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When I arrived at Cheltenham race course for the first time (I am not a gambler as my Dad always advised me to stay away from slow horses and fast women) with my sedately-paced wife, Bernadette I was struck by the natural splendour of the venue. I was coming to the Taste of the West Food and Drink Show to demonstrate, to anyone who would listen, the sort of dishes you could produce using some of the bounty of these six counties. I have cooked at many events on everything from a lop-sided trestle in a rain swept car park in winter to a purpose built travelling kitchen complete with sound and TV coverage. The kitchen Catherine and her colleagues at Taste of the West (TOTW) had provided was certainly in the latter category. On these occasions I like to cook using only ingredients available on the day and to keep the dishes quick and easy. I looked around the stalls for inspiration and it wasn't long in coming.

Overlooking the sea in South Devon is Carswel Farm home of Well Hung Meats where they produce award-winning organic beef and lamb. Graeme had found me a piece of Beef fillet and two stalls away Ken Bartlett of Haymes farm provided me with a punnet of tip-top organic chestnut mushrooms. With the addition of some dry white wine from the outstanding Sharpham Estate I was ready to cook my version of fast food called Beef Liszt. Beef Liszt is my take on Stroganoff and derives its name from the cockney rhyming slang for inebriation. Following this my fellow chef, Alison Childs gave her demonstration but as we don't watch each other I went off to obtain the ingredients for my next dish.

Down a cul-de-sac I found Bernadette sampling the delights on the Plymouth Gin stand. I am not a big gin drinker, "Mother's Ruin" as it's known where I come from, but always have a bottle or three of PG at home to help me unwind from a day in front of a hot computer. I don't add tonic but prefer it neat and slightly chilled. What we did sample and promptly bought was a bottle of their Sloe Gin. I have made this drink myself and sampled other versions but this was far and away the best I have ever tasted. Alongside was Plymouth's Damson Gin and this was truly fruity with a lovely long plummy finish. Plymouth Gin is a protected name, like the French Appellation Controlee, and may be slightly more expensive than more common brands but it is a superior product. Also because of the duty system in the UK the higher the alcohol of a spirit the higher the duty. Plymouth is typically 41.25% ABV whereas Gordon's is typically 37.5% ABV. Walking around the show was a delight. I was particularly impressed by the wonderful range of artisan cheeses especially the unique Cornish Yarg originally created by a Mr Gray who, I assume, stepped through the looking glass as Yarg is Gray back to front! I was disappointed that Gloucestershire cheeses were not represented but the Host County was there with other products. Selsley Herb & Spice Co. of Stroud supplied me with some excellent, well-balanced raspberry vinegar in one of the most stylish bottles I had ever seen. Peter Wimperis told me they were sourced in Italy so it was no surprise, as the Italians know a thing or two about glass and style. It was a pity, all the same, that a West Country glassmaker couldn't produce something similar. With the vinegar, a couple of early strawberries and some ostrich steaks from Mark Stewart of MNS Ostriches in Holsworthy I was back at the hob this time preparing ostrich escalopes with a strawberry, raspberry vinegar and crème frâiche sauce. This I served with crushed new potatoes flavoured with olive oil, garlic, parsley and black pepper. The dish was enough for two but once again Catherine, if not divvying the dish up into 5000 portions, certainly insured the audience all got to try some. Ostrich is a really healthy meat. At other demonstrations where I have used it I normally have to persuade nervous onlookers that it is tasty and totally sand-free. I didn't have this problem at Cheltenham. Ostrich is very low in fat and therefore needs to be eaten on the rare side or it soon becomes dry. If that doesn't appeal to you you could try making a stir-fry or even adapting my Beef Liszt recipe.

I went for another meander amongst the very well presented stalls and was on the look out for more inspiration but the day was drawing to a close as I met up with Bernadette this time chatting to Barry on the Arkells Brewery stand that was dressed to look like a pub bar. I don't know about you but isn't the whole raison d'être for pubs to serve real ale? I was persuaded after a few seconds to have a drop of draught Arkells from this 160-year-old brewery. Splendid stuff.

Taste of the West could certainly count this show a big success and even though my work involves me with locally produced food and drink I still found wonderful, new surprises and reassurance that the West Country is a leading purveyor of hedonistic delights. And not a single slow horse in sight.

One of the largest growth industries in Wales is organically produced meat. Continuing concerns over the provenance of meat in the wake of recent reports of imported chicken, adulterated with pork protein and water, has encouraged consumers to choose organically produced meat from Wales.

Figures announced by the Soil Association at their event I attendedat the IGER centre in Aberystwyth, showed that the organic beef breeding herd has increased from around 500 in 1998 to over 5000 in 2002.

Welsh organic sheep have increased from just 20,000 in 1998 to an impressive 220,000 in 2002. While these figures will inevitably level out there is clear evidence that both farmers and consumers see the future of red meat in Wales as organic.

The timely publication by Cardiff University of the report Relocalising the Food Chain: the role of creative public procurement, highlights the need for bodies such as schools to source their meat locally. Co-author Professor Kevin Morgan asked in The New Statesman last week "why is it in Welsh farming communities where lamb and beef are the staple products, school menus consist of imported, reconstituted chicken and all the milk used in the canteens is powdered?"

School meals can be sourced locally if we were to follow the example of France and Italy where parents and school governors in co-operation with their regional authorities have circumvented the Treaty of Rome, which in essence states it is illegal for public procurement officers to specify "local." Ironic when you consider that, for example, French supermarkets are required by law to stock a high percentage of locally produced foods.

I learned of the Italian model at last year’s F3 (Foundation for Local Food Initiatives), conference at Warwick University. In the example Maddelena Bolognesi gave us, an Italian local authority budget for 2000 had a condition attached that schools would be given a subsidy of 30% to use local, and preferably organic, produce and up to 50% subsidy if the schools introduced educational initiatives to teach students about the link between food, nutrition and health.

The real innovation was Aprobio. This is a group of volunteers, mostly parents, who work closely with the local authority, teachers and cooks to source food and run the school canteens. The local authority run training courses to prepare parents for all aspects of this voluntary work. Because the parents give their time for free the overall costs of supplying a balanced meal are kept to a minimum and Maddelena estimated that each meal costs as low as 15p to produce. It was the food scares in Italy (and as I recall we had a few here) during the 1980s that prompted the instigation of the Aprobio.

At the Aberystwyth conference Phil Stocker, head of agriculture at the Soil Association, and Dr Nic Lampkin, director of Organic Centre Wales, gave examples of ways in which councils could specify that the food bought for school dinners should come from farmers and producers within the locality and remain within EU regulations.

Contracts could be broken down to enable more than one producer to offer say, beef. Buyers could insist that fresh vegetables arrive within twenty-four hours of harvesting and are seasonal and organic. There is plenty of evidence in the public domain that children behave and perform better at school if they are fed a healthy and nourishing diet based on fresh produce.

Lizzie Vann, who is heading a campaign to improve the quality of food fed to schoolchildren, discovered that her local school was spending just 30p of the £1.35 it charged parents on ingredients. Better ingredients may mean that more than 30p will need to be spent on each child but it need not mean an increase in the price charged for each meal if we adopt methods such as Aprobio.

Butchers may be one of the few independent food shops remaining in our towns and villages and they are prime outlets for Welsh meat producers. Where my butcher can offer local lamb all the year round the supermarket I visited on my return from Aberystwyth had shelves full of New Zealand lamb only.

This is testament to the anomalies of the EU regulations that forbid your primary school from ordering Welsh beef over meat from other member states, but permits supermarkets to sell beef from Australia and lamb from New Zealand both countries, of course, that are outside the Community.

You could be forgiven for thinking the Government did not want us to find out about the "GM Nation?" debate held at the Brangwyn Hall in Swansea. There were no signs on the approaches and the only indication at the venue was a group of three people handing out "No GM" leaflets.

A television advertisement would have helped to bring the meeting to the attention of potential consumers: a group to which we all belong. I had telephoned several people in the town where I live all of whom told me they were interested but this was the first they had heard of it. Inside Brangwyn Hall I received similar accounts and most of those attending had heard via interested groups such as The Soil Association, Friends of the Earth and The Consumer Association all of whom had a presence at the "debate."

I had registered with the COI (Central Office of Information) by telephone and had been told the meeting was free and open to all. My name would be added to the list at the door and by the way could they have my home address? I asked what this was for if it was free and they were not sending me a ticket and I was told it was in case they needed to send me any follow-up literature. It did occur to me that there was nothing to be suspicious of but at the meeting several people made the same point and also asked why we were being photographed?

The lobby of the Brangwyn Hall had various leaflets and booklets on the issues we were about to debate and it may have been prescient that the ones produced by the biotechnology support services were thicker, glossier and more expensive than those published by the opposition most of whom were not-for-profit groups. I picked up the booklet, new choices new challenges new approaches produced by the Agricultural Biotechnology Council and browsed through its large, colourful pictures of sunny fields of healthy looking crops and honey bees pollinating welcoming flowers. The juxtaposition of tractors on grey, barren soil with clouds of spray in their wake was crude in its symbolism.

The BBSRC brochure was along similar lines with smiling scientists in white coats and a group of people outside Oxford Circus underground station. What disturbed me the most were the two pictures of tomatoes. One was of conventional fruit; wrinkled and mouldy the other showed GM tomatoes with bright, smooth skins. An image of apparently dead maize plants, photographed in the snow, was alongside a thicket of bright green plants and the caption told of the devastation caused to crops by the European corn borer.

On the stage at the end of the vast hall was a screen that displayed a short slide show giving the latest figures on GM crops grown around the world. Unsurprisingly 90% are grown in North America and that, coincidentally, happens to be the percentage of GM crops produced by Monsanto the US based multinational. We were told that an area of 59,000,000 hectares is currently planted with GM crops world-wide and to help us understand the scale that is twice the area of the UK.

More statistics broke the crops down into 63% soya bean, 19% maize, 13% cotton and 5% rape. Thirty five per cent of cereals grown were fed to animals but no mention was made of how many genetically modified animals or fish are currently in production.

One statistic that brought a perceptible intake of breath from the two hundred or so people seated around the hall, was that anyone having visited the United States or Canada and eaten there since 1996 had probably consumed food containing GM ingredients.

Instead of being seated in rows of chairs, the hall had been laid out with large, damask-covered dining tables but in place of cutlery were pens, Post-Its and pads. We were now asked to deliberate with the other members of our table on the pros and cons of genetic modification and its future in the UK. We were given an hour to do this. Targets were set along the lines of deciding what were the primary benefits and who would benefit and conversely what were the risks and who or what would be put at risk.

Apart from each delegates prior knowledge of the subject we were assisted in our deliberations by a 50-page booklet entitled GM Nation The public debate. This contained a comprehensive list of answers to various FAQs but failed to give any references as to where the stated "facts" had come from or how they had been arrived at. The back pages contained a glossary of terms, I now know that a Technology Fee is the fee charged by owners of a patent for the use of their invention. There were also links to various websites and contact details for organisations from both sides of the divide.

What I could not discover was who devised and wrote the booklet but it was a department of the Government as it carried a crown copyright mark.

For an hour each table held its own debate and while we had been urged to change tables in the pursuit of a balanced discussion, it soon became apparent that the majority were firmly against the introduction of GMOs into the UK and those not were in the "undecided" category.

As a representative of each table reported the results of their debate it was clear that the reasons being given were as wide-ranging as were the delegates themselves. There were geneticists and farmers including one who had actually been involved in two years of GM trials. The nearest to a pro point was the person who said they would like to see more research.

Most gave the same reasons for rejecting the technology while some raised points unique to their group. No need for it in the UK as farming is already efficient. The market should decide and already has. Fear of long-term effects. Food is not safe in the hands of big business. Uncertainty and secrecy are unacceptable. Why is GM grown in the third world, is it ignorance of science and the poverty they face? (Applause) Bad as seed cannot be collected (for future crops) unfair lack of competition with big companies. Threat to environment, loss of certain flora and fauna. Loss of organic farms. Unknown long term effects. The onus is placed on critics of GM to prove it is unsafe whereas it should be the supporters proving it is safe. The British Medical Council does not support GM. The reputation of the Government will be harmed by introduction of GM as they are there to protect consumers. Fears of cross-pollination. Insurance companies reluctant to insure fields of GM crops as future uncertain. WHO chair says we can already feed the World but the food does not get to everyone (more applause). why only one meeting for the whole of Wales? Benefits only for the seed producers who will not accept liability. No evidence whether GM crops are safe or not but biotech companies say they are safe. Staples become subject to patents. GM has potential whether it is good or bad remains to be seen. Some benefits to farmers growing GM but off set by the consumer 's reluctance to purchase. Worried about sterility of the soil. No health tests published except for the horizontal gene transfer in the gut. GM interferes with evolutionary processes. Tests similar to those on new drugs should be performed. An organic farmer was concerned that he had been told if GM crops are grown within 9 miles of his farm he would lose his licence. Association of Surveyors report that ground "contaminated" with GM loses value. If UK Government accepts GM seen as helping US/UK relationship. Monsanto profits are suffering as long as Europe will not accept GM. The trial site should be monitored before trials begin so that effects can be accurately measured. History has given examples in the past on breakthroughs that have proved a disaster e.g. DDT and thalidomide. Danger that "superbugs" will be bred as nature fights back; already seen through overuse of antibiotics. Third World being used as guinea pigs. If UK stays GM-Free then our farmers would benefit as there crops would gain added value. Animal genes in crops prevent certain groups eating food previously acceptable. Risk of malnutrition. Fear that these debates are just window dressing and that the decision has effectively been made. Why are we not told who the steering group is? Agree mutations are natural by natural selection but not man-made ones. No room in the UK for GM, conventional and organic crops.

I asked Aidan Elliott, the professional facilitator who had hosted the meeting, if he didn't think a debate should have consisted of at least two people from opposing camps that could have set out their arguments to the audience. Yes, he agreed, but it is so difficult to get anyone from the pro camp to attend these things, as they fear they will be attacked. As I left the hall I recalled the three protesters standing near the door when I drove up. They had not even tried to get us to take their leaflets or ask our views. In fact they had been happy to suggest the best place to park the car.

This is an emotive subject but the only raised voices in Brangwyn Hall that night had been delegates trying to combat the hopelessly inadequate sound system.

If you are interested in holding your own debate the COI will send you the relevant pack to your home address. Contact them on 020 7261 8616 or enquiries@gmnation.org.uk

By the time most people eat hospital food they are probably feeling pretty low and frankly not expecting very much in the way of flavour and texture. They may feel that they do not have to give much thought to the provenance and nutritional value of what they are consuming choosing instead to entrust this to the hospital kitchen. I had cause to stay at Neville Hall Hospital in Abergavenny recently in a ward that held a mixture of patients recovering from strokes and heart conditions but there seemed no restriction on the amount of butter, sugar and salt they could consume at meal times.

Talking to a nurse who had worked at Builth Wells Hospital some years ago, she recalled the lengths the sister on the ward that dealt with broken jaws went to to ensure her patients’ food was edible. Because of their injuries all food had to be pureed but she would insist it was tasted and then flavoured with herbs and spices kept for the purpose in a cupboard in her office. Only when she deemed it tasty enough was it fed to her charges.

Then, Builth Hospital had its own garden that grew the vegetables and herbs used in the hospital kitchen. The meat was bought fresh from shops in the town as was the bread and dairy products. Now the garden is a car park and most of the food is purchased centrally Builth Wells is one of a trio of hospitals – Llandrindod Wells and Knighton being the other two - which has elected to have their catering taken care of my Metirest a division of the multinational Compass Group.

I asked Lesley Potter, media spokesperson for Compass, how much of the food used in the three hospitals was in fact sourced in Wales. “Our main supplier (Peters) told me that the majority of their meat comes from the West Country." Most meat is now purchased frozen, although Lesley Potter told me the figure was 50/50, and some is even ready cooked and sliced making the cook’s job one of regeneration. It is hard to talk of job satisfaction when the only skill required is that of re-heating. Lesley Potter again. “Fruit and vegetables, dairy products and bread are purchased locally.” I asked why it was not possible to purchase the meat locally. All three towns had at least two butchers shops and the total number of meals across the group was only one hundred daily.

The Powys Local Health Board (PLHB) is now responsible for hospital meals throughout the rest of the county’s eight hospitals and the picture is much the same. “Up to 50% of fruit and prepared veg is purchased locally by the head cooks,” John Wilkinson the Board’s PR spokesman told me, “and all the bread and milk.” Fish comes direct from the packers in ports such as Hull and Glasgow and the meat from an unnamed “UK National Company.” The exceptions are Brecon and Bronllys who have their meat delivered by a local company.

The Welsh Health Supplies company in Cardiff have negotiated preferential rates for “everything from plasters to beef,” and hospitals can buy from these suppliers as part of the All-Wales Contract. This does not, as the name may suggest, mean that the produce is necessarily sourced in Wales. Although Mr Wilkinson did assure me they were open to tenders from all suppliers once again price was paramount. “Meat has to be high quality but price does have to play a role.”

I suggested that organic, locally sourced meat may be considered but Mr Wilkinson felt the premium that would be charged would prohibit its acceptance. Cost was being judged at just the price-per-kilo level and not at the broader costs to the environment and local economies of freezing and shipping meat half way around the world.

Under the old Powys Health Care NHS Trust replaced on April1 2003 by the PLHB, head cooks had buying powers devolved to them. This meant more of the produce used in hospital kitchens was sourced locally.

As someone said to me hospital patients aren’t paying for their food as such so they have little say in its origins.

The release of a recent report on the risks associated with eating farmed salmon was bound to cause an indignant backlash from the industry and by association the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Salmon farming is a contentious issue but it is usually the environmental impact that is being looked at not the health risks.

In a report carried out by a US team, which included Ronald Hites and David Carpenter, two metric tonnes of farmed and wild salmon from around the world were examined for organochlorides, a group of contaminants linked to cancer. Farmed Atlantic salmon from Europe and in particular Scotland was found to have levels up to ten times higher than its wild cousin.

Included in the group of contaminants are Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). These are linked to growth disorders, stunted intelligence and cancers. PCBs are industrial pollutants that find their way into our rivers and oceans from factories that produce paint and flame-retardants. They are also given off by burning waste. PCBs take a long while to decay and can be found in most foods that contain fat but usually at low levels. It is believed that the tiny fish that are used to produce the meal fed to farmed salmon are the main culprits as they absorb the PCBs from the sea.

David Carpenter suggests in Nature magazine that fish farmers should look at vegetarian alternatives such as soya bean and flaxseed to produce the protein fed to fish. Carpenter went on to suggest that people eating salmon as part of a healthy diet could, as an alternative, consider flaxseed oil which is high in the same Omega-3 fatty acids that are found in oily fish such as salmon.

Fish is a healthy food and oily fish are not limited to salmon or trout, both of which are farmed. Alternatives can include the inexpensive herring, mackerel, sardine and anchovy all come in handy, processed forms such as kippers and smoked mackerel fillets. In recent years we have seen wild salmon disappear from Welsh rivers and coasts and farming them would appear to make sense. The Soil Association who licence organic fish farms suggest people consider switching to organically farmed salmon. Organic salmon are fed on the by-products (trimmings etc.) of fish caught and processed for human consumption not the industrial fishmeal used in the conventional sector. “The permitted oil content (where the majority of PCBs and dioxins are found) is less than that fed to intensively farmed fish” reported Helen Shrimpton for the Soil Association.

The main area of contention in the Hites team report is the measurement methods used to determine PCB levels present in the tested fish.

In their response to the findings the FSA discredit the safety levels used in the study. The team “based its conclusions on a risk assessment process that has been under consideration in the United States since 1991 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This process is not recognised by international organisations responsible for food safety and public health who consider it scientifically flawed. The EPA is concerned with environment protection and sets levels for fish caught recreationally in the United States.”

The FSA continue, “The World Health Organisation set safety levels for dioxins and PCBs in 2001 based exclusively on public health protection. These form the basis of safety levels set for consumers who eat fish sold in shops.” According to Sir John Krebs chairman of the FSA, “We advise that the known benefits of eating one portion of oily fish outweigh any possible risks.” Having said that, however, he goes on to say that a report should be available later in the year that will weigh up the risks against the benefits. The FSA do concede that the Hites study looked at salmon on a global scale comparing fish caught in UK waters to those taken in the “cleaner” oceans elsewhere.

“These levels of dioxins [reported in the study] have previously been reported by the FSA. What is new is the comparison between different fish caught in different oceans. Since dioxins and PCBs are associated with industrial discharges into the sea, it is not surprising that fish from oceans remote from such areas have lower levels of these chemicals.”

Claims by John Webster, scientific adviser to the Scottish salmon farmers’ representative body Scottish Quality Salmon, that tests carried out by his team revealed a lower level of contaminants than Carpenters does nothing to alleviate worries. The news suggests that the contamination varies perhaps depending on the location of the sampled farm.

The inevitability that “all food carries risks” and therefore we the consumer must accept the presence of toxins in our fish is taken as read by the FSA. PCBs have not been manufactured in the UK for over thirty years but their residues still linger added to new ones coming as a by-product of other commercial processes. They also have a nasty habit of accumulating in marine life.

At the end of last year’s Royal Welsh Show I listened as a group of exhibitors, involved in all aspects of organic production, looked ahead to 2004 and a better representation of all things organic.

At Llanelwedd 2004 not only had organic representation not increased but the overall profile had decreased in spite of a countrywide growth in the purchase of organic foods. Bob Kennard of Graig Farm Organics told me there had been an increase of 50% in overall sales in the UK and in Wales a growth of 30%. A lot of this was coming from an expanding network of retailer’s like Spar in Llandrindod Wells.

Organics To Go of Carmarthen reported similar increases and their vegetable delivery service has expanded along the M4 corridor as far as London. Organic production still only covers 4% of Welsh farmland and the flurry of new registrations has levelled out but this may be about to change. There is a feeling amongst those I spoke to that with the dramatic changes in subsidy payments about to take place many farmers who have considered the move to organic might decide now to make the step. As the old subsidy payments come to an end and before the new ones commence farmers may decide to apply for organic certification and receive the DEFRA grant for conversion.

Other factors to be considered are the lower stocking densities under the organic system and the increased premium obtainable. It has to be said that this applies more to beef than to lamb. A woman who farmed Welsh Blacks told me she had been around supermarkets and seen a doubling of retail price on organic lamb over conventional and yet the farmers could only look forward to a premium of 15p a kilo at best.

One conventional farmer told me that with the disappearance of the 22-month payment it would make more sense to reduce stocking levels and “grow your beef on.” A spokesman for Organic Farmers and Growers also told me that he could see that in the future farmers would be able to finish their animals longer on grass. There is evidence that beef finished for longer on grass produces a less saturated – and therefore healthier- fat than those animals finished on cereals.

Of course there is a lot of help available for organic farmers and those wishing to convert. Organic Centre Wales, whose stand had rather mysteriously been sited this year on the fringes, can put you in touch with support organisations. There are also producers groups such as Cambrian Organics and Graig Farm who help their members get a fair price and a good distribution network.

Anna Bassett of the Soil Association told me that although registrations had fallen she was still getting many enquiries. Sometimes these were from conventional farmers that had been given false information about exactly what organic farming means. “How can I farm organically if I can’t vaccinate my sheep?” Was one example given. You can vaccinate sheep but the withdrawal time will be longer than in conventional farming.

As I walked around the showground I realised I was under a misapprehension. I had expected to find organic food being cooked and on sale. No such luck unless you consider crisps and coffee an adequate lunch. The Food Hall fared no better and of 53 stands only 5 were organic and they had been told they could not cook even for sampling purposes. Interestingly enough I did see two non-organic stalls in the Food Hall doing a roaring trade in hot food. When I asked the Welsh development Agency (WDA) why there was so little organic representation they told me they had made a decision to limit the food types on show owing to over subscription. In other words although organic food is a production method it is still viewed as a food type like bread, cheese or pickles.

I put this to Haydn Jones, this year’s RWAS Vice President, and he told he was “Not Happy” with the way the WDA had allocated stalls within the food hall.

There had been a timed telephone bidding for stalls and those unable to get through on the phones had been left out. “A better basis would have been by email,” Mr Jones said. “Emails are automatically dated and timed – it would have been a much fairer method.” The Vice President assured me the RWAS had no barrier to organic production and had heard from Carmarthen, who were the sponsors of next year’s show, that they intended to expand the food hall.

Hopefully there will also be a revision of cooked food franchises and perhaps a new category of “Organic Cooked Food” and I for one can stop carrying my lunch around in my briefcase.