Cookbook writers hope to walk off with top prize

Ramblers Rewards was written by friends Elizabeth Guy and Pat Kirkbride after Wensleydale Foods, a Leyburn-based company they both worked at, went bust in 2007.

The pair, who both live in the Upper Dales, decided to write the book inspired by Alfred Wainwright’s 200 mile Coast to Coast walk, and used recipes with ingredients produced along the way – from Whitby fish, to locally-brewed beer to traditional Yorkshire Dales lamb.

The book was published in September last year and before Christmas, the pair discovered it was the UK winner of the prestigious Edouard Cointreau Gourmand World Cookbook award.

Now today they have travelled to Paris to find out if they win in the international finals of the competition – which is entered by books from 146 countries.

“We were both utterly surprised when we heard,” said Elizabeth, a 45-year-old mother-of-three, of Askrigg, near Hawes.

“We did not enter the competition, they just find the books so we had no idea we were in it.

“But to be going to Paris is fabulous and we are both very excited.

“We have been friends a very long time and when the company went bust the book seemed the right thing to do.

“The business just ran out of money and it was terrible, but I remember the day it was announced Pat went out and bought flowers and champagne and said it will be fine.

“I have always loved cooking. My mum was a cookery teacher and we grew up in a classic Dales farm house and food was a really important part of our lives.

“Pat walks all the time and did a lot with the producers in the book – I just did the food.”

Another Wensleydale cook book is also hitting the shelves, after it was announced that The Wallace and Gromit cook book has been launched to mark the animated duo’s 15-year relationship with the Wensleydale Creamery in the Yorkshire Dales. The cheese is in the final stages of an application to the European Union for protected food status.