The spring Good Food Show in Harrogate this year brought with it its usual thrills and spills, in the form of talks from celeb chefs, demonstrations from passionate suppliers, and tasty samples from local foodie companies!

Here are our highlights from the 2017 Good Food Show in Harrogate:

• Little Doone balsamic vinegar: forget everything you think you know about balsamic vinegar and instead get your hands on a bottle of the good stuff from Little Doone. This Scottish company source their balsamic vinegar from Italy before playing around with it to make it taste unique and pretty special. The garlic balsamic vinegar caught our eye before we were tempted by a beautiful bottle of the golden balsamic vinegar. We’d never tried this sort of balsamic vinegar before but it was stunning; something like a cross between a balsamic vinegar, honey, and a dessert wine – it sounds odd, but it was delicious! We will be looking forward to dipping some homemade bread in our balsamic this weekend.

• Dukkah Delights: we always like sourcing something a little different whenever we can at the food shows we attend, and Dukkah Delights ticked this box this year. Dukkah originates from Egypt and is a condiment consisting of nuts, seeds, and spices. The ingredients are pounded into the perfect texture and the result is a stunning flavour explosion. You can use this to coat meat or fish before cooking, or you can do what we’ve done and dip some pieces of warm bread in oil or balsamic before dipping in the dukkah. A beautiful snack or starter if you’re hosting a Middle Eastern dinner party.
• Comte cheese: this cheese wasn’t actually on sale at the show, but the body representing the promotion of Comte was. They were offering lots of information about where to buy Comte locally in Harrogate and beyond, and had amazing samples of the cheese to taste.
• Lottie Shaw’s: it was great to see one of our favourite brands, Lottie Shaw’s, in attendance. We always love a sneaky sample of their signature flapjack, which really does take some beating. A final shout-out to another of our local faves, Yorkshire Dama Cheese – great to see them doing so well!
• Gousto: a slight thumbs down to Gousto, whose sales pitch of their recipe and ingredient deliveries turned nasty and aggressive when we refused to sign up on the spot. Maybe Gousto need to keep a slightly closer eye on which employees they send to these shows.

We’ll be back next year for another afternoon of foodie fun in Harrogate!