Harrogate Terry and Mason's Great Food Trip

-Good morning.

-And would you very kindly wish my daughter

-a happy 18th?

-Of course. Happy 18th.

-Thank you.

-Happy birthday.

-I think that's really lovely.

-Nice to see you.

Listened to you growing up.

-Still got it.

-You've still got it, mate.

It never went away.

It's taken 50 years in broadcast, but I finally cracked it.

A chance to meander around the country,

see the sights, meet the people.

And, oh, yes, eat and drink.

Is melt in the mouth a suitable phrase?

I've hailed a cab with one of London's finest cabbies,

Mason McQueen,

to steer me around Britain's highways and byways.

I'm looking forward to a decent meal, are you?

Oh, I'm starving, I can't wait, Tel.

Our route has been mapped out by an adventurous gourmand,

Samuel Chamberlain, in his book,

British Bouquet.

Almost 60 years later, we're following in his footsteps...

I'll do all the work, Tel.

..To seek out weird and wonderful regional British cuisine

and discover how our tastes have changed over the years.

Do it right, son.

Apparently, when they had tea here, they'd have a dish of tea,

because if the tea was too hot, they'd drink it off the saucer.

Mm. So much better.

Our wanderings have brought us

to the venerable spa town of Harrogate, in Yorkshire.

A place so chock-full of gourmet delights

we may never need to eat again.

Well, here we come but we're in Harrogate.

"Harrogate can be charming to the loveliest of gardens,

"an astonishing large stretch of immaculate green lawn

"known as The Stray."

This is probably The Stray that we're going through at the moment.

I'm only surprised that I don't see anybody playing cricket.

I thought that you couldn't live in Yorkshire unless you played cricket.

Michael Parkinson assured me of that and so did Geoffrey Boycott.

Our guide, Sam Chamberlain, didn't mention any sign of cricket either

but being an American, maybe he didn't know what to look out for.

He was, however, fulsome in his praise of what he called

"the most comfortable city in Yorkshire,

"possessing the loveliest of gardens."

This is the best kept town we've been in, isn't it?

In terms of green space, flowers.

And you know what else they say?

It's one of the most desired places to live in the country.

-Is it? I can believe that.

-Harrogate.

You don't think somebody said, "The place is looking a bit scruffy,

"Mason and Terry are coming, we'll tidy it up?"

I think it's like it all the time here.

First stop on this Harrogate food trip is best described

as a Yorkshire icon.

Bang in the centre of town, Betty's

welcomes two and a half million customers every year

through its glamorous Art Deco front doors.

And here we are. Betty's.

-Hm, famous place, this.

-Oh, is it?

Yeah, old Betty's tea rooms.

-Shall we go in?

-Yeah.

You think they'd welcome us?

You may be surprised to hear that Betty's was founded

not by an apple-cheeked Yorkshire lass

but a moustachioed Swiss gentleman called Frederick Belmont,

who fetched up in Yorkshire in 1907, got a job as a confectioner,

and the rest is history.

-Hello, good morning.

-Good morning.

-Wow.

-So this is Betty's.

-This is it. You've arrived.

-And what's your name?

-My name's Karen.

-Karen, we're delighted to see you.

-What a selection.

-Yeah.

-What are these here?

-These are our fat rascals...

-Do you know what she called you?

-Oh, that's a fat rascal...

-That's a fat rascal.

Karen, would you mind not giving him opportunities like that?

-No.

-What's the fat rascal made out of?

It's a mixture between a scone and a rock cake.

-Beautiful.

-What are these?

They're our Yorkshire curd tarts.

That's a baked cheesecake with lemon curd,

currants and nutmeg in there, so those are fantastic.

So how long has Betty's been open, Karen?

Since 1919, it set off as a shop in Harrogate,

and we've now got six branches right throughout the north of Yorkshire.

Have you put on weight, Karen, since you started working here?

Have I put on weight?

I tend to lose weight.

That was, if you don't mind me saying so,

the most ungallant question of the entire series.

The woman is as thin as a rake.

Slim is a rake I think is what you're looking for.

Got it wrong again.

'Time, as they say, for a swift exit.'

The thing that Harrogate is really famous for, of course,

is the mineral-rich springs.

From the 17th century onwards,

people have been coming here from far and wide to take the cure

and, in the process, make Harrogate one of the most prosperous towns

in the North of England.

Now, sulphurous water isn't normally high on my list of must-tries,

and it looks like it's been a long time

since anyone else was tempted either.

God, I can smell it.

Oh. "Do not drink or consume.

"This water is not fit for drinking or consumption."

I can believe that when you smell it.

Cor, smell that.

Terry, you let one go?

With the faint whiff of drains still lingering in our nostrils,

we happily return to the job in hand -

our quest to seek out and scoff Harrogate's signature dishes.

And our next target is just around the corner.

It has everything here. Look at this.

This is the most incredible sweet shop I've ever been in in my life.

Farrah's of Harrogate was established in 1840,

and they currently stock over 250 different sweets and chocolates.

-Look at all that liquorice.

-This is dental bills.

Salt, honey.

-Coconut, oh, they're my favourites. Look.

-Honey liquorice.

-Coconut rolls.

-Yeah, never get them out of your teeth.

-Yeah.

But the flavour we've come in search of is Harrogate toffee,

the original and most famous creation.

It's been made the same way since 1840.

And if you've tried the...been across to the...

-tried the water, the Harrogate spa water...

-Yeah.

..historically had healing properties

and doesn't taste very nice,

so the Harrogate toffee was designed to combat the taste

of the spa waters.

Where's your toffee?

Well, this is the toffee, that's the Harrogate toffee there.

Like to try a piece?

It's a cross between a butterscotch and a barley sugar.

And why is it so special?

What's it made of that makes it different from other toffee?

Well, there's three different types of sugar in it.

-There isn't any...

-Three different types of sugar?

Three different types of sugar, yeah.

But it doesn't have any condensed milk,

which normally makes a toffee chewy.

The Harrogate toffee is unique, it's more like a boiled sweet.

-It's a cross between...

-So it is, I'm expecting to chew it.

-Absolutely, yeah. No, it's...

-Is that one of the original tins?

Yeah, that one there is about 100 years old.

These things, though, you know, the men of Harrogate

would have gone off to war with these, wouldn't they?

-Yes.

-A bit of a reminder of where they come from and home...

-Yeah.

-A taste of home.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There is a story about one of the tins saving a man's life,

that he got...he was shot, but the bullet went into the tin.

And then he might have opened it and gone,

"Oh, that's hard, this toffee."

Have you ever been to Harrogate before, Mason?

No, I've been to Haringey.

Oh, Haringey, yeah, not quite the same thing.

Not been to Harrogate.

The Eurovision Song Contest was here in 1982.

The Eurovision Song Contest was in Harrogate?

Yeah, 1982.

I kind of remember it was won

by either a German or an Austrian girl,

and the song was called Ein Bisschen Frieden.

A Little Freedom. That's what it was called.

Did you have that little mic? You know that little mic you...?

-No, that's Blankety Blank, you eejit.

-Oh, sorry.

While I was performing my onerous Eurovision duties,

I stayed at a famous Harrogate landmark, The Old Swan inn,

which has one very remarkable claim to fame.

In 1926, it was the chosen hideout of world-famous crime novelist

Agatha Christie.

Then just 36 years old, she'd run away from her home in Kent,

sparking a media frenzy.

There is, of course, the tremendous story, isn't there,

of the great disappearance of Agatha Christie?

And she was discovered here, wasn't she?

In 1926, yes.

Why did she run away, do you think?

Well, there were several stories that were put about,

but what seems to be the truth was that she had just had enough

of conditions at home.

She'd found that her husband was having an affair,

and she was devoted to him.

So she came up here and hid.

Surely she would have known that she'd be spotted?

They did recognise her, yes.

But because of the tradition here of respecting privacy,

of not impinging on the guests' presence in Harrogate,

people kept quiet.

But there was this tremendous nationwide hunt for Agatha Christie,

and people still kept quiet up here.

People kept quiet in Harrogate because they knew the value

of encouraging important guests to come back again and again

and bring their money into the town.

Do you know?

My opinion of Harrogate gets higher and higher all the time.

Discretion may be Harrogate's watchword, mine is lunch.

This is Dan, who is the chef here at The Old Swan.

What have we got here?

What concoction are you going to do for me?

Today, we're going to do some Harrogate blue cheese beignets

with rhubarb jam.

For those of you who don't get out much,

a beignet is basically a fritter -

tasty enough in it's own right, but Dan's upped the ante

with melted cheese.

-Harrogate blue, is that famous?

-It's quite a young cheese.

I think created in 2012.

Excellent. So tell me what you're going to do.

OK. So we've made a basic choux pastry.

This is the raw dough.

And into that, we add some of the blue cheese.

So, I hear about when people were coming here for the waters to

purge themselves of all impurities.

I hear that they would have...

the good menu, which would keep them on the straight and narrow.

But if they felt a bit hungry, they would have menu B.

-Yeah, I believe so.

-Do you still do that?

-No, no. We just have...

-indulgent menus these days.

-Do you?

-Yeah, it's not about health.

-You're not obsessed with health?

-No.

-And then we just deep fry them.

-And how will you serve these?

I'm going to serve them on a rocket and toasted pine nut salad.

With a little pot of rhubarb jam.

I should be trying to eat it myself, of course,

and force a little down for Mason McQueen.

But he's a man of slightly unsophisticated tastes,

so we may have to instruct him how to eat it properly.

The important thing about a beignet is to eat it hot.

Which means a quick sprint to the dining room table.

Good afternoon.

This is the Harrogate blue cheese beignet with rhubarb jam.

-Thank you, Dan.

-You're welcome.

-Did he make these, Dan, or...?

-He oversaw production.

-He oversaw production.

That's good enough for me.

Good man.

-This is Harrogate blue cheese.

-Yeah.

-In a beignet.

Which, as the world knows, fried French thing.

HE LAUGHS

-Lovely. That's an unusual mixture.

-Oh, it's fantastic.

It goes well, doesn't it?

I'd eat this for breakfast.

Having stuffed our faces on cheese doughnuts,

it's time to do as the Victorians would have done

and pay a visit to the Royal Turkish baths.

Built in late Victorian times, it's one of the most recognisable

buildings in Harrogate, even if it wasn't to our guide's tastes.

"The Royal Baths, a building completed in 1897,

"is an absolute museum of architectural horrors."

Is that what he said?!

TERRY LAUGHS

He didn't hold back, did he, Chamberlain?

We'll be the judge of that, Chamberlain!

A quick look around inside and any qualms about the baths'

exterior are banished.

And the people who work here seem to love the place.

Have a look at this. What do you think? Isn't it fabulous?

I mean, look at the floors. All these Italian marble floors.

And who did the Islamic drawings and...?

There was a competition to design the Royal Baths building,

and this was the outcome of it.

The idea was to replicate Turkish baths in Turkey, of course.

When the baths were opened in 1897,

they offered a range of different, rather unappealing looking

therapies involving a lot of water and mud.

Not forgetting those malodorous, medicinal waters.

The reason Victorians came here was mainly to purge them.

The sulphur water was known as a purgative, which is

precisely why all the hotels were clustered around the pump room.

It was a very explosive purgative, so you had to run very quickly.

-Many an accident on the road?

-Oh, probably.

-Ooh.

-So, Christine, who were the main users of the baths?

-Very rich people.

Probably mill owners and their families from Bradford and Leeds,

of course, because that's where the money was in the North of England.

But you had to be very rich. It cost two shillings to come in here.

-As much as that?

-Which was half a working man's wage for a week.

We may have passed on the purge, but I'm well up for the Turkish baths.

But viewers of a nervous disposition can breathe easily

because we shall be remaining fully clothed.

Right, if you come this way now, we are going into the main

part of the building. And you'll feel it's getting much hotter.

-Oh, the heat in here... Look at all that wonderful tiling.

-Yeah.

-Beautiful tiles.

-Terrific!

-Now you're going to get even hotter.

-Whoa!

-Come with me.

-This is hot stuff, Mason.

-This is what you've been looking for.

-Wow, this is...

-I can feel the heat. Ah, lovely.

-I'm losing weight even as I stand here.

This is only the tepidarium. 45 degrees Celsius.

-It's going to get warmer?

-Oh, it is.

The walls are all made of glazed bricks which retain the heat.

-If you feel them, you can feel how warm they are.

-They certainly are.

This is the laconicum and this room is 70 degrees Celsius.

And the noise that you can hear is the heat being blown up that

empty wall from the basement with a boiler.

It used to be coal-fired, it's now gas-fired.

-How are you feeling after this?

-I'm feeling purged.

I must've lost half a stone.

So that means there will be more room for eating a little bit later.

-Oh, yes.

-What you think?

Finally, we arrive back at our starting point -

the frigidarium.

Which is actually a very pleasant 27 degrees.

-So, Christine, we've been through the mill, haven't we?

-Very much so.

-We've been through the heat.

-Yes.

-And now back in relative cool.

Do think we should be lying down?

I think you should certainly have a lie down.

-I think we should get you a robe and make you comfortable.

-Please.

-Well, this has been restful, hasn't it, Mason?

-Yeah.

I could do with a break. It's been go, really.

Go, go, go in the all-black taxi, and forcing food down.

You've done nothing, Wogan.

You've sat in the back and I've done all the driving,

so what are you moaning about?

I should be relaxing.

HE LAUGHS

No danger you'd stay quiet for a while, is there?

-So we could all relax.

-I know that I'm getting peckish, though.

-You hungry too?

-You think there's a prospect of more food?

Then we'll have to come back in here and get re-purged!

LAUGHS: The process starts again.

Oh, God! It's endless!

We're going to spend the rest of our lives in Harrogate.

In the Turkish baths.

Where are you bringing me now?

Taylors of Harrogate, since 1886.

-Oh, big tea people.

-IN COCKNEY ACCENT:

-A nice cuppa tea.

A nice cuppa tea. Do I say... Do I talk like that?

-I don't talk like that.

-You talk exactly like that.

I don't talk like that!

That was my Mason McQueen impersonation there.

There's one thing I can do - I can drive a cab

and I can drink a helluva lot of tea.

As you well know, we are

on a mission to seek out the finest flavours this town has to offer,

and nothing, nothing due here is going to stand in our way.

The only problem is I'm not too keen on tea.

I am a bit more of a coffee man myself, but you won't catch me

complaining.

How could we possibly come to Harrogate without going to see

and taste Taylors?

Taylors of Harrogate, teas famous throughout the world.

And you're the man who knows all about it, Will.

-A little bit, yes. A little bit.

-I bet you know it all.

Charles Taylor, who started this company,

made his name by instructing people on how to make the perfect cuppa.

Which apparently depends as much on the type of water coming

out of the tap as the type of tea you put in the pot.

So, the water here, just to get it clear, is soft?

-Soft water Harrogate.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Excellent.

Now going to show you teas in both hard and soft water.

Come on, you love it. You love the stuff.

Hopefully you will see a stark difference.

You see these first two teas? These are exactly the same teas.

-One is in hard water, one is in soft water.

-What a difference!

This one is a soft water. Very bright and golden.

-This one is a lot darker.

-Extraordinary.

The hard water strips away a lot of the brightness and briskness.

It's important to get a tea to suit your water,

and that's basically the principles we've built the business on.

-See if it suits your water.

-So when we are tasting teas,

basically 98% of the UK take milk with their tea.

When we are tasting teas, we taste with milk

-cos that's the way people drink it.

-Yeah.

I'll demonstrate first and explain.

Excuse me, are you going to be doing a bit of spitting?

-Yeah, I am going to do a bit of spitting.

-Hang on.

-Excuse me.

Keep it away from my trousers.

HE SLURPS

-OK, so that's how we taste.

-He-hey! That's good. I like that.

I'm standing well back here.

-So, yeah, you can drink it if you like.

-Missed. He missed!

-Sorry!

-Yeah, you got to be careful with your shoes.

There could be six of us around this.

Excuse me, I'll just clean that up if I may.

LAUGHS: He don't even like tea. He told me.

But I can spit straight.

THEY LAUGH

Having recognised our obvious talents as tea tasters,

Will quickly moves on to more sophisticated brews.

-So those first ones you tasted were CTC teas, tea bag teas.

-OK.

Now we're onto orthodox. You can see the leaf's a lot bigger.

We've got a black tea, green tea and a white tea.

Usually people thought they came from different plants, but no.

They all come from the same bush, the Camellia sinensis bush.

HE SLURPS

You might get some fruity aromas on that.

I like that and I don't even like tea.

That looks like wine, that's why he's good at drinking that one.

And this last one, so very rare this last tea - the white tea.

It's only picked for the first few weeks of the year.

God, this is the most dangerous job we've ever done.

I'll never look at a cup of tea the same, Will.

Having drunk enough of our national drink to sink several battleships,

we leave town and head north in search of fresh curiosities,

and we find them...

on the banks of the River Nidd in an ancient limestone cave

famous for being one of the oldest tourist attractions in England.

Oh, we've been to some funny places, Mason, in this particular tour.

-What's this?

-What is this?

Well, apparently it's water that calcifies things

so they hang things up, and the things here calcify.

-Like that bicycle.

-What?

-Yeah.

Unusual, Tel, eh?

Mother Shipton's cave is named after an old crone who lived

here in the 15th century and prophesied, among other things,

the Armada, the Great Fire of London and the invention of iron ships.

But could she have predicted she would one day get a visit

from an Irishman and a Cockney on the lookout for the next meal?

Ooh, who have we here?

-Welcome, sire.

-Gracious madam.

Mother Shipton is my name.

-I welcome you to my cave.

-This is Mason McQueen...

-Hiya.

-How you doing?

-Very well, sire.

..whose already frightened silly of you.

-Well, I haven't told you anything yet, have I?

-That's a big blackbird.

-Yes.

-Do you predict the future then, Mother Shipton?

-I do.

I have been known to.

-And other things?

-And other things, too.

Some say I'm a seer, some say I'm a witch. Especially as I have a raven.

I may be neither, I may be both.

Would one of you gentlemen like to hold the raven?

Yeah, my doctor told me not to hold any ravens.

-This is all very Game Of Thrones, isn't it?

-It is.

Just clench your fist.

Turn it that way. Go straight so she's very near you.

-We don't want the raven taking your eye out.

-Ooh!

-Oh, look at that.

-She likes you.

-Ooh.

She likes you.

As well as raven petting, Mother Shipton's cave also offers

an opportunity to have your dearest wish granted.

But it's quite an involved process.

You need to squeeze into a crevice, dip your hand in the water

and memorise a poem.

All at the same time.

-Use your right hand.

-OK.

-All right?

-Right.

You go first.

So by this wish I made...

I'll do it again.

And so a wish...

No, I can't do it.

And so a wish by Shipton's well

I make but will never tell.

That's good. That's good. Don't dry...don't dry it.

-You mustn't dry it.

-Oh, sorry.

-You got to let it dry naturally.

HE EXHALES AND BLOWS

Done.

-What was the wish?

-You can't tell anyone!

-It says on there you can't tell anyone.

-OK.

-No, you can't tell anyone your wish.

-All right, all right.

You'd never believe me, but it turns out we both

wished for the same thing because, as if by magic, more food appeared!

In the form of sloe gin and squirrel pate,

straight from Mother Shipton's larder.

-That will be the locally caught squirrel.

-Yeah. Would you like some?

Yeah. A great British tradition, sloe gin.

As is eating squirrel.

Mm.

-It's tasty.

-Yeah. Put a little raw garlic on.

-Tel.

They've got it all here. Wow.

Nice.

Sloe gin to you, son.

One of the finest of sights in this fine country of ours

is the glorious vision of a rape field in golden bloom.

The one we are actually looking at could one day rival the olive

groves of Italy because cold-pressed rapeseed oil is fast

taking over as the chef and foodies' oil du jour.

The final stop on our Harrogate food journey brings us to the

Wharfe Valley, ten miles south of the town,

to meet Jeff and Sallyann Kilby, newly minted rapeseed oil barons.

We started off with Jeff taking the orders on the tractor,

and then I'd come home from work, and we'd bottle the oil

and send it out and we've sort of grown from there.

-This is how great businesses are built, isn't it?

-Yeah.

So, I'm seeing more and more rapeseed oil on the shelves and that,

and it's become more popular.

If you look on, I would say, 60% of foods,

you'll find that it contains rapeseed oil.

If it says vegetable oil,

-then nine times out of ten, it'll be rapeseed oil.

-Is it good for you?

Absolutely. Ten times more omega-3 than olive oil.

-Half the saturated fat.

-Half the saturated fat.

And a much higher burning point.

-And would you use it in cooking?

-Absolutely.

And would you use it the way that they do olive oil? Could we put it

in a little bowl and have some bread with it before dinner?

You can.

-Instead of butter.

-Absolutely.

-You'll be having some shortly, I'm sure.

-Yeah.

With my appetite well and truly whetted,

we head back to the farmhouse, where local chef Katie Holmes

is in mid-preparation of our farewell to Harrogate dinner.

There's beef - slow-roasted ox cheek to be precise.

Crisp onion rings, chips, roast cherry tomatoes.

Just the words are making my mouth water.

But there is one fly in the ointment.

As we are in Yorkshire, I was thinking about doing some

Yorkshire puddings.

Yorkshire pudding, ey?

OK.

-I'm not enthusiastic about Yorkshire pudding.

-Really? Why not?

Well, it's kind of dough and a bit of...

..thick gravy.

You've got to be very careful about what you say

cos we are quite patriotic about our Yorkshire puddings.

-How can you be patriotic about a pudding?

-Well, you'll see.

-OK.

Well, go on, do your worst.

So, I use my grandma's recipe for Yorkshire puddings.

Lots of people, I'm sure, would have a modern recipe,

-but why improve on perfection?

-Absolutely.

-So I do one egg to 1oz of flour, to 2oz of milk.

-Excellent.

-You need a strong wrist for this, don't you?

-Yep.

-Good.

-I'm a good farmer's daughter, though.

-You are.

-Great.

We would traditionally do this in beef dripping,

but the rapeseed oil is a fantastic substitute.

Now that's interesting.

It also gives it a really gorgeous shine on the Yorkshire pudding.

-So, Katie, can I leave you to do this?

-I think I'm...

-Without me helping you. Will you be all right?

-Ooh, I'm not sure.

I'll give you a shout if I need you.

What finer way to end this Harrogate food trip than a slap-up meal

around a farmhouse table.

Katie has done us proud.

Katie, this looks almost good enough to eat.

-And the cheek is lovely, isn't it?

-Is it tender?

-Oh!

You could eat it with a spoon, couldn't you?

Do you know what I really like about this?

A complete lack of Yorkshire pudding.

Well, the Yorkshire pudding is coming for dessert.

We have pudding for dessert.

-The world has gone mad.

-THEY LAUGH

Oh, fantastic. Look at that. Yorkshire pudding and rhubarb. Ha-ha!

I'm going in with fingers here, Tel.

We eat Yorkshire puddings all the time.

Mm. Wow, this is really tasty.

Wouldn't put these two together - rhubarb and Yorkshire pudding.

Well, nobody sensible would. Outside of Yorkshire.

You make no mistake. That's absolutely delicious.

-Harrogate.

-Beautiful. Utopia.

-I liked it, yeah.

Very nice and tidy.

Just shows how old-fashioned we're getting, doesn't it?

-Too tidy for the likes of me and you.

-Yeah. Where are we off to?

Who knows? Look, whatever you're going to do, take this away,

-will you?

-OK.

And I'll go and make my own way home.

Off to pastures new.