I don’t know about you, but every time I cast an eye at the news these days, I don’t exactly feel infused with an air of positivity. It has just occurred to me that this month’s WFJ update isn’t all big-eyed kittens and fairy dust either (sorry ‘bout that).
But! I suspect you’re here for the intrigue, nuance, and occasional lugubriousness anyway, right?
…Right?
The WFJ’s Directory of Somerset Producers has undergone a recent update, including 10 newly-added market gardens, a mixed livestock farm outside Bath, another in Bruton, a stalker, and a couple of vineyards. Access this constantly-updating list of local producers (135 and counting), among other perks, for £35/year.
Chatting with a friend over the cultural importance of Funky Monkey within a small town made me realise that other hero dishes and drinks of Frome, or at least those I documented 2022-2023, have otherwise entirely disappeared. RIP Hesperian’s scampi fries, Hamper’s reuben, Lo Rapitenc’s escalivada, Hydeaway’s negroni, and Het’s beef rendang – for the most part, casualties of the excessive rigours and uncertainties of running a hospitality business. That said, various other dishes across Somerset that say something about culture and have a high flavour factor – see Castle Farm’s Sunday roast and Owen Barratt’s Scandi hotdogs – are alive and kicking. More to come on that one day.
When milk costs 6p more to make than it does to sell, and half your herd is lost to tuberculosis, maybe it’s not surprising farmers like local dairyman Andy Salmon want to, as he told a group of us visiting in August, “give up tomorrow”.
Below the paywall: Why a Tytherington dairy farmer thinks he’s in a cohort of “idiots”, agronomists’ biggest regrets, a Somerset distillery questions whether it should burn local peat or not, and more besides.