Wild Garlic Pork Pies

““For those who like their garlic strong, ramsons will prove magnetic” ”

— Richard Mabey, Food For Free

In Praise of North Norfolk

I just love where we make the pork pies, we're in old flint barns, in an Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty, so surrounded by some of the best countryside in Norfolk and the UK, The River Glaven runs through it and the sea is just over there.

The Making of The Wild garlic Pork Pies

Little speaks of our glorious surroundings better than our Wild Garlic pork pies. Starting in March I take a basket, walk down the hill to our neighbours on The Bayfield Estate, Natural Surroundings, though the gardens, and into the wooded bit, beside the river, to see how "my" patch of Wild Garlic is doing.

The Art Of Wild Garlic Foraging

Once I think the leaves are big enough, with special permission, I take a basket down and carefully pick. Not too much from each plant and being very careful not to disturb the roots. I've always got an eye on making sure the patch stays strong and healthy for the rest of the season and next year, and the year after that, so I don't want to over-pick or damage any of the plants. I think of it a bit like farming. If you forage your local patch, please be kind to the plants too.

Then I take my pickings back up the hill to HQ and we wash and dry it and make it into our Spring special, Wild Garlic Pork Pies. We can only make as many as the woods provides, so it's first come, first served for the shops and pubs who buy them from us, but they're always very popular. And we only make them into small pies because the Wild Garlic is so precious. They're also available from us online - whilst stocks last...

Wild Garlic Pork Pie Mail Order

So. Head over to our Pies By Post shop and, for a very short while, you'll see one of the options is Wild Garlic Pork Pies. Unique and deliciously delivered to your door.

Natural Surroundings, our Bayfield neighbours

Pygge hygge - the British version

The way of hygge

My guide to how to survive, nay, celebrate winter.

Do I need to explain hygge to you? Really? I promise you, give it a couple more weeks into the season and you won't be able to move for, possibly over-simplified, wall to wall hygge. it's exactly what lifestyle journalists love. But scoff not, you cynical Brit you. After a working boiler, know that it's your most useful armament in the face of the colder months. It's a change of perception. It's about good things. It works. Come February you'll be clinging to it, trust me. Best to start now.

A very brief synopsis is that it is the Danish/Swedish/Norwegian concept (other Scandinavian versions are probably available and the origins seem somewhat contested) of cosiness (very rough translation). If you live in a country with that many dark hours, you really need a reliable survival methodology. Whilst it also applies in summer, it's most usefully about learning to appreciate the particular pleasures that winter can bring, the joy of now, rugs, cosy fires, friends and celebratory comfort food. All at once. Whoopee.

If you've got a hankering to learn about hygge and Scandinavian culture properly my friend Signe has written a book on it and talks very sensibly about what makes it tick being a quality of equality and hardiness as well as about buns (although they count too). I recommend it (bibliography below). But meanwhile, here's my take on it all.

Pygge hygge

So this is my very British, and tried and tested experience of hygge, that I'm calling pygge hygge. And before anyone starts, we're pronouncing it Pie-gah hoo-gah. Just because we can.

If you live in North Norfolk you practically count as Scandinavian (hurrah!). Our weather and geese come from over there, we get the Northern Lights and we've got all the seals. So, I've been trying to celebrate my winter experience for several years, always with an eye over the North Sea to how they do it, and last year, after reading A Year Of Living Danishly (funny and interesting), started putting pygge hygge into practice, so these are my very British winter tips.

Go for a walk.

• Honestly, pulling on scarves and boots, getting out there every day, whatever the weather, noticing the things that are around, especially nature, will get the endorphins pumping and you'll feel all the better for it. Endorphins are your friend. And a brisk walk and stomp through puddles (possibly with an emergency pork pie in your pocket) is the perfect prequel to a treat (possibly a second pork pie). See Fika below.

Get cosy, darling

You need to stay warm, you'll never be happy if not. This is the excuse you've needed to Scandi your world up. Go for it.

• Modestly (or immodestly) invest in blankets and throws. Make the place pretty.  Living in an 18th century cottage in North Norfolk that isn't a stranger to a period draught or two, I did already have a few woollen blankets to hand.
• This. I have a grey, cashmere covered, yard-long hot water bottle which is the best thing ever. I put it on my Christmas list a couple of years ago and, expecting the fleece version, got lucky. I adore it.  The cashmere one is trés expensive, but there are cheaper options, have a google. You only put a relatively small amount of hot water in (less than a kettle full) and the squidginess means you can safely have bits of it wrapped around you.
• Have a ritual. I have a grey reindeer skin, it's beautiful. Mine came from BTOI at Holkham, again a Christmas present (thanks Charlotte for hinting at OH). It comes downstairs in autumn and that announces the start of pygge hygge.
• Start decorating the house with vases of twigs and berries. Big bowls of oranges.

• Light the fire and get the lighting right in the room. Lamps are good.
• Have candles. I'll refrain from reporting the zillions of candles per capita that the Danes get through because every else will be telling you about it, but they do look lovely. Just keep an eye on them.

Get your right brain in gear

This was something I really focused on last year, largely prompted by my friend Emma (Silverpebble2 on Instagram and @silverpebble on Twitter). Colours turn your dolphins on. Sorry, that's your endorphins. Laughing is good for you too. But there seems to be something special about creating something that adds to that sense of well-being.

• Draw. This is my thing. I try to put a mark on paper every day, I don't beat myself up if I don't succeed, but it's something to look forward to.
• Knit. Or crochet. Or sew. it's all about the concentration and colours.
• Make something, Craft is a lot less, you know, muesli these days. There are a million youtube videos out there to help you, or better still, treat yourself to a course. 
• Read. Switch the blooming tele off for a while.

The drugs

Not that kind. And it's all too easy to anaesthetise at home with alcohol, whilst we're talking about it. Although heading down the pub for a beer and a socialise (plus a fine pork pie if your pub is sensible enough to serve them) is a fabulously British version of hygge. Support your pub in winter I say. 

No, I mean Vitamin D. I'm a great believer in eating well, all the colours, masses of seasonal fruit and veg, (yes we're coming to Fika, I know that's why you're here really) but here in the Northern Hemisphere, especially with all the scarves and mittens, we just do struggle to get access to enough sunshine to generate Vitamin D, so when the reindeer skin comes downstairs I start trying to remember to take a daily Vitamin D supplement. Plus any excuse to eat a herring or two is good, the silver darlings are a mine of Vitamin D, and oh so Scandi, but joyfully British too.  

Get Social

See friends (and yes I mean in person, you social media fiends) and break bread (or indeed pie). It doesn't need to be a huge stressful production. One of the nicest things I did last winter was an indoor picnic with other small producer friends at Norfolk Gin Jonthan's house in January. We all took a few simple things to eat, a sort of Norfolk smorgasbord, put them on the kitchen table, drank a little excellent gin and tea and had a perfectly lovely afternoon.

Should you fancy replicating it we can send pies all over the country you know.

Or just drag people in for supper. Nothing fancy, pop candles and flowers on the table and they'll really be thrilled with a stew, a bowl of buttery potatoes, greens and cheese and fruit afterwards. Well, I would.

Fika. Afternoon Fika.

Finally to Fika. Fika is the Swedish practice of taking coffee, often with something sweet to eat as a social break from work in the day. Another thing (caffiene plus scheduled breaks) that makes the Scandinavians so very happy. I was all about taking this as an excuse to eat cake on a daily basis, but when I read A Year of Living Danishly and discovered author Helen Russell had embarked on her integration with such similar gusto she had to be instructed that even Danes don't eat Danish pastries every single day. Hey ho.

But on consideration, I thought the British have an inherited memory that makes for the perfect Fika equivalent. High tea. 

As Signe says, life is too short to live in a state of puritanical abstinence, but for our British Pygge Hygge, I don't mean the sort of tea that gets served in Claridges, more an afternoon cup of tea, in front of the fire, with something to eat, or at the table, presented prettily. Make it a little ritual. Cake sometimes, toast sometimes, but also a very good opportunity for a pork pie.

And there we can help you. Either one of our many stockists can provide you with pies or we can send you a box of fine pork pies, through the post, to enjoy socially at work or at home. As we like to call it, a very British Pygge Hygge.

Enjoy. Celebrate. Embrace the opportunities of the dark days.

Useful links:

Pies by post - our delicious delivered pork pies

How to Hygge - Signe Johansen

The Year of Living Danishly - Helen Russell

Yulu yard long hot water bottle

Photos - some by me and some (the good ones) by Emma Mitchell. All copyright.

Good for your right brain courses

Learn to make pork pie and sausage rolls (with me)

Emma's Silver Pebble silver clay courses

Karen's Wild Thorn knitting courses

Jane's Printing courses

Holkham

Things are afoot at Holkham, the North Norfolk Coast's stately home (that one with the world famous beach attached). 

I was on pork pies and sausage rolls delivering duty there yesterday and had a good nosy round. I came away impressed and pleased, I liked it before and, as with anywhere you are fond of, was that little bit apprehensive about the end result, especially having seen it as a building site over the winter when I dropped in for meetings. But it all looks just fabulous. Much improved and so much more appropriate for the destination that Holkham has become over the last few years, but still retaining oodles of character. The courtyard (where the Bygones exhibition was before) has been used to create a single smart cluster of resources for visitors.

The Courtyard Cafe is more spacious and the entrance has been swivelled round, so that you access it from the courtyard. The park opened to visitors, after the winter, this weekend and I know they were busy from the huge number of sausage rolls and pies they have got through in just three days. The ever-accurate pork pie barometer.  The family have always been keen to use local food, and the cakes have always been stunning, but in the alterations the recently appointed manager, Simon (who has come from some well known and very well thought of food places), has been supplied with a brand new pro kitchen that gave me equipment envy. 

Usually there on business of one sort or another, I'd never taken enough notice of the shop, where it was previously on the far side of the Stables courtyard, but it's suddenly got chic and spacious, housed in a beautiful, glass fronted, airy side of the courtyard and has some perfectly beautiful things. It is an absolute pleasure to browse round. There are some very covetable pieces of metalwork from Holkham Forge, a great range of doggy items, including leads from The Traditional Rope Company (who live and work in my village) and a lot more Holkham badged products than I'd been aware of before, including some clothing that I really had to drag myself away from, in the estate's tweed.

Being a long time ceramics fan, some very stylish black and white china in the kitchenalia area lured me in and called out  to me photograph it. When I got back to HQ my Twitter friend, Steven Moore, the Antiques Roadshow's ceramic expert, informed me that they are made for Holkham by the famous Staffordshire Burleigh Pottery (of which he's Creative Director), so not much wonder it's jolly nice! I reckon sales of that will be as brisk as sausage rolls.

The remaining wing of the courtyard is the new interactive Farm to Fork exhibition. Telling the story of agriculture on the Estate, one of the first things I saw was local food star Norfolk Saffron which rather delighted me. Holkham's all about the whole family experience and the exhibition, whilst fascinating as an adult, has also been designed as an education resource with lots of touchy feely and unexpected things for children to explore and learn from.

All in all, a great improvement. For visiting times and admission information click here.