Melton Mowbray, ruler of rural food
Being in the Midlands, we’re not short of counties. Leave home in Leicestershire, cross briefly into Lincolnshire, arrive at work in Nottinghamshire…if I detoured a few miles I could clock up Derbyshire as well, all before elevenses. Which possibly explains why there are a number of local magazines devoted to food and why there is some crossover.
And, lets face it, everyone wants a bit of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie and Stilton stories, so there are some definite themes to writing around here. The first edition of Great Food Leicestershire & Rutland got posted through the door recently, and I also happened to be in Waitrose in Nottingham and saw they were stocking Nottinghamshire Flavours, and thought it would be interesting to see how the two compared.
I’ve bought Nottinghamshire Flavours before, so I did know what I was in for. Compact, A5 size, with the look of being assembled on the PC at home, but with interesting articles covering local producers and places to eat, recipes and tips for your veg patch, as well as news from further afield. No, I don’t mean Birmingham; this edition covers a foodie weekend in Budapest, some Hungarian recipes and an article about the sweet wines of Hungary.
But I can forgive the lack of design, even cutting off the edges of some pages (although some advertisers may be less forgiving) as generally the features are interesting, there’s always somewhere in there that is either new to me, or a good reminder that I need to go back there, and it is only £1.50. I have no idea how they make it pay. Or if it’s written off to the advertising budget for Adelanta Travel, who appear to be behind most of the advertising, and I’m not sure which is an offshoot of which, with the publisher being Adelanta Publishing.
Great Food Leicestershire & Rutland is an altogether more professional looking affair, which made me assume when it first came through the door that it was a council publication. Leicestershire have been pretty good at recognising the food credentials of the county in recent years, so it wouldn’t have surprised me. But this is the first edition of a consumer magazine, perhaps explaining why it was so slender, but with a cover price of £3.20. I could, of course, subscribe and get 6 issues for £15.
Or I could just wait and see what happens.
That said, I enjoyed the content, and some great local producers were featured or writing for the magazine. The Olive Branch will be featuring their All-Stars, which if you’ve eaten at The Olive Branch or Red Lion Inn you may well be familiar with, as they’ve been featuring on the menu for well over 8 years now. In this edition it’s about the rose veal from Lower Grange Farm, which I can personally testify is everything you would want veal to be. Especially when the team at the Red Lion Inn did veal kebabs for a school event!
Again, this is very much focused on local producers, retailers and eating places, with a side course of Italian and Indian food. Given that Leicester is set to be the first British city with no overall ethnic majority, then it’s no surprise to see some of that diversity already being recognised, and I hope they plough through more of the city’s rich culinary diversity.
I would say, on reflection, that there is room for both magazines, as each area is proud of its traditions. There is more advertising support already in Great Food, but then I imagine Nottinghamshire Flavours has lower overheads and production costs. If you’re looking for interesting insights into local food in one of the three counties, I would recommend them to you, certainly as a one off purchase. I’ll be keeping my eye on Great Food, to see how they keep the content flowing, and how they make that £3.20 feel great value for money.
Getting ready for Christmas in the East Midlands // Nov 7, 2010 at 6:41 am
[...] also stockists for Great Food Leicestershire & Rutland magazine. You remember I said I would watch and see how this one got on? Well it’s on edition three, and seems to be doing very nicely. Although [...]