FOOD MILEAGE

Catch up on the latest openings, eats and reads around the world with travel editor Rhiannon Batten

Latest global foodie travel trends

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Few nations do food-specific festivals as wholeheartedly as the French. If you’re looking for a Gallic foodie weekend with a difference, make your way to the small Normandy town of Mortagne-au-Perche between 13-15 March to join the celebrations surrounding the local speciality – black pudding. The Foire au Boudin de Mortagne centres on a prize for the best of the local delicacy but also offers the chance to try the stuff in anything from bite-sized apple and boudin noir toasts to tart toppings. Make a weekend of it by staying over at Maison Maleyrand, a chic b&b in the town that serves breakfasts packed with fresh bakes. maisonmaleyrand.com; en.normandie-tourisme.fr

Read

This month’s publication of Giffords Circus Cookbook: Recipes & Stories from a Magical Circus Restaurant will be bittersweet for many readers, following the death of the circus’s co-founder, Nell Gifford, last December. Whether you are an avid Giffords Circus-goer, a fan of the restaurant, Circus Sauce, that pops up alongside it across village greens in the south of England (headed by chef Ols Halas), or just eager to get a flavour of the circus and its journey through the English countryside, the book is a fittingly vibrant tribute to Nell. Not least its distinctive recipes: think pork belly baps with poached rhubarb, braised beef short ribs with sticky dates and hazelnuts or rum babas with roast pineapple (£27, Quadrille).

Book

An elegant bolthole in Spain’s Alt Penedès, around an hour’s drive west of Barcelona,

La Masia Alt Penedès is hosting a series of culinary retreats throughout the year, from food styling and photography to foraging and cooking. The courses are highend (prices start from 910 for four nights, excluding flights) but we feel they’re worth considering for a bucket-list trip. Not least the Food and Travel Writing Retreat, running 20-24 April, which is hosted by O contributors and Barcelona locals, Tara Stevens and Sally Davies. As well as staying at the 17th-century farmhouse, and days spent workshopping and writing, participants can enjoy local, organic food and wines, hands-on cooking and dips in a natural swimming pool. lamasiaaltpenedes.com