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01/01/2006

Local food heroes - SCOTTISH Food Fortnight

JO EWART MACKENZIE
SCOTTISH Food Fortnight was launched yesterday at Glamis Castle in Angus, a fittingly rural and agriculturally rich part of the world to welcome in this year's event. Opened under the auspices of the already well-established Countryside Festival - because of the inextricable link between our food and the countryside - Scottish Food Fortnight is essentially a national promotion of Scottish food and drink; a campaign, implemented through a variety of events, to persuade people to buy produce that is local to these shores.

The "buy local" theme is becoming increasingly familiar these days and my fear is that it is in danger of becoming some sort of hackneyed mantra, which loses impact.

But it's with very good reason that this message keeps coming around again and again. The benefits to be garnered from buying local food are far-reaching and diverse, from reducing the number of eco-unfriendly air miles food travels to reach us (aka food miles) and buying for taste when produce is in its natural season, to bolstering regional economies by supporting local producers and independent retailers.

So, until we all start routinely shopping at our farmers' markets, greengrocers, butchers, fishmongers and bakers, instead of nipping to the supermarket, buying food which is reared or produced in Scotland, or fished off her coast, buying local is a subject that's here to stay.

But suggest buying local to some people and they will respond that while they support the idea of shopping from Scotland's larder, their well-travelled palate prefers foreign cuisine.

And this is the key perceived problem of buying seasonal Scottish produce: the notion that it limits what you can cook; that it's not possible to create the exciting fusion dishes that you might order in a restaurant. How wrong they are.

"I don't think it's limiting at all," says Jacqueline O'Donnell, chef-patron of the two Glasgow restaurants called The Sisters. "In fact, I think we could almost be self-sufficient with the diversity of produce we have in Scotland. There aren't enough folk aware of the fantastic Scottish larder and that's why events such as Scottish Food Fortnight are great for raising public awareness."

Tony Singh of the Oloroso and Roti restaurants in Edinburgh is baffled. "Is it possible to produce international-style cuisine with 90 per cent Scottish produce? Of course! Obviously, things like spices, which can't be grown in Scotland, are imported but all our dishes use predominantly Scottish produce because they incorporate the staples: meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. You can get everything here now and we have the best fish and meat in the world."

Further north in the heart of the Highlands, Steven Devlin of Rocpool Rendezvous in Inverness is disappointed that customers even have to ask if the produce is local. "At Rocpool, it's a given. Virtually everything we cook is Scottish: the langoustines are from Plockton; the crab is from Orkney; the beef is from 20 miles away; the ceps we had on the menu last week were picked from a local forest. Sure, we add a bit of lemongrass or a bit of chilli to dishes, but the main ingredients are home-grown."

According to our chefs then, as long as you have a decent spice rack and access to a few key global ingredients, Scotland has the best produce in the world. Lady Claire Macdonald, patron of Scottish Food Fortnight 2006, echoes this sentiment with gusto. "I am utterly whole-hearted in my support for Scottish Food Fortnight because I believe nothing matches the quality and marvellous variety of raw ingredients reared, caught or cultivated right here," she enthuses.

"Scotland's moors, rivers and pastures yield such a rich larder of meat, game, fish and other produce - which is, of course, an inspiration to any cook," she continues. "And amid valid consumer concerns about the provenance and nutritional value of so many mass-produced foods, Scottish Food Fortnight offers a timely focus on the exceptional wealth of fresh, seasonal foods available to all from our native farmers and local producers."

Not only do we have a significant and growing number of high-quality food producers here in Scotland but, as Lady Claire points out, there's great variety, too, and that's down to producer innovation and seasonality, which are critical to the buy-local theme.

"There's always a huge demand for fresh garlic at the beginning of the season," says Gilli Allingham of The Really Garlicky Company. "We've noticed a big surge in uptake at farmers' markets and in the past three years farm shops have really taken off for us, particularly those that sell soft fruit because the garlic season coincides with the strawberry season at the beginning of July. So people going in for their strawberries buy our garlic at the same time."

Six years ago, Gilli and husband Glen first planted their porcelain garlic on one acre of land as a diversification project at their Nairnshire farm. Earlier this year, they hand-harvested 35 acres and with demand outstripping supply again, it looks like they'll be sowing even more come October.

Like most fresh, home-grown produce, garlic is a seasonal crop available from July to early December, but, in order to satisfy customer cravings for their curvaceous bulbs, the Allinghams have created an entire line of garlic-based products. From relish and aioli to frozen minced garlic, the business effectively bridges the gap between Christmas and May, when they harvest and sell the garlic scapes (the spring onion-like tops of the garlic).

It's a similar story in the verdant world of fresh herbs and salad leaves. Tayside company Scotherbs has managed to extend the growing season for herbs such as coriander, chervil, sage and rocket, thanks to protected cropping. "We use similar techniques to the fruit growers, such as fleecing, heated glasshouses and polytunnels," explains company founder and director Robert Wilson.

These methods have added almost three weeks to either end of the season, which lasts from March right through to early November, and Wilson believes that the warmer climate will soon see Scotherbs growing plants such as basil and lemongrass in Scotland, too.

One product less affected by the season is artisan cheese. Brothers Callum and Cameron Clark, along with their wives, Jill and Eileen, started making organic farmhouse cheese in November 2005 and began selling it this year. "We've had a fantastic response - both locally and further afield," says Callum, of Connage Dairy in Ardersier.

Already stocked by some 47 independent delis and shops across Scotland, the Clarks sell their traditionally crafted cheeses direct to consumers at local farmers' markets and trade shows. "The Clava is our best-seller at the moment," Callum says of their Brie-style soft cheese named after the Clava Cairns situated close to the family's farm. "It has been much more popular than we had anticipated," he explains, adding that they are currently building up stocks of their cheddar-style cheese, the Dunlop.

The Connage range, which also includes Cromal, a semi-hard farmhouse cheese not dissimilar to a Caerphilly, and an authentic creamy Crowdie, illustrates how easy it is to create a varied cheeseboard with a continental theme from entirely Scottish produce. And although Connage doesn't currently make a blue cheese, there are plenty of outstanding Scottish examples on offer such as crumbly Lanark Blue, creamy West Highland Dairy Blue, and the Dolcelatte-like Strathdon Blue.

In fact, the range and quality of artisan cheeses available in Scotland today is nothing short of phenomenal and this is true of the beef, the rare-breed pork, the wild game and boar, the fish and shellfish, the fruit and vegetables, the flours, oats and grains. With produce as fabulous and diverse as this, we'd be fools not to buy local.

As Steven Devlin puts it: "It's about time Scottish people appreciated what a fresh Scottish langoustine tastes like rather than a frozen prawn that's travelled thousands of miles from Thailand. At the end of the day, do you want to support the Thai economy or do you want to support the Scottish economy? It's not a myth that Scotland has great produce, it's the reality." Quite.

• Scottish Food Fortnight runs until 17 September. See www.scottishfoodfortnight.co.uk  for details.

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Scottish polytunnels were provided by Crop PRO-TECH Ltd the UK leading supplier of Spanish Tunnels, Polytunnels, Greenhouses, Bed formers, Poly-layers, Poly winder, Horticultural Machinery, Table Tops, Growing Systems, Agricultural nettings, Agricultural Polythene.