Our first course was a Hearty Chilli Con Carne, (now that’s what you call a starter!), cooked using the ‘Tomato & Chilli’ sauce from ‘Seeds of Change’ and great tasting with a not too over-powering kick. Following the chilli was a medley of dishes to sample including a lamb ragu, which was fragrant, clean and cooked in the ‘Mediterranean Vegetable’ sauce; red pesto crusted lamb fillet, cooked perfectly and rolled in a Red Pesto sauce, topped with breadcrumbs and parmesan; and finally stuffed red peppers with garden vegetables in a parmesan and fresh herbs sauce. The flavours were immaculate, as was the cooking, and the feeling of eating nothing but organic ingredients, combined with the less acidic taste normally associated with non-organic sauces, was very satisfying.
Dawson has to be the tallest chef I have ever met, and had I known that eating organic ingredients religiously would have resulted in making you a giant then I would have converted a long time ago. He is clearly passionate about sourcing and using the best organic ingredients available. Dawson as a top chef and a father takes the responsibility of being in charge over what people consume very seriously, alluding to parenthood being a point where people convert to organic ingredients. Will I choose organic when I buy my child’s first meal? I think I will.
Having finished sampling the range of sauces we moved on to the ‘dirt tasting’ demonstration by Bob Sherman. The principle makes perfectly good sense. It’s logical that there are different types of soil around the United Kingdom and these soil types will produce different qualities in growing certain vegetables. Relief arrived with the statement that nobody would in fact be eating the soil samples, instead a sample would be mixed with water in a wine glass and then smelt by the participants. This is a demonstration that has been tried in the USA but this was the first ‘dirt tasting’ in the United Kingdom.
Seeds and dirt aside, where did the bitter taste come from? This was the first ‘dirt tasting’ to be held in the United Kingdom and the logic behind the demonstration is firm. Ideally one would have thought that such a demonstration would have been enough of a carrot to dangle in front of the faces of foodies, writers and bloggers, yet the attendance for the event was rather abysmal. Dawson is a passionate chef and Sherman is a passionate horticulturist, there you would have hoped that there would have been a similar passion represented by the writing community.
Donwload the Seeds of Change recipe PDF here