The Source

I was brought up eating great British food. I lived with my family of three brothers, Mum & Dad & my Nan in Hammersmith West London, so there was no access to the straight off the farm produce that I have now, but WOW the fresh food markets were wonderful.

I remember particularly Hammersmith Market before they moved it.  We would buy fresh seafood and eels out of buckets that Mum would take home and cook to make Jellied eels. Early street food of cockles doused in white pepper and vinegar and wonderful butchers. Mum often used to make brawn from pigs heads.  Giblet stew was considered delicious, buying boiling birds to make soup and stock was normal.  Watercress was always a treat as was crab.  Never lobster though.  I didn’t try that until I was 40.  Winkles were and still are a huge favourite of mine. 

Dad also grew seasonal veggies & we bought & ate seasonally too.  The excitement of asparagus season and little tiny British Strawberries remains with me.  British lamb & beef is amongst some of the very best in the world as is our dairy and cheese.

I could continue to wax lyrical all day, a cornucopia of fabulousness!  We didn’t have money, we didn’t waste food but wow did we eat well.  So my passion for British food and ingredients is not a fad, it’s bred into my very bones entwined intrinsically with my love of food.

It’s an ethos I carry on today.  Buy seasonal, buy local if you can and buy British.  I have now had the absolute pleasure of meeting many farmers from the wonderful Jody Scheckter at Laverstock Park to the incredible family farming at Fairking.  They are hugely talented individuals with a passion for the British countryside and products often bringing in new products like mozzarella & quinoa & allowing our wonderful cosmopolitan food scene to continue to thrive.

Our farming standards are amongst some of the very best in the world.  It’s imperative that we support them and keep the industry thriving & alive during a time when hospitality is struggling and so many sources of income are denied to farmers & producers in Britain during the current situation.

How sad would it be to have a future generation not being able to experience the thrill of food and love that so many of us had and have.  Or even to be able to discover it for the first time. I am so proud to be an Ambassador for Love British Food & to be able in my own small way to literally ‘Put My Money Where My Mouth Is’ & proudly buy British.

Jane Devonshire won MasterChef UK in 2016 & is now an Ambassador for Coeliac UK and publisher of two cookbooks Hassle Free Gluten Free & Vegetarian Hassle Free Gluten Free.

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