Yorkshire Pride

Seasonal and regional produce is always a joy to find. Here in Yorkshire we are blessed with some of the best you can get. Wensleydale cheese, the eponymous Yorkshire pudding (the successful making of which has evaded me for 20 years, but I am an incomer) liquorice from Pontefract and the glorious Spring forced rhubarb. This has just been granted Protected Designation of Origin, the equivalent of DOC or AOC in Italy and France and is only the 41st food item from the UK to achieve this protection. There is a rhubarb festival every year in Wakefield and you can take trips around the darkened sheds where the rhubarb is forced. Rumour has it you hear creaking as the stems force their way out of the ground it grows so quickly.

Pies, crumbles and streusal cake are all delicious made with rhubarb, but my favourite way to serve it is to poach gently with a little sugar and orange juice and serve with creme fraiche (flavouring that with stem ginger is very good) It sparkles like a jewel, bright pink in the bowl just as it glowed in the candlelight of the growing sheds.