Godfrey Barton

Bio

Hi and welcome to Shires Country Kitchen. My aim is to produce home made foods using the best of seasonal, local or British produce, organic and fair trade goods. I am now pleased to be able to use British chickpeas and Fava beans to make my hummus and ful madamous. I am also pleased to be one of the first small producers to have a 100% usage of Vegware compostable products for all my containers and carrier bags that I use to serve my food in there by helping to reduce the growing plastic problem we face today.
I attend various food fairs and farmer’s market selling my homemade produce based on seasonal availability. I am also available to attend cookery demonstrations at meetings and festivals or fetes to talk about food and where it comes from, my time helping at River Cottage in the kitchen and make a couple of recipes including the use of leftover food ingredients being given an extra lease of life.
My ethos is based on my interest in River Cottage which i have followed since the very start and has been a major influence on me. I have been fortunate to have attended the pig in a day course and the four day cookery course after which i was invited to work for a day in the River Cottage HQ kitchen. I was then offered the chance to go down for work experience and have become very good friends with Gelf Alderson the head chef and all the other chefs that work there. This gives me a good insight to animal welfare and to look at sustainability in the food industry and the best use of seasonal produce. I share the River Cottage way of thinking and i also have my own interpretations which i hope to pass on and use in my cooking.
I was pleased recently when two of my mentors took part in the Great British Menu representing North of England last year and Scotland this year.
Although I have been quiet over the last 2 years due to covid and lots of events only just starting back I have been fortunate to have a dessert photo of mine included in a Worlds’ best baking calendar, a feature in Delicious magazine, and mentioned in a Chelsea bun website for the worlds best Chelsea bun which alas I did not win.