New Suppliers-- New dishes- New opportunities
Feb
16
Written by:
16/02/2012 13:14
Wherever possible we try to continually evolve what we do at Eriska. We are always conscious that we do not want to impose revolution but rather gradual change and whilst we welcome many new guests to Eriska every year we also welcome many back from year to year and in reality if we had not changed we would never have been able to offer both old and new guests what they want. My father would always stress this when questioned and point out that if we had stayed in the 70's, nice though it was with our own dairy and eggs, endless sunshine and staff dressed in kilts we would also not have functioning central heating, choices on the menu and even TVs in the bedrooms, let alone the wealth of indoor facilities and the great team who now work here.
In practice times change as do our tastes and we all need to move with the times but essentially must keep one hand on what was best about the past and try and combine and merge this into what is best about the future. So it seems with our suppliers, we have been using some of them for many years and a couple for as long as I remember, however often we have accepted what they do and how they do it when in reality that is now changing in society and we should be able to ask for what we want but should then be willing to work with them to get what is best for us in terms of product and best for them in terms of price. It all seems quite simple but it never is although recently we have opened up some new accounts and have found them refreshing in terms of their assistance and willingness to work with us.
So it has been for us when we were looking for some new meat products - concentrating on quality and provenance and this brought us in touch with Udale Butchers in Cumbria where they make world famous sausages.It all came about as we were looking for a farm reared Veal and through recommendations ended up on their doorstep. there is little Veal grown in scotland so Cumbria was the closest market we could find and given the wonderful dish simon produced last night it would be hard to argue. So after a day or development and trail and error we created :
Heaves farm rose veal loin, shin and kidney, Parmesan polenta, shallot farci, white balsamic & truffle- Not a bad days work-m especially since my only input was on the tasting team!
