Thursday 21 January 

Think I may have over done it on sausages!
Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon judging Herefordshire's finest in the county's Sizzle Off as part of the West Midlands Tastiest Sausage Competition hosted by HEART of ENGLAND fine foods. One of the sponsors is AGA, so it was held at Hills of Ledbury which you can imagine with all those ovens certainly made for a warm welcome.
It was touch and go though whether the sizzle off would take place bearing in mind null woke again to snow, and most of the twenty entries of sausages stuck on a hill just outside of Bromyard. Thank goodness for farmers I say, and thank you to the one who set our bangers free.
Bit late starting but we all got there and seven judges including yours truly had to make the tough decision who would go forward to represent Herefordshire in the Grand Final in Birmingham next Thursday.
I’ve done my fair share of judging, from canines and cows to cakes and children’s fancy dress (which has to be the most scary), but to judge a sausage was a new one for me. Each entry from ten of the county’s top butchers arrived on a plate, labelled only with a number so not to divulge the source. We judged each one at a time marking out of ten for taste, internal appearance and texture. Each sample delivered on a cocktail stick and big enough to get the full effect. Thinking about it now, twenty pieces of large sausage, revisiting some of them to make sure we were happy with our individual choices, I bet in the end we each had six full size bangers !
If you think we were sausaged out, our head judge John Holden is present at all seven sizzle offs and will be again at the grand final held in Birmingham next Thursday. No wonder he is affectionately known as ‘Mr Sausage’
For those of us who just concentrated on Herefordshire, my fellow judges were Neil Chambers from Hand Made Scotch Eggs Company, Andy Link Head Chef at The Riverside Inn at Aymestrey, Dick Makin who farms at Wellington, Liz Hill from Herefordshire Council and Nick Orgil from Hills Aga, it’s fair to say we had fun.
It was a close competition, but delighted to say the winners were :
Tastiest Breakfast Sausage
Winner - Quarry Farm Shop at Nordan near Leominster
Highly Commended - RE Williams from Weobley.
Commended - Paul Lewis Family Butchers Kington
Tastiest Speciality Sausage
Winner – Legges of Bromyard with their Black Pudding and Apple sausage
Highly Commended – Paul Lewis Family Butchers Kington with Pork, Black pudding & bacon sausage
Commended – RE Williams with pork, smoked bacon, tomato & Worcestershire Sauce sausage
Well done to them and good luck in Birmingham. It was a great day and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but have to admit it wasn’t sausages for tea!