A Woodland Feast with Secret Adventures

Where boundaries become experience

The overriding principle with how I structure these menus is to let the fire and the produce do the talking, then weave in a few unexpected details to spark curiosity.

Before I get there, however, the fundamentals are to make the food relevant. Relevant to the venue and the season primarily, but relevance goes beyond these core values.

The food has to be achievable by just me, which means a menu has to be designed around what is relevant to the situation. The equipment available, the logistical conditions, staffing, travel, timings, and all the practicalities that come with cooking in a woodland setting.

Beyond this, the food has to be relevant to budget, balanced carefully against customer expectations.

Making a menu relevant never starts with the food. It starts with understanding the venue, the season, the people, and the circumstances surrounding the event. Only then can the food begin to take shape.

Making a menu relevant never starts with the food, but it is most certainly all about the food.

Woodland feasts are a special event, not simply because of the location, although this is the immediate attraction, but because a location like this provides endless opportunity to be creative. Creativity is not something that can be summoned at will or discovered by looking through books. It is the action that arises out of circumstance and motivation, shaped by heritage, environment and craft — but the action itself is where the magic happens. This is where a woodland feast comes to life.

Arriving at this never starts with the event in how it presents itself. Everything begins with setting the boundaries.

Boundaries are more relevant than a term such as constraints, which sets the wrong tone. Constraints bring friction and set limits, absolute and rigid. Boundaries can be pushed against — flexible, taking a form of their own. They are the scope of possibility, the practical elements of all involved, emanating out of the people and the place.

Woodlands are rich in these, bringing focus. A focus from limits is more relevant than choice through freedom. Power, running water, shelter, space, equipment — considerations with very little flexibility, directing any creativity while narrowing the field of choice. This is where the limits become inspiration, and the non-negotiables define and provide options.

With no power there are firm limits on space, temperature and availability. These have a direct influence on food, not just for safety but for quality and presentation. Creativity answers with fermentation, pickling and other preserves. With fresh ingredients cooked on site. Ingredients that are happy to sit, and have minimal processing. Whole ingredients, cooked from scratch.

Environment always shapes the response to creative choice and expression. Location and seasonality — what can be used. What produce is in season brings pairings and flavours, finely tuned by where they are grown, produce that imparts a regional flavour.

May sees asparagus take the focus. Where a hollandaise or poached egg would be lovely, these are not realistic given the boundaries and invite in too many opportunities for imbalance. Cured egg yolks, shaved, are the answer — flavoured with wild garlic salt to bring connection to the land. Blistering the asparagus over fire connects seasonality to place. Quick pickled shaved asparagus and wild marjoram come together as a salad garnish that holds without a fridge. The starter is given life not by starting with an idea, but by shaping ideas because of the boundaries the event places on creativity. Providing room to play in.

July brings strawberries — quintessentially British summer produce. Thoughts of cream and ice cream flood in. Cultured cream opens up this possibility where the boundaries of temperature would have curtailed the creative spark. Cultured cream flavoured with dark chocolate and sweet woodruff give the classical feel of a summer dessert and a link to the woodland it sits in. Blistering the strawberries on the embers breathes relevance into their character with the fire at the heart. Dried elderflowers and a fermented green spruce cone syrup enrich the relationship with the place, linking the people to it in a very direct and physical way.

October allows venison and squash to take the focus. Their character shaped by cooking with fire, their flavour given by the environment and its season. Venison haunch slowly cooked next to the fire over wood, allowed to smoke and season. Squash grilled directly over the embers to caramelise and enrich their personality. These ingredients come together from the land, linking people to place. Pickled under-ripe blackberries and a damson ketchup embrace flavour and textural contrasts to bring the food together, while reinforcing the relationship to the environment and time of year.

Respecting the boundaries removes friction, creates balance, and brings an alignment that feels effortless. Nothing is forced, but falls into place. A natural rhythm is nurtured that brings an ease, a comfort that sends out a pulse to be felt.

Woodland feasts are not about selling a menu. They are not restaurants in the woods to sit at and eat. They are feasts to be enjoyed in the woodland — curated and crafted to become something more than the food. Being fed is the bonus, the finishing touch to choosing to spend time in a woodland with people. A shared experience enriched by community, and the humanity of a place that speaks through its influences, enhanced by them, and enriching because of them.

The terroir.

I know it has come together when people relax. They move around, talk to whoever is next to them regardless of familiarity. The experience is infectious, almost contagious. An excitement builds — but a calm, relaxed excitement. The energy that tells you the event has become the experience.

Elements discovered through embracing and accepting boundaries, not thinking in terms of constraints. Space for creativity to take shape.

When there is balance, everything feels right and falls into place. People relax and give into the experience. There is a hum of chatter.

The woodland has a pulse.

Heritage | Environment | Craft

Curated with Terroir