On The Ludlow Sausage Trail

Author: Nick Godwin

For a small town (the population is roughly 10,000), Ludlow has developed quite a reputation for itself, and in the last few years has become something of a mecca for British food lovers. Many believe this is due to the arrival of chef Shaun Hill and his superb Merchant House restaurant in 1994. Lesley Mackley, who helps organise the annual Ludlow Food Festival, believes that it is this event, now in its seventh year, which sowed the seed. The festival is held in the castle each year and takes over the whole town. Last year it attracted around 12,000 hungry visitors over three days.

Ludlow has become known as a gourmet restaurant capital, with 3 michelin-starred restaurants and 8 with AA rosettes awards. However, it is its range of specialist food shops that originally set the town apart. Most famously, Ludlow still retains six independent butchers shops, each with their own particular specialities. During the festival there is more than friendly rivalry between them as they compete for the prestigious Sausage of the Year competition. There are two awards, one voted for by the festival public and one by the expert judges, and the winners of each invariably differ.

The first butcher I come across is Reg Martin & Sons in Castle Square. Proprietor Stuart Martin's father Reg founded the business in 1954 and the old shop is resplendently stocked with marbled sides of beef, venison, free-range chickens and Stuart's award-winning sausages. They also produce their own salted silverside, which is something of a rarity. In these days of food clocking up more air miles than a business executive, it is reassuring to find out that all of the meat he sells comes from farms within 7 or 8 miles of the town. Stuart proudly shows me his feature in the New York Times, and the accompanying photo of the shop in its Autumn livery, the shopfront bedecked in local game. A butcher famed far and wide, and you'll realise why when you taste his pork and leek bangers!

Next up on the "sausage-trail" is D.W.Wall & Son (not to be confused with their larger sausage-making namesake). The tiny shop front displays photographs of their particular speciality - rare-breed beef, pork and lamb. The beef is the thing here, from Red Poll to Longhorn. "Its amazing how it's really turned our trade around since we started concentrating on rare breeds" butcher Ian Wright tells me. They started with rare-breed meat in the autumn of 1999 and haven't looked back since.

H. Griffiths on the Bull Ring faces the stunning Jacobean frontage of the Feathers Hotel, and is Ludlow's most sophisticated butcher with creations such as cushion of lamb. There own-made black pudding is also well worth a try.

Round the corner on King Street is Carters. Large sides of dry-cured hams and bacon hang from the ceiling, reminding me of an Italian trattoria, such a fine sight now being something of rarity on these shores. They are famous for their pork pies and Mr Carter tells me their sausages fly out during the summer "barbecue months". Nevertheless, they're still busy in the (marginally) less clement winter months as I can vouch.

Finally, if you've still got a hunger for meat, independent butcher Francis C.A have set up in the local branch of Kwik Save, a move which has been a great success in providing real quality meat to supermarket shoppers.

Vegetarians will be pleased to learn that Ludlow's specialist food shops extend to some excellent fresh produce shops. Farmer's on Mill Street is a back-to-basics greengrocer of quality, piled with boxes of wild mushrooms, fresh local vegetables and a good range of more exotic fare. You might also want to pay a visit to Broad Bean Wholefoods. The shop started in 1977, specializing in nuts and dried goods, teas and coffees. Over the years they've expanded to include a range of cheeses, wines and cured meats strong on organic produce. Myriad Organics on Corve St is another excellent shop specialising in organic food.

The town is not short on delicatessens, in addition to Broad Bean, Ludlow Larder stocks a full range of fine food and drink, including local cheeses such as Monkland. The Little Big Cheese Shop in the market and on Corve Street also have a great range of local cheeses - try the tasty Long Mynd goats cheese.

Across the road from Broad Bean is De Greys coffee shop. They're a local institution and produce some mouthwatering patisserie as well as a variety of traditional and speciality breads. The goodies are enjoyed by the local patrons of their large and traditional coffee shop, complete with waitresses in uniforms that can't have changed much since they first opened their doors in the 1920's. In the evenings De Greys converts into a French restaurant with a growing reputation.

You'll be unsurprised to learn they are not the only bakery in town either. In addition to Walton's on Market St, there is Prices on Castle Square who still make their bread in the old-fashioned way, making the dough the night before baking to develop the flavour. Swifts in Parkway also produce excellent traditional and continental breads, including the Shropshire Brown loaf and some lovely ciabattas and foccacias.

Unfortunately the Marches Little Beer Shoppe is closed on my visit, but by all accounts they have a fantastic range of bottled beers and just about everything for the real beer aficionado. So I make my last stop at The Chocolate Gourmet. Inside the elegant premises on Castle Square, Janet Rowlatt's shop stocks a tempting range of luxury chocolates from around the world, as well as honeys and traditional sweets. Such has been its popularity amongst visitors to the town that she now has a flourishing mail order business. I choose a bag of morish-looking chocolate truffles and make my way home, thinking if only more places offered the range and quality of food and drink I'd seen today.

For more information on the Ludlow Food Festival, visit www.foodfestival.co.uk/

Extracted with kind permission from www.aboutfood.co.uk

Copyright Nick Godwin 2001