Suffolk Foraging

One of the delightful things about our travels around Sicily and Greece was being able to buy fresh produce directly from the people who grew it. Generally in the UK, unless you make an effort and visit a farmers market, buying directly from growers is difficult. Judging by local farmers market that happens once a month in Pavilion Gardens in Buxton actual farmers are conspicuous​ by their absence. Most stalls are micro food businesses cashing-in on food fads and the fashion for organics. In fact there are plenty of products on sale - condiments, meat products, cheeses - but few actual ingredients, and those that do actually make it from field to stall are on sale with an eye-watering mark-up compared with their less eco-compliant cousins from the local supermarket.

However, this is not the case in hereabouts in Suffolk. In the summer at least there is an embarrassment of riches so far as fresh food is concerned. Farm shops thrive on the outskirts of larger towns selling a wide range of locally grown fruit, vegetables and herbs, as well as flowers and shrubs for the garden.

As well as these general market gardens there are more specialised providers - shacks on the shore at Alderborough, Orford and Felixstowe Ferry sell freshly caught fish, there are artisan butchers like the Sausage Shop we came across in Trimley St. Martin or superb bread, pies and cakes on offer conjured-up by Orford's Pump Street Bakery - all these places are a testament to a vibrant local food culture. That's a rare thing in England.

As we cycled about some of the smaller lanes we noticed another aspect of this green economy - an informal black market in greens! Stalls were set up outside most nurseries selling surplus fruit and veg at a fraction of the price you might pay in a supermarket. The quality was superb, the cherry tomatoes as sweet and flavoursome as anything we bought from the back of an Ape in Sicily. It is not just professional growers who sell their surplus, on the roadside by houses big and small people were selling fruit, vegetables, eggs, honey, plants and flowers, inviting passers-by to put a few pence in an old biscuit tin or jar. Honesty boxes seem a bit of a Suffolk institution.

The small camping field we are staying on at Raydon Hall on the outskirts of Orford has a relaxed attitude towards paying up too. A somewhat weather-worn notice next to the farmhouse back door instructs guests to put what they owe in the money box by the barn if nobody is in. The assumption of honesty is disarming.

We like Suffolk - enough to up-sticks and move here? Too early to say, but this is the second time we have visited and both times we have left saying, "well, yes, maybe." As our children have told us, the second date is the crucial one in the world of internet dating. In some ways finding a new house resembles seeking a new soul-mate, exciting, fraught - an emotional rollercoaster, and potentially ruinous financially if you make the wrong choice!