love-hate thing.”