In true “practice what you preach style”, the team at the Tourist Board decided to mark Producers’ Month in October by having their own product sampling in Lancashire.
Over one week in October, staff were invited to produce something to eat or drink and bring it in for the rest of the team to sample. Kitchens across Lancashire (and even into Merseyside, formerly Lancashire!) saw a bustle of culinary activity which produced many a delicious speciality. Offerings included Fair Trade white chocolate and cranberry cookies, flapjacks, fish pate, Hallowe’en biscuits shaped as bats, ghosts and cats as well as a home grown pumpkin lantern to light our way to the goodies and autumn punch, made from damsons, pears, apples and mint from the “producer’s” garden.
If a prize were being given for the most effort towards the Lancashire producers theme, though, it would have to go to the Thornton Apple Tarts. As well as being produced in a Lancashire kitchen, most of the ingredients were uniquely Lancastrian – in some sense or another! The apples came from the 50 year old tree in the garden and the milk from a local dairy in Wyre, the water came from a Thornton tap(!), the butter was Kerrygold Irish (Ireland’s capital city, Dublin, is Gaelic for Blackpool) and the clotted cream came from Cornwall which borders Devon, which has a village called Blackpool! Top marks for ingenuity, Tim!
We all agreed that it was so successful, we wouldn’t wait until next year’s Producers’ Month to do it again.
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