York Terry and Mason's Great Food Trip

-Are you ready, Tel?

-Yeah, I'll follow you anywhere.

Ring the bell, here we go.

-Where are we going?

-I don't know.

THEY CHUCKLE

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

The chance to meander around the country, see the sights,

meet the people, and...

Ah, 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.

Music while you grind your chocolate beans.

Who says I don't help in the process?

York - ancient capital of the North, where 2,000 years of history

can be glimpsed around every corner.

But it's York's food heritage that has brought us here today,

and we leave no stone unturned

as we seek out the true tastes of this fine city.

You know, Mason, York's been a walled city

since the days of the Romans.

"Four great fortified medieval bars and gates in fine condition."

-and, of course, York Minster.

-York Minster.

A superb building. Look at that.

Wow. Got some detail on there.

"A heady experience" seeing York Minster,

according to Chamberlain. He's right.

Magnificent.

Having parked up, we head off to mingle with the populous.

Yorkshire people are famous for their hospitality,

but we're not taking any chances.

Mason's been working on his Yorkshire accent

and I'm adopting traditional regional dress.

Time to put on the cap.

Forward.

The broad expanse of the River Ouse.

I had no idea it was as wide as this.

I've never been this far north. It's freezing.

I'm a soft Southerner.

It's never grim up North, but it can be chilly.

Let's go.

Our food adventure starts in a street that lays claim

to being one of the oldest in the country.

-This the Shambles.

-It's an absolute shambles.

-A shower.

-The shower?

These houses are nearly touching - the roofs, Terry. Look, have a look.

This is one of the strangest, weirdest streets.

-Everything looks like it's about to...

-Fall down.

-Fall over, yeah.

The Shambles used to be lined with butchers' shops.

We only found one, but I've heard that it does make its own pies,

which is music to our ears.

You're a traditional Yorkshire lass, are you?

I'd like to think so, yeah.

You've learned a bit of Yorkshire, haven't you? Go on.

-Everyone says "Ey up."

-Ey up, lass.

That's a fine pie.

There's still some work to do there, I think, Mason.

We've got enough on our plate tasting all these pork pies.

There's chilli, black pudding,

and the house speciality - confusingly called savoury duck.

-Where's the duck?

-It doesn't have any in it.

It's just an old English name and I can't even tell you why.

You'd be QUACKERS not to try that. Go on, Tel. Get it down you.

I think you're marketing this under false pretences.

Savoury duck? But there's no duck in it.

It's delicious, though.

-Who says?

-Oh, that is good, Tel.

-She could be right.

SHE LAUGHS That's good.

Kylie, can you tell us about the Shambles? Cos it's an amazing street.

Back in the day, there was a lot of butchers.

I've heard there was more than 30.

The Shambles is named after "Shamel",

which is an old Anglo-Saxon word for the shelves.

That's where they actually used to butcher the meat.

The streets ran with blood back in the day,

cos everyone slaughtered all the animals outside.

It's a far cry from health and safety, isn't it?

It's a whole new meaning to parking on the red route.

-Da-dah!

-I'll have another one of them.

Have you ever received a personalised pie before?

Look at this! Hey, Mason.

-I'll help you with that one.

-No, you can't.

-Come on.

-No, it's got my name on it.

-Don't be like that.

-It's MY name. And it says "Sir Terry" as well.

Wahey.

Only a Knight of the Realm can eat this.

I shall flaunt it in front of the present Lady Wogan.

Thank you very much.

No self-respecting foodie can come to York

without tasting the city's famous regional speciality.

-Look at all this.

-Beautiful. The Hairy

-Fig? The Hairy Fig.

-We'll give it a go.

-Give it a go.

Ham cured in the York style used to be found

on every charcuterie counter in Europe, alongside the best

that France and Spain had to offer.

Our Chamberlain was very partial to a slice in his ham sandwich.

Would you like to try?

I am prepared to sacrifice myself.

This is York ham.

-Very nice.

-Yeah.

It's the white pig, the female pig, gets older

and fatter than normal pigs.

It's butchered a different way - using four muscles instead of three.

It gets a pear shape. It has to have a pear shape.

Then it's hung for at least eight to ten weeks,

always in the winter, when the flies aren't about.

The York ham is sort of lost nowadays.

It takes a master butcher, so you only have them

probably age 60-plus, butchers that maybe dealt with York hams.

So I feel very privileged.

You're very privileged, yes, very privileged.

After so many salty taste sensations,

we've worked up a bit of a thirst.

Yorkshire has more breweries than any other county in England.

So leaving the driver to fend for himself,

I head to a likely looking hostelry for a refreshing drop.

So here we are in the House of Trembling Madness.

-Yes.

-Did you just make that up, or...is there a reason for this?

-There is a reason. The building dates back to 1180 AD.

-Really?

You're actually sat in a modern extension,

which is about 13th, 14th century.

In the Medieval times, we all had to drink ale to stay healthy.

Of course, cos the water was all terrible, yeah.

So you used to get the trembling madness.

The trembling madness being delirium tremens.

Delirium tremens, the DTs from drinking too much.

So it's all right if I have a drink here

-in this House of Trembling Madness?

-Of course.

-What's that?

This one here is an award-winning local vanilla porter

called Bad Kitty.

-It wins all the gold medal awards in the region.

-That's a great taste.

I'm not a beer drinker, but that's really nice.

Then we have a breakfast beer here. It's marmalade and Assam.

Marmalade and Assam.

Again, it's another local brew.

Oh, I like that marmalade and Assam.

Now, it takes a good one to get past me,

but I've noticed you've put a platter of cheese and bread

in front of me. I've never seen a cheese like that before.

This one here is a black charcoal cheese.

It's good for your digestion. It's a healthy cheese to have.

I hadn't realised you were such an advocate

of healthy eating and drinking.

-Second to London, loads of history here,

-Tel. Yeah, indeed.

Medieval.

To think, Tel, New York started from here, right?

-Well, it was New Amsterdam first.

-Oh, was it?

-Then it became New York.

OK. Are you pulling me up on my history?

No, we won in the end.

The next stop on this Yorkshire food adventure

takes us back in time to York's industrial past.

Unlike other Northern cities

whose fortunes were made out of cotton, steel or mining...

..York's story is altogether sweeter.

Here we go, Tel.

York Cocoa House.

-Will we give this a shot?

-Yeah, why not?

York's very famous for chocolate, so it should be worth our while.

The most famous names in British confectionary,

like Terry's and Rowntree's,

started mass production of chocolate in York in the mid-19th century.

Great Quaker families,

they were followers of the temperance movement,

and advocated chocolate as an alternative to the demon drink.

Sadly, most of these factories have now closed,

but enthusiasts like Sophie are keeping the flame alive.

We are chocolatiers and we're also chocolate makers.

That's a bit of a skill that's been lost.

That's what Rowntree's and Terry's did -

they would get the cocoa beans themselves,

they would be shipped in from countries like Venezuela,

up through the River Ouse.

Eventually they would roast them and grind them

and make them into chocolate.

So what we do here at the Cocoa House is

we show people actually how to make chocolates from the raw cocoa beans.

Are you going to be showing us?

Well, no, you're going to be doing it, I'm afraid.

-No, Mason's going to be doing it.

-Oh, OK.

-Me again?

To demonstrate her craft, Sophie is harking back to the origins

of chocolate-making as practised by the Indians of South America.

So the cocoa beans, they get roasted and we get our cocoa nibs.

-That's what these are.

-Nibs?

-Yes.

So these have been chopped up and the shell's been removed.

-Can you eat those?

-You can eat those. We use those in our cooking.

They're a bit like chocolaty nuts.

Yeah, nibs.

Mm-hmm.

So what you're going to do is help ground our cocoa nibs

and help make them into chocolate.

This is our metate.

This one is about 160 years old, from Guatemala.

Presumably this is not the way it's done in the bigger producers.

No. They do it in big factories

and they're doing it on a really large scale.

Put some elbow grease into it.

Put a bit of body into it, for goodness' sake, man.

-Come on, move yourself.

-Sorry, sorry.

Oh, that's hard work.

I always think a bit of music helps with the making of chocolate.

-No, you've got to try harder.

-Yeah, keep going.

Put him out of his misery, for goodness' sake.

-Would you like a hand?

-Yeah, go on.

It's not a surprise this was traditionally done by the women.

They would make chocolate for the warriors

before they would go out to battle.

-And lose against the Spaniards.

-Yes.

So the chocolate wasn't much good, really?

There's about two buttons there, if that.

If only the ancient Aztecs had known that chocolate tasted a lot nicer,

the more sweetness you added, then those conquistadores

might have been sent home with a flea in their ear.

Bitter.

So these are our finished products.

This is dark chocolate?

-So this is a 60% dark chocolate.

-Very good for you, apparently.

It is. It's got our cocoa nibs.

So our cocoa nibs that we were grinding earlier,

so they've got that extra chocolaty hit with it,

but we've combined this with sugar.

That makes it more palatable.

-I can eat that.

-Yeah?

That's a lot better.

Very good.

Really nice.

-Everywhere you look you've got the walls, the battlements.

-Yeah.

Remarkably preserved town, isn't it?

-Have you ever walked the Great Wall of China?

-No.

-I have.

-Not lately.

It's a bit of a slog, let me tell you that.

-I went to a Chinese in Lewisham once called that.

-Yeah?

-What, the Great Wall?

-Yeah.

York's medieval walls run for two miles, circling the old city

and are the most complete example of their kind in the country.

Isn't it extraordinary the way, in Medieval times,

everybody felt that they had to protect themselves

from marauders and bandits?

-It was a rough, old time to live, I suppose.

-This was put up...

-Yeah, to keep the outsiders out.

-Yeah.

Keep people from charging in, stealing your granny.

I love the old battlements.

Loosing the arrows, you see, at the foreigners.

At the motorists that are downstairs.

Or a canoeist on the River Ouse.

Loosing the arrows at the Lancastrians

and those from the soft South.

Have some of that.

It was all a bit like Monty Python, wasn't it, really?

Shouting insults down from the walls.

Yeah, clear off.

Go on, clear off out of it.

Our guide Sam Chamberlain was a big fan of York's history

and architecture.

But it seems he wasn't so keen on the food

he was given in its restaurants.

Old Chamberlain says that he found it "quite melancholy",

York's indifference to fine food and wine.

-That's harsh.

-Let's go and prove the old boy wrong.

-Let's give it a go.

-Come on.

To find out if things have changed since Chamberlain's day, we're off

to one of York's finest restaurants,

where the chef has promised to serve us the true taste of the city.

-Andrew Pern, proprietor of the Star Inn.

-Indeed.

Good place.

It's a beautiful corner of the city, you know,

on the banks of the River Ouse here.

It used to be the old offices for the Yorkshire Water Authority.

When we bought it a couple of years ago, it was this derelict building.

But you have an outside place.

This is York - how often do you get a chance to sit outside and eat?

The sun shines in t'North.

It's all right.

You've got a jacket, sit outside.

Quite hardy folk. Yeah, exactly.

-What's the food scene like in York at the moment?

-Food scene's good.

It's a great pantry of local food.

Actually, Yorkshire itself has got more Michelin-starred restaurants

than any other county outside of London.

So take that, Chamberlain.

Back in the kitchen, Andrew has chosen duck as the centrepiece

of his dish, alongside other local ingredients,

and, in what can only be described as a culinary coup,

he's even unearthed a piece of York's food history.

-OK, we're going to cook duck today.

-Is that a locally caught duck?

-It is a locally reared one.

-A Yorkshire duck?

With that, I'm going to partner a Yorkshire sauce. I was looking up in

the famous bible of French cuisine called the Repertoire de la Cuisine,

in there I saw a sauce yorkaise.

I thought, "That's it, we've hit the jackpot."

-Sauce yorkaise?

-So it's like a warm Cumberland sauce.

You've got port, orange zest, some rendered-down game stock,

and we add a little bit of star anise as well.

-Ah, star anise.

-It gives it a little bit of depth of flavour to it.

So we're just going to fry this off. We're rendering down the fat.

Don't render the fat too much. I like a bit of fat.

-We've got to look after the figure, you know.

-Do we?

If you don't have the fat, you're going to lose some of the flavour.

Exactly.

Perfect. Of course the piece de resistance - we've got the rhubarb.

Don't start with the rhubarb.

This county is obsessed with Yorkshire pudding and rhubarb.

It's a tart little number, isn't it, a rhubarb?

-It is a tart little number.

-Yeah.

It's good. Obviously this day and age a lot of people are diabetic

and things like that, so it's becoming quite a popular fruit.

Having set Andrew off on the right course,

I rejoin Mason in the dining room

to discuss some of the more important questions of the day.

Do you tuck your napkin into your shirt ever?

-Yeah, I've been known to do that.

-Have you?

And what happens? Mrs McQueen says, "Don't do that.

"You look like an eejit."

OK, I'm ready.

I see food approaching, Terence.

-On the starboard bow.

-There you are, gentlemen, the duck.

Oh. Beautifully cooked. This is a magret of duck.

Not Inspector Maigret. Magret.

What's a magret of duck, Tel?

The breast.

Wow.

Delicious, isn't it?

Cor, that is very nice.

I like rhubarb done this way, don't you?

Rhubarb?

Mm.

Give me a Yorkshire duck and a little Yorkshire rhubarb

and you'll hear nothing bad from me.

We're heading roughly for the Yorkshire Dales, aren't we?

Have you been around the beauteous Yorkshire Dales?

I haven't. I'm looking forward to it.

If you can find the right road, of course.

There's always an element of doubt about that.

We're going to go to Ampleforth College,

which is a very distinguished college

run by the Benedictine fathers.

They make a pungent cider there.

-Oh.

-But, do you see, that lets you out again.

-Well, that's all right.

-But I'm sick to death drinking for you.

Well, I don't think you're THAT sick to death about it.

Dammit, you can see right through me, can't you?

MASON LAUGHS

There's been an abbey and a school here at Ampleforth

since the very beginning of the 19th century.

For all that time,

the monks have been cultivating apples with some success.

These days, Ampleforth Abbey Orchard

is one of the largest commercial orchards in the North of England.

-Are you Cameron?

-I am. How do you do?

-Good to see you, Cameron.

-Nice to meet you.

-So are you in charge of the apples?

-Yes, I am.

I look after the orchard and the production.

How many acres of apples have you got?

Seven acres on this site,

then there's another three sites where there's some more apples.

Altogether, there's 42 sorts of dessert apples on this side of...

-42 dessert apples?

-Yes.

Do they make the best cider?

Well, we do something different.

We don't use cider apples per se, we mix and blend cookers and desserts.

So to be able to do that, you need a lot of varieties -

aromatic apples, very sweet apples.

Across the way, there's another seven sorts of cooking apples.

Do you eat a lot of apples, Mase?

An apple a day.

No, I don't, actually.

I like a tangerine.

There's no fruit to harvest yet,

but making cider is a year-round operation.

In winter, it's all about washing it, pressing it, turning it into

juice, pumping it into big, black barrels that you can see down there.

In summer, it's a bottling plant.

How do you stay sober working in here?

-It's difficult.

-With the fumes?

-It's very, very difficult.

It's invigorating.

Right, this is our strong cider. It's 8% proof.

To get it to 8% proof, we actually triple-ferment it.

8%, does that mean it's very strong?

It's very strong.

My very first alcoholic drink was cider.

Cheers.

He won't spit it out, don't worry.

No, I was gargling with it.

-That's really nice.

-It's not too shabby.

Big difference to a factory side or artisan side,

the factory side is made in a day,

this stuff takes six months to get to where we are today.

Mason, would like to fill a couple of bottles?

-Yeah.

-I'll show you one, then.

It's like the cider cow.

It is. It's milking.

How many of these a day if you worked here, Cameron?

You can do about 1,200 - 1,500 bottles a day.

-Tel, pace yourself.

-Yeah.

-SLURRING:

-I don't think I'll drink any more.

I'll just take it easy for a moment.

Best keep my wits about me,

because our next appointment is with Ampleforth Abbey's main man.

More drink may be involved.

So we find ourselves in Ampleforth Abbey School's pub.

-Father Terence, you're the prior.

-I am.

-How do you allow this?

-Do the boys drink here?

-Boys and girls these days.

-Of course.

-Yes.

This is not really in the Benedictine tradition, is it?

Well, I think it's actually right that the students should learn

how to drink sensibly, to drink with moderation...

This school sounds brilliant.

This is the school we should have gone to, isn't it?

This is the school we missed.

So, I mean, how do you supervise them?

They do have very much a limit on them, the amount they drink.

Of course there are staff down here monitoring all that.

The parents themselves actually have to buy the drink for them.

-Oh, I see.

-So that's the way it works.

So do the profits go into the great bank of Benedictine?

They go in to support the monastery,

to support all the activities that happen here.

-Cos it's a huge school.

-It's about 600 in the main school.

The students may get to enjoy the odd glass of cider,

but they're kept away from the strong stuff,

which means all the more for us.

-Cider brandy.

-Good. You can't drink this. Put that away.

-I've got apple juice.

-Good man, yes.

-Good health.

-Good health.

-Nice to meet you.

-Here's to us.

-Nice to meet you too.

-Here's to Ampleforth.

-Thank you. Same to you.

-Don't spit it out.

-It's great. It has warmed my cockles.

Good. Good.

We're going on to a Viking village.

Now, the Vikings, they made this town their capital.

In fact, they called it Jorvik, which is where York comes from.

-Right?

-Yeah.

Basically we're all from Viking descent, right?

Well, no, I don't like to think that.

Well, where do you think YOU'RE from?

I'm pure Celt, me.

Well, my ancestry is from the Isle of Skye.

That's where the Vikings landed.

-IN SCOTTISH ACCENT:

-# I've just come down from the Isle of Skye

# I'm no' very big but I'm awful shy... #

I know.

The final stop on this York food adventure takes us

to a reconstructed Viking settlement on the outskirts of the city,

where we'll be uncovering the truth about how those fearsome

people lived and, more importantly, ate.

We come in peace.

We are strangers to your land.

-Well, good

-og. Good og to you, sir.

-Your name?

-I am Leif.

-Good og.

Yes.

So, Leif, you're taking us through this...

What looks like a fairly basic village.

It is not a real Viking settlement,

cos we don't know what they looked like.

-They're built in wood and straw...

-That's very honest of you.

I'm being honest from the start. Educated guesswork. Come on in.

-Behave yourself in here, right.

-OK.

-Don't upset anyone.

Don't give them any of this nonsense

about being descended from Vikings, all right?

Although life in the 10th-century York could best be described

as nasty, brutish and short,

that hasn't stopped a load of enthusiasts

trading central heating and running water

for the chance to live like Erik the Red.

-Hello.

-Hello there.

-How are you?

-My name is

-Ragner.

-Ragner? Yes.

-Nice to see you.

-Nice to meet you.

-And this is your son?

-Peter.

-Peter.

-Peter.

What's his Viking name?

We're still working on that one.

Good for you. So this is your house where you live?

We're actually coming here on a weekend, on a time-share basis.

And in the winter as well, you stay here weekends?

Yes. Three, four years ago, it was minus-16.

-We've actually been here for a whole week.

-And freezing to death.

No, not really.

We had a fire going inside, plenty of wine to keep us warm.

Sky Sports, hot tub.

No, nothing like that.

-Nothing like that.

-And it's comfortable, Ragner?

-Very comfortable, yes.

-You wouldn't lie to us, Ragner?

-No, I wouldn't.

-Good.

Ah, look.

The fire's not on.

Turn it in. It's freezing in here.

Oh, I don't know, Tel. It'd be a long weekend.

-OK, that's enough. I'm out of here.

-MASON LAUGHS

-See you, now.

-OK, enjoy the sauna.

What we're really interested in, of course, is the food.

And as luck would have it,

Leif and the gang are throwing a bit of a Viking feast.

-Hello.

-Hello.

God save all here, barring the cat.

Yes.

Wow.

Although we know them as savage marauders,

the Vikings were basically farmers

and would have lived off the land and the sea,

so curd cheese, oysters and simple roast meats may be involved.

Leif, is there any influences from Viking cooking

-in British cuisine today?

-Definitely.

For a start, any smoked meat that you might eat - smoky bacon,

kippers, smoked mackerel - that all comes form a time

when people had to preserve their food.

Anything that's been preserved in brine or vinegar, or smoked,

-or salted.

-The diet would have been very limited on the boats.

On the boats, yes.

That's where this comes in. These are oatcakes.

This would keep for a while.

It's just basically flour and butter with some milk.

-So they wouldn't have butter and marmalade.

-Not marmalade.

Apart from a lack of anything decent to spread on your oatcake,

it was all looking pretty tasty, but I haven't reckoned on one

particular Viking delicacy known as ratfisk,

which literally means rotten fish.

Now, this is a speciality.

It's shark that's been preserved by burying it in the sand.

Mm.

-The effort again has been repaid a thousand-fold.

-Oy!

It's a flavour sensation.

They must have had pegs on their noses as they were eating it.

Luckily, there isn't quite enough shark to go around,

so we're served something a lot more palatable.

-Would you like to start with some soup?

-Certainly.

There's a pea soup over the fire,

which is peas and bacon with onions and cream.

There you are, there's one.

Very good.

-Do we wait for...?

-No, there's no grace, you just get stuck in.

Did the Vikings not wait for Mr Manners? Very good.

Excellent soup.

This is proper Viking mead.

As our esteemed guests, we say, "Skol!"

-ALL:

-Skol!

I say cheers.

-That'll do.

-Would you like some apple juice?

Yeah, that'd be great, Leif, thank you.

If you were getting married,

you celebrated your wedding for 28 days -

from one full moon to the next full moon.

Both families drank beer with honey in it,

cos it made the beer very strong.

So they call the month after your wedding the honeymoon.

-Wow. It's still going.

-It is.

That's another skol.

-Skol!

-Skol!

-ALL:

-Skol!

-Hey.

-Hey.

So how was it for you?

Well, that was good meeting Vikings. I enjoyed that.

-And York. Fantastic.

-York is nice, isn't it?

-Yeah, interesting place.

-Fantastic.

-Where are we off to now?

-I don't know.

-Never any idea where we're going.

-People to meet and food to eat.

You think there'll be something to eat?

-I hope so.

-Let's go.

-Let's go.