You may have noticed that when we write these blogs we don’t put in a lot of detail about the discussions that took place as, ideally, we’d like members to come along to the 2nd Monday meetings. But no blog could ever convey the amazing food and flavours that we tasted on Monday 24th October.
But to begin at the beginning. We are now into our Winter 2nd Monday schedule where we aim to cover a broad range of beekeeping-related topics. Monday’s talk was ‘Cooking with Honey’ by Amanda (Mandy) Cadge, who amongst other things is the Apiary Manager for Solihull Beekeepers. For this meeting we were in the main hall at Cherington Village Hall, so plenty of room for the tables Mandy had asked to be available and to catch up with friends and colleagues.
Mandy not only talks about the many and varied ways honey can be used in cookery but brings along many samples for us to taste. So whilst we were catching up, Mandy was setting out some tables with all the various samples. It was all looking very, very, tasty…..
But first, Mandy’s talk. She took us through some history of the use of honey in cooking, some traditions around honey, a bit of chemistry and then how to use honey in cooking. Mandy described some of her favourite recipes including for cakes, biscuits, sweets and drinks (aged honey daiquiri anyone?). At the end of the slides Mandy had a list of useful websites for recipes, and had a lot of recipes printed out on the table with the samples.
At the end of her presentation Mandy took questions and I did notice some of our cookery prize winners getting a few hints and tips…..
And then on to the tasting. Mandy prepares a lot of samples of cooking with honey for her presentations and her samples included sausages with a honey glaze, a lovely mature cheddar which is quite amazing with a dribble of honey on it, honey fudge, honey and Pistachio Friands, Saffron and Honey brioche. And a spiced apple juice.
It was all very delicious. For those who missed the evening Mandy has kindly given us a copy of her presentation which we have put in the Members area of the website (as a PDF). And for all of us she has also provided a number of recipes which again is on the website as a PDF. See https://sbka.org.uk/members-area/
We thank David Blower MB for contacting Mandy and arranging for her to give her presentation (and samples) to us, and Julia and Paul Neal for coffee and tea at the start.