THE spectacular late 19th century Grand Hall at Battersea Arts Centre provided an atmospheric and spacious setting for this year’s Golden Fork Awards, the climax of the Guild of Fine Food’s Great Taste Awards. And there was a great success for the West Country with the New Forest-based Lyburn Cheese winning the Golden Fork for best English product with their Stoney Cross cheese.
It was the second year that the awards were held at BAC, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2024. The building, originally Battersea Town Hall, dates from 1893 and was imaginatively restored after the Grand Hall was seriously damaged in a massive fire on Friday 13th March 2015.
This year’s Golden Forks finalists, representing the cream of this year’s three-star Great Taste winners, selected from 13,672 entries from 115 countries, ranged from Blackthorn Salt, the beautifully crystallised sea salt made in an ancient thorn-tower process on the coast of Ayr (the Scotland winner) to Authentiko, a thyme honey from bees on the island of Crete, produced by Melicreta-Leontarakis, which won the Golden Fork for Greece and was named Supreme Champion.
Based in Gillingham, with a second home near Borough Market in Southwark, the awards are run by the Guild of Fine Food, which also organises the World Cheese Awards. This year’s 266 three star winners were selected in blind tasting by judges drawn from across the food industry – cooks, food writers, journalists, food buyers, restaurant critics, producers, instagrammers. After further rounds of judging, the award-winners, including the supreme champion, are selected from 10 finalists.
These included Lyburn Cheese, made by Mike and Judy Smales, using milk from their own herd at their farm on the northern edge of the New Forest, near Salisbury. Their three star Stoney Cross, a mould-ripened semi-hard cheese, was named the Golden Fork winner for England.
Mike and Judy were thrilled: “We didn’t see that coming!” The family has been dairy farming at Lyburn Farm since 1952, and started making cheese in 1999 to add value to their milk. Their other cheeses include Lyburn Gold, a washed curd cheese, a little like a Gouda, which is ripened for eight to 12 weeks; Winchester, a rich creamy cheese which has some of the nuttiness of Cheddar; Old Winchester (also called Old Smiles), a harder, distinctively nutty and very versatile cheese (it can be used in dishes where you would use Parmesan); Lyburn Lightly Oak Smoked; Lyburn Garlic and Nettle, made to the same recipe as Lyburn Gold, but ripened for a shorter period.
Another local cheese-maker, Peter Morgan of The Book & Bucket Company at Cranborne, won three stars for Cranborne Blue. Other Dorset three-star winners were Baboo Gelato at Rampisham for the double chocolate gelato, Brassica Dorset, at Beaminster, for their organic chicken, leek and tarragon pie and Dorset Pastry’s all-butter puff pastry, made at Crossways.
The ethos of Great Taste has always been that the artisan producer is the most important person and the awards are a way of helping them to reach a wider market. Guild of Fine Food managing director John Farrand says: “It is important to understand that Great Taste is merely the process that identifies one, two and three-star winners and, in doing so, encourages makers to improve. Now at its climax, in announcing the Golden Forks we are celebrating the very best producers – those who take care to ensure their products hit the markers of trusted raw ingredients, simple production methods, and food and drink that has personality, but ultimately, that tastes great.”
As well as the regular Golden Fork awards, this year saw two new awards, for a company that demonstrates inspiring business acumen, and the other to an organisation showing genuine commitment to sustainability.
Winning a Golden Fork is a huge accolade for any producer, and all winners were surprised and delighted when their names were announced, but perhaps the most surprised winner of the evening was the Scottish food campaigner, broadcaster and investigative journalist Joanna Blythman. She was with friends and had no idea that she was there to receive the prestigious Guild of Fine Food Contribution to Food & Drink award. Joanna’s books include Shopped, Bad Food Britain, How To Avoid GM Food and The Food We Eat. Her writing and campaigning have been recognised by the Guild of Food Writers, the BBC Food and Farming Awards and five Glenfiddich Awards. She was a high profile supporter of Scotland’s Errington Cheese in their battles with bureaucracy over their delicious unpasteurised cheeses.
Readers in the Sherborne area may recall that Joanna was actively involved in the successful battle to keep a giant supermarket out of Sherborne. She not only helped to get national publicity for the Dorset campaigners but came to Sherborne and spoke to a packed meeting.
Throughout the evening there were opportunities to try many of the finalists’ products. There was the deliciously aromatic Lussa Gin, made by three women on the Scottish island of Jura; a delicate large-leaf Oolong tea – Smaller Green Leafhopper honey flavour black tea – from the Junjie Lin Tea Garden on Taiwan (winner of the Golden Fork for the rest of the world); a rich traditional Sri Lankan curry; an irresistibly moreish smoked duck breast from the Black Mountain Smokehouse in Wales, (which won the Golden Fork for Wales); the famous Cashel Blue cheese, currently celebrating its 40th anniversary (and winning the Golden Fork for Ireland); and Due Vittorie apple cider vinegar from Italy.
Honey is always a major product in the Great Taste Awards, with more than 400 entries from around the world – this year’s included honeys from Saudi Arabia and the Yemen, as well as Eastern Europe and Greece, where honeys reflect the mountains, forests and biodiversity of both the mainland and the islands. Outstanding honeys this year were the champion product from Crete and Louisa’s Bosco forest honey, made from pollen and nectar, which won the Golden Fork for Italy.
An innovation last year, marking 30 years of Great Taste, was the bursary programme, which gives 50 micro-producers the opportunity to take part in the awards scheme for free. This year, the single-estate spice trader Food of Gods received the Golden Fork for Outstanding Bursary Winner for its Kandy Heirloom Cinnamon from Sri-Lanka.
The other Golden Fork winners were: Northern Ireland, Hannan Meats, porchetta; Spain, Cesar Nieto, Jamón de Bellota 100% Ibérico DOP Guijuelo; Rest of Europe, Isigny Sainte-Mere, crème fraîche d’Isigny AOP 40%; Sustainability, Seabuckthorn Scotland CIC; Better Business, Dark Woods Coffee; and the Nigel Barden Heritage Award, Dà Mhìle Absinthe from Dá Mhìle Distillery in Wales.
Pictured: English Golden Fork winners Mike and Judy Smales of Lyburn Cheese; tasting food around the hall; and the award-winners on stage. Photographs © Guild of Fine Food. Also pictured, the awe-inspiring blackthorn tower where Blackthorn Salt is produced.