Ludlow food festival 2008

I got up at a ridiculous time yesterday and made the 170 mile journey to Ludlow for the annual food festival. With 130 stalls, tastings galore and numerous other activities going on over the long weekend, it is a mecca for foodies all over the UK.

Highlight of the day was definitely the sausage trail - we tasted five sausages from different butchers scattered around the town square and rated them all out of ten. My favourite was a deliciously subtle pork, mustard and tarragon number from D W Wall & Son. We got to the end of the trail only to find that our reward for handing in our form was yet another sausage! We then had to sit down and have a rest...

We recovered in the sunshine with some butterscotch crunch ice cream from September Organics - sheer heaven in a tub! They also make some other interesting flavours like brown bread, blackberry & apple crumble and honey & ginger. Luckily they do mail order and are also stocked down South in Fresh & Wild.

Once we could eat no more, we spectated at the Waiters' Race. Six plucky waiters dashed around the square, collecting glasses of water from each of six pubs and racing back to the start with the drinks (hopefully) intact. There were some impressive performances, especially considering how busy the square was.