Well, what do you think, asks Robert Jackman
The challenge was simple enough: to give seven days eating and drinking only produce from Norfolk. Goodness knows, I figured, we have enough decent farm shops around here. But would I really be able to find absolutely everything to sustain a fully Norfolk diet?
It was the Friday afternoon before ‘the week’ began, and I was diligently sifting through my kitchen cupboards removing all those basics – vegetable oil, rice, flour etc – that weren’t local. I wanted to do this properly: which meant that anything not from here would be going under the sink.
‘Don’t worry – you can get all of that stuff locally,’ assured Glenn Sealey from Yare Valley Oils – the family-run farm from Surlingham that has expanded from producing rapeseed oil to various garnishes and sauces. ‘What exactly do you need anyway?’ he asked over the phone. ‘Pretty much everything,’ I answered, staring up at an empty cupboard.
With Glenn’s help – or his produce at least – I was able to get down to the fun stuff: planning meals. But even as a fan of Norfolk’s foodie scene, I found myself paralysed with uncharacteristic indecision. Thankfully, a quick chat with Andrew Jones, chef patron at Norwich’s Farmyard restaurant (and a local himself), helped get the ball rolling.
‘You have to try Worstead Wagyu,’ he offered. That a local farm was rearing the sought-after Japanese cows was news to me. Even better, Andrew explained, they were using regenerative farming: an emerging practice that helped mitigate the environmental impact of cattle farming.
Other local foodies had their own top picks. ‘Make sure you get some black pepper sausages from White House Farm,’ one friend enthused – resulting in a morning trip to Norwich’s most charming farm shop. Others showed their sweet tooth. ‘Dann’s ice cream from Dereham is incredible,’ one said. ‘It won’t last you a week, but it will blow your mind.'
With a box of vegetables from local delivery champions Norfolk in a Box, it wasn’t hard to knock up a meal plan (with pudding). Indeed, by the time Monday arrived, I felt I was on easy street: preparing to round-off a day of healthy eating (Norwich Porridge for breakfast and then leek and potato soup) with a first-class supper of Wagyu steak and Hasselback potatoes. Then came a dilemma.
On any ordinary night, I’d knock up a red-wine sauce for the steak, using a glass of supermarket plonk to get it going. But this was Norfolk Week: could I really justify sparing even a splash of pinot noir from Flint – Earsham’s vineyard par excellence – to make a steak sauce? As it turned out, yes I could. And it worked brilliantly.
Other evenings went just as well. On Wednesday, I used my veg box to make Swede gnocchi garnished with local pesto and crispy bacon. The next night, I chomped down on homemade ‘pulled’ Norfolk black chicken (spiced with a dark-chocolate mole-style sauce) on sourdough toast. Absolutely delicious, if not entirely in tune with the Bread Source ethos.
Breakfast, as you might expect, was a total doddle. In a serious upgrade from my usual routine of supermarket cereal and easy-peeler oranges, I treated myself to Season’s Bounty jam on sourdough bread. Biscuits from premier chocolatiers Harris & James (whose operation straddles the Norfolk/Suffolk border) took care of any mid-day snacks.
By the end of day five, I was even more sold than before on our country's gastronomic merit – and enjoying a well-deserved buzz from having kept everything so local. There was just one problem: I was becoming tired of cooking everything from scratch. As the weekend loomed, I needed a way to keep up the all-local vibe while spending less time in the kitchen.
Not for the first time, I didn’t have to worry. Sympathetic to my kitchen fatigue, Farmyard’s Andrew Jones pointed me in the direction of the restaurant’s ‘ready meal’ range – a lockdown side project that had become permanent. A slathering of Hot Star Honey (one of several excellent hot sauces to hail from Norfolk) added an edge to the cauliflower tikka.
Come Saturday night, it was hosting time. Thankfully, an excellent buffet box from Norwich bakery Little Pie helped ease the pressure. You'd be hard pressed to find a better spread. And hailing from Great Yarmouth myself, serving beers from Lacons (the centuries-old brewery currently enjoying a trendy reinvention) had to be done. Both were a big hit.
Once my guests had left, it was time for a swift nightcap: a chance to see out the week with a small drop of Thetford’s own English Whisky Company. Their Islay-style smokey edition is one of our county's more exquisite offerings, at least for those who appreciate the bolder end of the whisky spectrum. As someone who counts himself firmly in that category, it was bliss.
It felt fitting, too, to finish the challenge with something that should – I hope – manage to stick around in my homestead for a little longer than seven days. Goodness knows those biscuits and jam won’t be achieving that. Truth told, the problem isn’t finding decent food here: it’s putting it down.
