Recently in food and drink Category

Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs have been given protected status by the EU.

The move prevents anyone from passing off a pig not from the Gloucestershire area as an Old Spot.

It puts the breed in the same company as Champagne, Parma Ham, Cornish clotted cream and Melton Mowbray pork pies in terms of having privileged status throughout Europe.

The regulation is intended to reassure consumers that, when they buy this meat, they can be confident they are getting pork from pedigree Gloucester pigs raised using traditional farming methods unique to the county.

I wonder how they're going to enforce it. Presumably through spot checks...

Full marks to the team at Croots Farm Shop in Derbyshire who have come up with a range of World Cup sausages.

The offering includes The Bangerooney, the WAG Sausage, the Three Lions and the Johannasburg-er.

They're even giving 10% of the proceeds from the sale of each World Cup sausage or burger to Treats Children's Charity.

Steve Croot, who runs the shop in Belper with his wife Kay, told the press: "The Bangerooney is red and white, made from links of tomato and plain sausage. The WAGs sausage is a girly sausage made with chicken, lemon and tarragon. The Johannasburg-er is packed with beef and pork and is quite spicy. No lions have been used in making our Three Lions sausage. They're made with black pepper and cayenne to give them a bit of a bite!"

Perhaps after Robert Green's performance at the weekend they ought to introduce a 'clanger banger.

First it was Marco Pierre White endorsing turkeys, now it's Pixie Lott and Gordon Ramsay promoting milk.

Photos of the pop princess and the hot-tempered chef sporting milk moustaches will appear on posters across the country.

It's part of the Make Mine Milk campaign, which aims to raise awareness of the white stuff's health benefits and make it the "must have" drink of the summer.

Launched in a bid to halt declining sales, the Dairy UK-led three-year campaign will cost £7.5m.

Now as you know, I like a freebie - and the people behind the campaign have sent me a little bag of goodies, including some stick-on white tashes, presumably in a bid to encourage me to emulate Gordon or Pixie.

I've just tried to persuade my colleague, Caroline, to model said moustache for a photo. Maybe I didn't explain myself very well because she refused and backed away nervously.

We've looked at more than 100 photos in our Face of British Food Fortnight 2010 competition. We've read lots of covering emails. We've discussed the respective merits of each. After lots of deliberation, discussions, one or two constructive disagreements (OK, arguments) and countless coffees, here are the 10 shortlisted people.

Max Clifford is now helping me (well, not literally right now because he's on his honeymoon, but you get the picture) pick the overall winner, who'll be announced on April 22. 

New research shows how effective introducing Jamie Oliver-style menus into schools has been.

Ditching high-fat and sugary food in favour of more healthy options improves pupils' test results and cuts the number of days they're off sick, according to researchers from Oxford and Essex universities.

The impact of replacing burgers, fish fingers and chips with such dishes as pasta, Mexican bean wraps and creamy coconut fish was as effective at raising standards as the introduction of the multi-billion pound literacy hour in the 1990s.

Great news all round then? Well, not quite. It came at the same time as another top TV chef, Marco Pierre White, announced he is to become a brand ambassador for Bernard Matthews.

White, who was the youngest chef to win three Michelin stars at the age of 33, reckons the turkey producer is "without question one of the great farmers of the last five decades" and wants to move the bird "further up the UK's culinary agenda".

Nothing wrong with that, you might think. The only complication is that many remember it was the Norfolk-based company run by Bernard 'Bootiful' Matthews who once made the now-infamous Turkey Twizzlers. And they were the very product held up by Jamie Oliver as epitomising all that was wrong with our school dinners.

I'm not one to name drop, but I've been talking to Max Clifford.

I haven't done something scintillating, shocking or salacious (sadly), but he's helping me  judge a competition.

The agent-to-the-stars will be giving Farmers Weekly the benefit of his huge public relations experience to help pick a "face" to front the British Food Fortnight 2010 campaign.

So, do you have a face that sums up all that's best about this country's delicious food and wonderful farming industry? A face that conveys the characteristics of which we can be proud - wholesomeness, hard work, integrity, a sense of tradition, healthiness and a bright future.

Rhubarb may bring back bad memories of tasteless, stringy school canteen crumbles - but this once-humble veg has had a makeover. It's now on a par with champagne.

The European Commission has awarded rhubarb grown in an area of Yorkshire 'Protected Designation of Origin' status after years of petitioning.

This exclusive label means the veg grown by the 12 firms in this part of the world is now legally protected, preventing anyone else even giving the impression their products are grown in that area or that way.

It's a distinction only given to a select few other British products such as Melton Mowbray pork pies, Swaledale cheese, Cornish pasties and Newcastle Brown Ale (abroad, it's afforded to champagne and Parma ham).

When a colleague claimed earlier that they had a picture of Julia Bradbury dressed as a fairy with walking boots on, I was interested. Very interested. For purely professional reasons, you understand.

It turned out not to be a hoax. The TV presenter (she fronted the wonderful Wainwright Walks) was dressed in the fairy costume over the weekend to launch National Dairy Week.

And I couldn't let a picture like this pass without giving you the chance to come up with a witty line or two - so it's also the subject of this month's FW caption competition, which you can enter here.  

Here's just the excuse you've been looking for. Eating chips makes you happier.

That's the conclusion of scientists at Aston University who reckon the taste and smell can reduce anxiety and make you more cheerful.

"The consumption of chips clearly improved respondents' mood," says Dr Mike Green, who led the research. 

"Participants who were feeling down felt better after eating chips. In fact, calmness was restored within 20 minutes."

Such mood changes could be down to nutritional or psychological factors - either from the biological effects of nutritional components on brain chemistry or the pleasurable oro-stimulatory sensation, triggered by the taste."

And if that isn't enough of a reason to go out and buy fish and chips tonight, it's also currently National Chip Week. That nice Mr Chegwin is even involved. 

British pig farmers are calling for pork to be named the official food of Valentine's Day after Argentina's president dubbed it 'better than Viagra'.

Ms Cristina Fernandez claimed at a recent conference that "it is much more gratifying to eat some grilled pork than to take Viagra", leading pig producers to give her a prestigious 'Banger Award'.

The Award, given in recognition of services to pork and sausages, is the highest accolade pig farmers have to offer. Previous winners include Sir Terry Wogan, Chris Evans, Phil Tufnell, and Christine Hamilton. 

BPEX chairman Stewart Houston commented: "We've sent Ms Fernandez a letter to ask her to meet with us and accept one of our prestigious Banger Awards. We have known how tasty pork is and want to thank Ms Fernandez for sharing the love."

If you want to cook up a romantic pork dish this Valentine's Day for your loved one and test Ms Fernandez theory, here are two suggested recipes:

Never thought I'd see a government minister posing as a rapper.

To be fair, it is for a good cause. Here's Northern Ireland's Minister of Ag and Rural Development, Michelle Gildernew, with the microphone at the launch of a Breakfast Rap children's competition.

The contest is calling on kids to write a fun and informative rap song which celebrates breakfast and Northern Ireland food. She's pictured here with Ulster Farmers Union Seeds and Cereals Committee Member Tim McClelland, and youngsters Scott Aston and Nadine Shirlow. 

The first new vegetable to hit the shelves in almost a decade is due to go on sale in M&S next week.

Just don't tell Wayne Keble...

Here's an original idea - apple crisps.

They're made using home-grown apples hand-picked on the Fermor family's farm in Kent. Once picked the apples are washed, cored, sliced, dried and packaged to create this healthy snack.

"Obesity levels have reached an all time high," says Charlie Fermor. "My aim was to create a healthy snack that could replace the standard crisps that, at the same time, appealed to consumers of all ages. Apple Crisps are the perfect answer for everyone who pledged to lose weight in 2010."

Sunshine might be little more than distant memory right now - but the weather was obviously good for wine makers in 2009. According to a report in The Telegraph, it was a record year...

There's nothing like a warming bowl of soup in this snowy weather - so here are some recipe ideas from The Times.

Heston Blumenthal has been voted 'Chef of the Decade' in a poll of readers of Sainsbury's magazine readers.

MasterChef, meanwhile, was named TV food show of the decade, which I'm pleased about because I'm a big fan of Michel Roux.

How nice. A Christmas present, held up in the post, arrived on my desk today - a bottle of SLOEmotion slow whisky. 

I haven't tasted it yet (it's still a bit early) but it says on the bottle: "The taste is predominantly aromatic cherry from the sloe fruit, a hint of almond from the stone, a pleasant hint of whisky and a smooth, rounded finish with a strong, warming glow."

Apparently, it can be drunk neat after dinner as a digestif or is great as a cocktail ingredient.

I was interested to read earlier that traditional puddings are experiencing a renaissance as comfort-eating - and people's preference for eating at home - rise.

According to The Grocer, value sales in the hot-served chilled desserts market have risen over 11% in the last year.

One of my favourite is definitely the Farmhouse Fare Sticky Toffee Pudding. It's delicious...

Juice from the apples that inspired Sir Isaac Newton to discover gravity are among those included in a new heritage drink available in some Co-operative food stores.

Now, 1,000 varieties of rare and endangered British apples, including "Isaac Newton's Tree", which is identical to and originated from the apple tree in the garden of Newton's Lincolnshire home are included in the new drink - the Truly Irresistible Tillington 1,000 pressed apple juice.

Many of the varieties were threatened with extinction until The Co-op bought one of three identical collections 18 months ago, growing and harvesting the apples on its fruit farm at Tillington, Herefordshire.

The others were bought by the Prince of Wales and a Scottish collector, but The Co-op's collection is the only one being put to a commercial use - around 10,000 one-litre bottles of the drink are available in Co-operative stores.

The apple juice includes many varieties dating back to pre-Victorian times. Most were originally dessert apples, which eventually fell out of favour and became less fashionable than modern commercial varieties.

Among other rare varieties grown at Tillington, and included in the heritage apple juice, are Great Expectations, Fairie Queen, Northern Spy, Forty Shilling, Duck's Bill and Bloody Ploughman.

"These apples offer a real taste of British history and many of them have stories behind them," says Co-operative Farms managing director Christine Tacon (pictured).

"The apples were in danger of disappearing forever, so to be able to turn them into a delicious and unique drink is very exciting."