Panettone parties, feminist opposition to caged hens, and the long-awaited return of a Bruton pub
The latest intel on food, farming & food culture in Somerset (and beyond)
This month’s round-up of Food Things Worth Commenting On does not include any helpful suggestions on how to better enjoy a mince pie. But if it did, I would recommend melting atop of it an ogleshield cheese hat, partly for novelty reasons but more for the sake of tapering the inevitable cloying-ness that mince pies tend to afford.
Further daring experiments are likely to occur, WFJ reader contributions allowing (£3.50 a month or £35 for the year, in case you were wondering).
Speaking of which, below’s a preview of today’s round-up for free subscribers, with the lowdown in its juiciest entirety for those with a paid sub. Have at it.
After an extensive multi-year refurb, The Prickly Pear in Bruton has reopened. Its social media channels don’t give much away at the moment, but know this: it does tacos (£6-£7.50 a go) alongside Mexican-inspired side dishes, and it claims it’s a pub. Unlike its former incarnation, it’s a lot more ‘restaurant’ than ‘pub’ (on the lines of The Three Horseshoes or Bath Arms at Shearwater) and contrary to most pubs it’s neither presented at or priced for ‘the many’. If there’s any good news further to all this it’s that Higher Farm’s former head chef George Barson (a big part of what made the food at HF so brilliant) is the main man on the pans.
I recently checked in with Little Origins, a culmination of a two-year research project into nutrient-dense meals for young families. There’s a play space for kids, and an area in which to eat from their menu of things like cheese biscuits, beef ragu fusilli, and beetroot falafel – a cross section, if you will, of stuff that’s good for you and of stuff you want to eat. Little Origins are based in the Commerce Park in Frome – if you live in the area and have young kids, you may find it worth checking out.
A Taunton farmer went through the humiliating experience of being a Big Brother contestant in an attempt to win enough money to save his family farm. The £100,000 prize money, he so claimed, would help alleviate the effects of the controversial new inheritance tax on farming assets. Did it work? He finished fourth, behind a novelist and an influencer from Essex. The plot thickens, however, as one sleuthy Redditor discovers the farmer’s family recently bought a farm for £6.7million in Northumberland.
These monthly posts come with a paywall.
Below this one, we have such items as:
The best thing I ate in Bath for quite some time
What does Somerset’s first whisky taste like?
Free seminars on food history
How pigs are restoring biodiversity in East Somerset
And more besides