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The golds were for his Penrith
pepperpot sausage and honey
roasted smoked salmon, there was a silver for the wild
Cumberland salmon and bronze awards for his chicken
fillet, Thai
roasted smoked salmon, cold
smoked tuna, smoked
farmed Scotch salmon and pepperpot
sausage (in a different category from the above). “I
was absolutely thrilled with the awards especially as we’d
only been running The Old Smokehouse for about a year,” says
Richard.
The success in London brought to 22 the number of prizes
won by the business over the last three years, two
of those years when it was in the hands of Jo Hampson and
Georgina Perkins. It’s proof indeed that producers
in Cumbria can compete with the very best nationwide. “We
try and source top quality ingredients and use much
local produce. We have hams and bacon, for instance, from
Richard Woodall at Waberthwaite, fish from Bells in Carlisle
and vegetables supplied by R&C James in Penrith. We
also smoke at a lowish temperature which gives a nice,
succulent product, not a dry one,” says Richard.
The range of foods that go through The Old Smokehouse
is extensive. Fish includes tuna, trout, Windermere char, sea-farmed
salmon and wild Cumberland salmon and then there is duck,
beef, chicken, ham, bacon, sausages, pheasant, quail, cheese,
tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers and garlic.
It was the scent of food being smoked which greeted me
outside the walls of Brougham Hall as I parked up one day
in September. Inside the former coach house a dozen or
so sides of filleted Scottish salmon had been sprinkled
with salt, to add flavour and reduce the moisture content. “We
usually leave them like that for about 8-10 hours, then
wash the sides with clean water, air dry them for a while
in the smoker without smoke and finally light the fires
for an 8-10 hour smoking, depending on the size of the
fish,” says Richard. “Each side will take a
different time because there’s no uniformity of size
so even if we were to do 120 sides we might be taking them
out of the smoker over a period of two hours. In essence
I’ll know the salmon’s ready when the texture
is right,” he adds.
Sharrow Bay Country House Hotel at Ullswater has been a regular customer
of the smoked salmon for years and Richard supplies numerous
other hotels in Cumbria too. As for shops, his produce
is sold in places like J&J Graham in Penrith, Booths supermarkets,
Laird’s Larder in Carlisle, the Westmorland farm shops
on the M6 near Tebay, taste at Rheged, the Low Sizergh Barn Farmshop
near Kendal and the Brougham Hall cafe, run by Muriel Austwick. Not
to forget Fortnum and Mason, Harvey Nichols and Selfridges in
London.
At Brougham Hall most of the smoking of fish, meat, poultry
and cheese is done with oak chippings and oak dust from
a local woodcutter although Richard and his production
director, Carlisle born Neil Harrison, are also trying
to see what kinds of flavours other woods, like cherry
and apple, impart to different products. Richard, himself,
has not moved far to run this business. Born in Penrith,
he went to Ullswater School in the town, leaving at 16
to become an apprentice at Birkett’s bakery. He trained
as a confectioner and stayed for eight years before joining
Bells of Lazonby, once again working with cakes and gateaux.
Jobs as a chef at the Sun Inn at Pooley Bridge and
The George in Keswick followed and then about seven years
ago he set up a cleaning company (offices, supermarkets
and car showrooms) with his wife, Christine, a firm
they still have. Food, however, has always been a passion
of Richard’s and one day, buying chocolates at The
Old Smokehouse and Truffles, in the days when it was run
by Jo Hampson and Georgina Perkins, he mentioned his interest
in buying the Truffles side of the business, should
they ever want to sell. A few months later the chance came
to buy the whole lot and last autumn Richard found himself
installed at Brougham Hall. “Jo and Georgina had
built an award-winning business and I like to think they
sold it to me because I shared a similar ethos to them.
I like quality food and that’s something this company
produces,” he says. He subsequently sold Truffles
so he could devote all his energies to The Old Smokehouse
where he has increasingly focussed
on the wholesale side of the business.
His recent teaming up with Lakes Speciality Foods at Staveley
means that from now on new customers amongst hotels, restaurants,
pubs, shops and other places will only be able to buy his
products through Lakes Speciality Foods. As Christmas approaches,
so do some very busy weeks. But with two smokers and a
work day at the moment of 6am-4pm there is plenty
of capacity and time to increase production. “By
salting and smoking we’re using the oldest way of
preserving food,” Richard says as he talks
about the sprinkling of salt on salmon and the brining
of game and poultry. And in the setting of Brougham
Hall - once known by Victorians as the ‘Windsor of
the North’ - Richard and Neil’s work
all seems rather fitting. Funnily enough it’s
also at this former ‘Windsor of the North’ where
The Old Smokehouse has once or twice privately smoked turkeys
for the Prince of Wales.
THE OLD SMOKEHOUSE, Brougham, near Penrith: 01768 867772.
Website: www.the-old-smokehouse.co.uk Mail
order service available.
Produce from The Old Smokehouse can be also bought at
the Brougham Hall cafe which, before Christmas, is
open at weekends. If the cafe is closed during December
the produce can be bought at The Old Smokehouse itself.
Christmas hampers available.
Smoked Scottish Salmon
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