A Taste Of Two Honeys

A guest post from my dad, Mike (he's the honey monster in the middle).

Photo courtesy of Gabrielle Motola (more of her Hackney honey photos here).

I didn't need a second invitation to be up early on Saturday morning and round the corner to the bustling Broadway Market, home to Hackney's local farmers' market. "Come and be introduced to a couple of real honeys... and make sure you brush your teeth first" was the seductive call - enough to make me salivate to the point of dribbling. Unfortunately, the message was rather more literal than I'd imagined. I arrived to discover a cameraman, a sound recordist and a small army of production assistants surrounding a trestle table bearing two bowls of viscous amber liquid. And the chaps shown alongside me in the photo above. Not exactly honeys - but nicer guys you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere.

What my local friend Ian Davies and the TV broadcaster, organic farmer, author and perennial food campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall have in common is that they are both apiculturists. Well, strictly speaking it's not Ian but his stepson Philip Schild (top photo, rear) who's responsible for the Hackney honey crop, under Ian's watchful eye. Philip and Ian have been keeping eight hives of bees on the flat roof of their Hackney house for four years, collecting up to 500lb of nectar a year during their three annual harvests and selling it locally.

Hugh F-W started to keep honey bees down at his West Country farm at about the same time as his London counterpart started up on his roof - so when it came to judging the quality of Hugh's output, Channel 4 thought it would be a good idea to arrange a country vs. town tasting competition, with a blind tasting of their respective produce here on the streets of Hackney.

Passers-by were invited to try Hugh's Devon country offering and Philip and Ian's Hackney urban variety - without knowing which was which - and select their favourite. Meanwhile the camera rolled and the production team recorded people's preferences. And which honey won the competition? I couldn't possibly tell you, except to say that it wasn't the one that I chose myself. If you want to know whether Hugh or the local lads won the Hackney taste test, you'll need to watch the brand new series of River Cottage starting on Channel 4 on Wednesday 28th May (the honey tasting should figure in the first or second episode). Meanwhile, pass the gluten-free bread dips, please.

Mike