Taste Awards 2010: Seeking the top tastes from region

Food producers and food lovers are invited to be part of our annual celebration of Yorkshire food and drink. The Yorkshire Post Taste Yorkshire Food Awards 2010, in association with the York Food & Drink Festival, aims to applaud the people who make a living from growing and baking and brewing and producing world-class foodstuffs.

This year, food lovers also have an opportunity to decide who they think is best by voting in a Reader Award poll. All the Taste Awards winners will be announced at a dinner at York Guildhall, at the climax to the York festival, which runs at various venues in the city from September 17-26.

The awards are open to food producers from anywhere within the county who sell their foods commercially. There is no entry fee.

There are six judged categories:

Butchers and meat

Dairy

Growers

Handmade (jams, pickles, chocolates, etc)

Local brew

Pies

This year members of the public are also invited to cast a vote by taking part in tastings designed to find a winner for the Reader Award. During the festival they will be invited to taste from a shortlist of products from the six judged categories drawn up by a panel headed by Michael Hjort, the director of the York Food Festival. Michael is an independent chef restaurateur of

Melton's and Melton's Too,

in York.

If you are a producer and would like to enter the Taste Awards, this is what to do:

Enter quickly and easily online via the Yorkshire Post website at www.yorkshire post.co.uk/taste

Alternatively, telephone 0113 238 8956 to request an entry form by post.

Your entry will state who you are, what your product is, where it is sold, why you think you should win. The deadline for entries is Tuesday, July 20.

The email address, if required, is michael. [email protected]

Postal entries, marked Taste Yorkshire, should be sent to Michael Hickling, Yorkshire Post, Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 1RF.

These initial entries will be filtered down by the judges to 10 in each category. If yours is successful, you will be asked to send in your product – or a small range of products – for the judges' tasting session in August.

A shortlist of finalists, three in each category, will be published in Country Week towards the end of August, and winners will be announced at the awards dinner at the Guildhall, in September. This will be followed by two pages of coverage in Country Week on the winners and runners-up and their products.

If you have any queries relating to the awards, please phone 0113 238 8956 to speak to Michael Hickling.

The rules:

All Taste Award entry forms must be submitted

to the Yorkshire Post by

July 20.

Entrants should be producers, not retailers, who make their goods in Yorkshire.

The products must be commercially available at the time of entry.

The judges' decision will be final.

The Awards Dinner on September 24 will be at the Guildhall (off St Helen's Square).

The menu will be created around produce from the southern Dales.

This incorporates beef raised on the limestone pavements around Malham as well as pork from the neighbouring Blue Pig company of Andrew and Anthony Bradley based at Mearbeck Farm, Long Preston. The "blue" pig in their case is a cross between a Gloucester Old Spot, a mainly white pig, with a Saddleback, mainly black. The result is blue/grey.

Ticket price: 45, includes aperitif and wine.

This year the festival's theme is Meet the Yorkshire Food Heroes. The festival is working with Yorkshire's National Parks, the National Trust and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust to promote sustainable producers; especially those whose work helps to maintain traditional landscapes.

Market stands, shared by producers from specific areas include: the southern Dales led by Robert Phillip of Hellifield Beef.

Robert's Highland cattle play an important role maintaining the flora of Yorkshire's limestone landscape.

A Pickering and the surrounding Moors stand will be led by Philip Trevelyan of Spaunton, an organic miller and traditional sheep farmer, plus producers in his immediate area of trout, watercress and heather honey will attend.

One event, called Eat the Landscape, co-ordinated by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, will illustrate the links between mouth-watering food and the preservation of traditional landscapes.

Individual local food heroes appearing include Michelin-starred chefs Andrew Pern of the Star Inn at Harome, and James McKenzie of the Pipe and Glass at South Dalton.

Harvest the Garden will be one in a range of events dedicated to the production of your own (or others) fruit and vegetables. Mass chutney making will be among the activities.

The full programme is available at www.yorkfood festival.com. Tickets: 01904 466687 or online at www.yorkfoodfestival.com.

CW 10/7/10