AREA FOCUS The Kingdom of Fife reveals its incredible natural larder at Bowhouse market, we find top tweed togs for larger ladies in Lochgelly and try out walks for all abilities
As locally-sourced food becomes increasingly popular, Stephanie Abbot finds out how Bowhouse Market is helping people to adopt the ‘Fife Diet’
62
More than ever, we are asking questions about the origins of the food we buy and eat. People are taking a closer look at the journey our grub makes right from production to plate and exactly what happens during each stage of that process. Each and every food group in the consumer spectrum has come under the spotlight; from vegans to regular meat eaters, vegetarians and the increasingly popular ‘flexitarian’ – someone who eats a mostly vegetarian diet with the occasional meaty dish here and there. Many are considering where their food comes from as we wake up to the reality of how our food choices can affect everything from our own well-being to the local economy, animal welfare standards and the global environment.
Concerned with the negative impact our food choices might be having, in 2007, one man – Mike Small – challenged himself and a small group of other people to only eat food sourced from Fife for an entire year, and so the Fife Diet was born. It became the largest local food movement in Europe, inspiring other parts of Scotland to give it a go and ultimately opening people’s eyes to the wealth of fantastic produce on their doorstep. Buying locally is an essential part of supporting the Davids in a food industry so heavily dominated by Goliaths. However, for many, the ability to access a full range of quality produce can be problematic.
As a way of removing any existing hurdles and continuing to promote Fife’s food gems, Toby Anstruther – owner of Balcaskie Estate – came up with Bowhouse. Located in the East Neuk of Fife, this latest addition to the food scene is working towards filling a gap in the food supply chain by making life easier for local businesses and people who want to get their hands on the ingredients actually grown and produced in Fife. Bowhouse provides a dedicated space for producers to operate in permanently, as well as a large covered market space where consumers and producers alike can discover, sample and buy local produce.
‘It’s about connecting people back to the land,’ says estate manager Sam Parsons. ‘This area of Fife has got amazing produce but it’s really hard for the people who produce it to get it back to the marketplace because we are a long way from processors. The farming in this area tends to sell to big processors and it goes away. You can see vegetables and things growing locally but if you’re a restaurateur, you can’t actually buy it.’
And for the businesses who have a permanent base at Bowhouse ‘the small
scale start-up units enable them to take their business from a relatively small scale into a unit which is already prepared, complete with environmental health officer inspections. So they weren’t having to get over all those hurdles, they could move in and start producing food right away’, Sam added.
One such business is run by Clement Boucherit, who launched Langoustine The Box in March 2017. ‘When I arrived in Scotland from France in 2014, we thought ‘oh great, we’ll be able to buy a lot of local langoustine, lobster and crab, but it wasn’t possible. You had to know the manager of the Fisherman’s Mutual Association to ask if you could buy some and it wasn’t very handy. After working for the cooperative, I did some market surveys for them with the idea of setting up a direct selling outlet. A lot of people said they’d love to have a place where they could sample and buy langoustines, crab and lobster from the east coast so after a couple of years I decided to go for it myself and now the cooperative is very keen on having someone like me on board talking about their langoustines.’
Businesses can source their ingredients directly from the Balcaskie Estate itself or use the grounds as a means in which to grow what they need. Flower farmer Sarah Hunter owner of Keeping The Plot, grows her flowers on a two-acre site behind the Bowhouse building itself and as well as selling her flowers at the food markets, Sarah often creates entrance displays for the
event. Scotland The Bread also utilise the available space by growing three different kinds of heritage wheat in some of the surrounding fields to create nutritional flour that was common in 19th century Scotland but had been lost and forgotten over the years.
Another Bowhouse resident is Minick Butchers, a familyrun company which has seven butchers shops across Fife with Stuart Minick at the helm. ‘It’s all about traceability, good farmers doing the right thing and everything being done up to a standard, not down to a price. There’s a vibrancy about Bowhouse and it’s different. It ties me in with Balcaskie and gives me access to good beef, good lamb and it’s great. I was speaking to the guy that does milling. How cool would it be to get oats done here for our haggis? It’s things like that which are exciting.’
It seems the link between field to fork runs right through the Bowhouse ethos as businesses are actively looking for ways in which they can work together, whether that’s the new pizza
“The link between field to fork runs right through the Bowhouse ethos
cafe using flour from Scotland The Bread in their dough or the butcher using their oats in its haggis. You don’t have to speak to the organisers or producers at Bowhouse for very long to understand that this group of people are very passionate about what they do and even more so about sharing it with others.
Bowhouse’s food market has already proved a big success as word spreads and visitors enjoy the street food quarter, which features a range of delicious food and drink. and live music. The market itself hosts some of Scotland’s best artisan producers, selling everything from seaweed butter and edible flowers to cupcakes, jam and soaps.
With plans for further development, Bowhouse might just prove to be the missing link that both conscientious consumers and producers have been looking for in the kingdom of food.