Steph Wetherell

I remember the first time I picked a chanterelle in Canada. Taught by my farm hosts who’d been foraging for decades, I was shown how to identify a couple of different types of mushrooms found commonly around the farm where they lived. Off walking on my own one day, I spotted a golden trumpet poking through the forest floor. Feeling confident enough with my knowledge to pick it, I gathered a few dozen of the mushrooms along way and returned to the farm overjoyed at my finds and ready to cook up a storm.

A fairly regular visit to the Feed Bristol site, I heard rumours that someone was starting to grow mushrooms there. I soon met Patrick and eventually, months later, got round to arranging a visit up to find out more about how and why he grows his mushrooms. 

I’ve been to a lot of vegetable farms over the past five years, most of them ranging from 0.5 - 5 acres in size.  But when I heard about Plowright Organic and that they were growing on 30 acres of land, my ears pricked up and I figured it was time for a visit.

Working in local food for the past year, I’ve learnt a lot about the wider challenges in the agricultural sector. One of the most pressing is the subject of land access, especially for new entrants to farming. With agricultural land prices trebling in the last decade, it makes starting a new enterprise out of reach for many people. 

I often get asked about the best ways for people to eat more locally grown vegetables. After a year of working alongside and visiting a lot of producers, I’ve come up with a list of four farms who I feel offer a good answer to this question.

Growing up, my sister loved milk. She’d drink glass upon glass of the stuff, but I was always pretty indifferent. That was, until I lived on a farm with a Jersey cow in Canada. The taste of fresh milk, rich and creamy, sweet from the summer grass changed everything. Milk stopped being this tasteless white substance that came in a carton, and became something delicious and nutritious, produced by the lovely but rather temperamental Ellie-Mae. 

Every week, I walk down the end of my road, unlock a padlock and open the doors to a small shed. I weigh out each vegetable on a set of scales according to instructions written on a sheet stuck to the shed door, and walk home, armed with a weeks worth of fresh, seasonal, locally grown produce.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve spent a lot of time on farms; I’ve got used to the way things work, the way they operate. But occasionally, I stumble across somewhere different, somewhere a bit special. Model Farm falls firmly into that category. They tick a lot of the boxes with their organic and pasture reared certifications, but I was itching to visit and see the farm for myself. 

If I told you that people were farming and growing fresh produce in a shipping container behind Temple Meads, you probably wouldn’t believe me. But that’s exactly what Pete and Dermot from Grow Bristol are doing with their aquaponics set up, and soon I find myself sat in their office, cradling a cup of coffee and talking about how they ended up here…

Through the Bristol foodie network, I heard about a vineyard south of Bristol, where award winning rose was being made. My ears pricked up at the prospect of delicious local wine made mere miles from my doorstep, and soon I found myself in the beautiful Wrington Vale on the hunt for Ingrid and Dunleavy Vineyard.

When the lovely folk at Source suggested Trethowan’s Dairy as a subject for the exhibition I was putting together there, it crossed my mind that I might be featuring too many cheese producers on the website. After a moment’s thought, I discounted that thought, because obviously there’s no such thing as too much cheese…

One of the best things about the photography exhibition that I put together for Bristol Food Connections is that it’s brought me into contact with new producers. This was the case when Poco suggested I photograph the makers of The Collector Vermouth for the exhibition there. Vermouth isn’t a tipple I can remember really drinking, but when I found out it’s made by the team behind The Ethicurean restaurant, I knew I was in for a treat. So off to Wrington I went, ready to learn all about Vermouth.

After weeks of work, I'm really happy to say that my Hand That Feeds exhibition as part of Bristol Food Connections is up! The exhibition features portraits of local farmers and producers and aims to connect consumers with the people who produce the food they eat.

Since I returned from Canada, I’ve been lamenting the fact that nobody is making local ferments. So when someone told me that two people had started making kimchi and sauerkraut just down the road from me, I got very very excited. 

Charcuterie. Originally devised as a way to preserve meat before we all had fridges tucked away in the corner of our kitchen, this method of preparation has become an art unto itself. Late last year I stumbled across Somerset Charcuterie at a local food festival, and was delighted to discover that they sourced their ingredients locally. I figured it was time that I found out more about this art.

If you’ve ever found yourself down the side of Temple Meads station around lunchtime, you might have noticed a curious scrummage of people emanating from one of the tunnel shaped spaces. This is probably Hart’s Bakery. Naturally I swung by to see what all the fuss was about

I’m sure I’ve mentioned my love of cheese before, but in case you missed it, I bloody love the stuff. I came back from Canada with a particular appreciation for feta after sampling some that a friend made on her farm, so the discovery of Homewood Cheeses put a big smile on my face. Fortunately Tim and Angela were up for a visit, so off to cheese-making land I went.

I stopped shopping in supermarkets several years ago. I had a multitude of reasons, including the poor deal they give suppliers, lack of provenance information about produce, the difficulties faced by small independent businesses, and the fact that I simply grew to hate the experience. Now, I manage to buy a good chunk of produce direct from farmers and local producers, but I still need to go to shops to buy food a couple of days a week. So if I don’t go to supermarkets, where do I go?

I used to think making good coffee was buying ground coffee rather than instant. Moving to Canada, I found myself in a country where everyone ground their own beans, had preferred local roasters and blends, and used a stove top expresso maker or fancy machine. The problems with good coffee is that once you’ve experienced it, it’s really hard to go back…

Breakfast heaven to me is a bacon sandwich; thick rashers of back bacon sandwiched between lovely fresh bread. Living in Canada, I craved decent back bacon (they seem to favour the streaky kind), so when I got back to Bristol and stumbled across some amazing back bacon stocked in a shop round the corner, I enquired of its origins. Sandridge Farmhouse you say? A visit was most definitely in order.

Flour. Alone, it’s not exactly the most thrilling of substances, but the multitude of things you make make with it is astounding. I realised I knew very little about it, and upon discovering Shipton Mill was nearby, I decided to pay them a visit for a quick flour education.

I remember fields of rape from my childhood, vast swathes of yellow covering the countryside in the early summer. I never really thought about what it was used for until recently, when I started looking into local alternatives to my olive oil habit. While I’m not going to completely give up my mediterranean addiction, I did wonder if there was something more local that I could use alongside it.