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Foodie favourites
As seasonal food fans, we're not really allowed to have favourite months. Every part of the year has its own unique attributes to be enjoyed and celebrated. Like parents with one child who's a bit rubbish at sports, you have to love them all equally (even February, who can't catch at all). But if you really pressed us to make a choice, August would have to be a contender for our secret favourite. In August, food is plentiful with a huge selection of fruit, vegetables and fish all in season and bursting with Summery goodness. You've even got some game in the shape of grouse and venison so our seasonal cup truly runneth over in August and there really is no good reason why our dining tables shouldn't be completely local and seasonal for the whole of the month. In addition to the great the food, we're still enjoying the long, hot days of Summer and there's so much to do out and about in the great British countryside that it's simply impossible for one newsletter to do it justice. So there you go August - we're not giving out prizes, but if we were, you'd definitely get one (just don't tell the other months we said that).
Did you know...? The Anglo-Saxons called August "Weod Monath" .... because it's the month when weeds grow quickest. (We've certainly noticed it on the WS allotment!).
Well Seasoned News in Brief
Patrick played some excellent cricket. Alex got out and about on the bike. The Twig spent more hours than he cares to remember opening scallops.
Keep up to date with all the latest seasonal action on Twitter and Facebook.
So hot right now...
Top tips for an appetising August:
Aubergine
Beetroot
Blackberry
Blackcurrant
Cherry
Chilli
Cucumber
Grouse
Mulberry
Pilchard
Raspberry
Sardine
Spider crab
Tomato
Victoria Plum
As usual, you can find more in-season goodies with our Seasonality Charts.
Loafing around
Monday 1st August was Lammas Day...loaf mass day. It's the ancient festival of the first day of the wheat harvest when, traditionally, farmers would bring bread or flour from the new crop to church. Tenant farmers would also be obliged to take a share of their flour to their landlord. These days, Lammas Day has fallen away as a food festival in favour of harvest festival which takes place a bit later in the year. Still, the Well Seasoned team love reviving some of the old traditions and we decided we should either take a bag of flour round to our landlord or bake some bread. He thinks we're pretty weird anyway so, rather than confirm his suspicions, we went with the latter. Here's a very simple recipe for soda bread. Seriously, if you think you can't bake bread, just have a go at this.
Soda bread
170g self-raising wholemeal flour
170g plain flour (if you prefer you can just use 340g of plain rather than mixing the two)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ pint buttermilk
splash of milk
Preheat the oven to 200C. Mix the flours, salt and bicarb in a large bowl. Make a little well in the middle of the flour and pour in the buttermilk. Stir well with a fork until you have an even dough. It should be very slightly sticky. You can add a splash of milk if its too stiff (or a little more flour it its too sticky.) Flour a board or work surface and turn the dough out onto it. Kneed the dough for a couple of minutes. If it starts to stick, just flour the board and your hands a little more. Form into a nice round shape, cut a little cross in the top with a sharp knife. Place on a lightly floured baking sheet in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes (it should sound hollow when you tap the bottom). When cooked, cool for a while on a wire rack but its best eaten when still slightly warm.
Events
13th August: Isle of Wight Garlic Festival
The Hampshire Isle is noticeably long on foodies, short on vampires during this two day fiesta of garlic. The Esso in Southampton sells a good selection of mints for the journey home.
Find out more at www.garlic-festival.co.uk
29th August: Bog snorkelling, Wales
Venues don't get more glamorous that the Waen Rhydd peat bog in Wales. Compete to swim the 60-yard course with flippers and snorkel as fast as possible with "conventional" swimming strokes being banned. In August the weather might even be good. But probably not.
Find out more at www.bogsnorkelling.com
No grousing
We couldn't send a seasonal food newsletter in August without a mention of the “Glorious Twelfth”. 12th August is, of course, the first day of the grouse season and marks the renewal of game shooting in the UK after the Spring/Summer lull. Grouse is the only truly wild game bird left in this country and lives exclusively on the heather moors of northern England and in Scotland. It has a very rich flavour, influenced by the heather that it feeds on.
Whatever you think of game shooting, it's the way that most wild game in this country reaches our tables. At Well Seasoned, our view, as we’ve mentioned before, is that when done properly game shooting can be beneficial both to the quarry species and the environment in which it lives. In this instance, only the preservation of the natural moorland will ensure the survival of the grouse and the continued influx of money that it brings to the local economies. Did you know that Britain is home to 75% of the whole world’s remaining heather moorland habitat?
On the whole, if you’re a seasonal food fan prepared to put some effort into the sourcing and provenance of your game, there is a whole larder of ethical, tasty meats out there, of which the grouse is one. Keep an eye on our blog later this month for tips on buying grouse.
Producer of the Month
Our producer of the month for August is Hook & Son. Phil and Steve Hook farm 180 acres of organic pasture at Longleys Farm in Hailsham, Kent. If you read the blog regularly you'll know that Hook & Son are one of the few sellers of raw milk in the UK. However, they also supply organic pasteurised milk, veal and beef. Longleys Farm is on the western edge of the Pevensey Levels Site of Special Scientific Interest and the Hooks take the responsibility of being next to an SSSI seriously - they see their organic farming methods as a way to maintain and enhance the important local ecology. A recent RSPB survey on the farm found 45 different species of native birds, including eight whose status is category red (declined by more than 50% over the last 25 years), and nine that are category amber (declined by 25-49% over the same period). In addition to their traditional farming, Hook & Son have recently diversified into growing cricket bat willow for Gray Nicolls! They have stalls at Borough Market and Alexandra Palace Farmers Market in London.
Competition news
Our competition to win a copy of The End of The Line on DVD is still open.
You can win a copy of this fascinating and thought-provoking film by clicking here.
That's it from us this month and indeed for the Summer - our Autumn season starts in September. Don't worry though - there should still be plenty of Summer weather yet to come. We'll see you in our orange autumnal livery then, and in the meantime, keep it seasonal!
Patrick, Alex and the Twig
Well Seasoned
  
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Beetroot: Crunchy sweet beetroot should be a world away from the pickled purple mush you were served at school. This delicious late summer root is a perfect addition to a seasonal salad.
Grouse: The 'glorious twelfth' brings the end to our summer game drought. One of the few truly wild game birds left, this rich meat is rightly savoured.
Spider crab: Swarming all along the coast in great numbers in the summer months and yet strangely hard to get hold of from fishmongers. Even sweeter than brown crab, this delicious crustacean deserves to be given a go.
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