Christmas gifts from (mainly) Suffolk for food lovers

The utter chaos on my side of the station desk. Diet coke for fuel.

Our 4th December show on Suffolk Sounds Radio was devoted to food-related gifts from (mainly) East Anglian producers and stores. There was a lot to get through which, combined with my physical state (absolutely knackered, thank you for asking), meant things got missed. So here’s a slightly more organised guide to everything mentioned on the show. (It’s a long newsletter and Substack truncates these if you read as email-only. Click and you’ll see the whole thing.)

I wanted to showcase the new edition of Dr Jessica B. Harris’s Kwanzaa Keepsake and Cookbook, a fabulous guide to this Pan-African and African-American holiday. What has this to do with Suffolk? Well, my county was and remains home to American USAF troops who arrived here during the Second World War, many of them Black Americans. My first encounter with Dr Harris’s book came via an American friend now settled in Suffolk who was, at that time, struggling to find ingredients to make the meals he had grown up with. Things are changing. We have better access to ingredients and more cookbooks authored by Black British food writers and chefs are being commissioned. I mentioned a few of my favourites on the show: Maria Bradford’s Sweet Salone, The Pepperpot Diaries by Suffolk-born Andi Oliver, The Flygerians Cookbook by Jess and Jo Edun and Motherland by Melissa Thompson are brilliant. Delicious multifaceted recipes interwoven with personal stories and history. What’s not to like?

My best gift-buying tip? Buy luxury, cute or kitsch versions of everyday products. Got someone who seems to have everything? Buy them something to eat. Here are some more suggestions from mainly Suffolk-based companies.

Stocking fillers / Secret Santa-suitable gifts.

Little sachets of flavoured salts from Pinches Salt - A Suffolk-based mother and daughter company based in Walsham Le Willows sold online and in stores: Earsham St Deli in Bungay, Folk Cafe near Bury, Two Sevens Deli in Sudbury, and Tillos in Lowestoft are stockists. I love the sound of their Sweet Mustard Salt, Glass Rim Seasoning with sumac, hibiscus and rose petals for cocktails, and a Roast Potato Seasoning (fine and gritty polenta, with sea salt, dried rosemary and dried garlic).

A bag of Alema coffee from their Ecuadorian farm sold at their (bright pink!) coffee shop in Bury St Edmunds.

Pump Street’s bars of chocolate make cute little gifts. I like the croissant or panettone flavours from their Bakery Series, a bar of Ecuador Hacienda lemon 85% dark, tubs of drinking chocolate, and minibars from £2. 80 each. (Maple pecan, brown bread or gingerbread sound amazing.)

Tosier’s unsweetened cocoa powder from the Dominican Republic makes a great gift for bakers. A bar of 70% dark chocolate from Haiti, a little bag of chocolate-coated flame raisins from Uganda’s Semuliki Forest or their Smoked Cinnamon Almonds would hit right.

Deepmills milk chocolate, coffee and walnut mini chocolate bar for just £2.50.

Harris & James have an Adnams Rye Malt Whisky Chocolate Bar for £4.95.

Cadbury Coconut Rough bar imported from New Zealand is sold by Beautiful Beers in Bury St Edmunds for £5.25

A copy of Cocoa, a chocolate-themed cookbook by

Sue Quinn

.

Packets of Yum Yum Tree fudge.

Traditional crystallised fruits, boxes of orangettes (chocolate-coated peel, almendritas ( almond wafer shell stuffed with almond lemon and cinnamon paste) and little packets of honey and propolis travel sweets from Emmetts of Peasenhall.

Jams, ferments, pickles, and preserves make great gifts. I buy mine from the craft stall at Bury St Edmunds’s Wednesday market. The range is seasonal: over the last year, I’ve stockpiled jars of peach, nectarine, greengage, damson, rhubarb, plum, cantaloupe, and grape-cardamom jam.

Other favourites:

Borage and wildflower honey from Kenton Farm Estate.

Loganberry jam from High House Fruit Farm.

Local honey from hives around Bury St Edmunds via The Daily Grind.

Christmas marmalade from The Quince Tree based in Leiston. Owner Olga is Croatian and her products are eclectic and flavour-led. Look out for the Lebanese Fig Preserve. She also sells at markets across East Suffolk.

A jar of East Gate larder medlar jelly and owner Jane Steward's book about medlars would make a beautiful gift. We should plant and eat more medlars.

Stokes Dill and Mustard Sauce. Add a packet of Pinney’s smoked salmon.

Got a pickle and ferment lover in your life? Get yourself to your local Eastern European store and go mad. This part of the world knows its pickle so you’ll find all manner of unusual and high-quality products. Ask the staff for help or use your phone to translate (Deepl works okay). Add a copy of James Read’s magical book, Of Cabbages and Kimchi: A Practical Guide to the World of Fermented Food. James also makes and sells kimchi.

Stokes Sticky Pickle is mind-blowingly good. keep an eye out for Swallowtails Enthusiastic Pickle. they sell across East Anglia. I like Le Digestif’s lemon and dill sauerkraut.

I love LA Brewery’s bottles of kombucha: the citrus hop is my favourite but their new Blush variety with elderflower, hops and rhubarb looks pretty. You can buy mixed gift packs.

Little ready-prepared spice packs from Rafi’s Spice Box whose first shop was in Sudbury.

Toatilly granola: nicely packaged bags of Suffolk Crunch with almonds, tangy cranberries, zesty orange and Ceylon cinnamon, a blend of buckwheat and blueberry, or date and walnut for £7.50. Bircher muesli is £6.50

Serious Pig makes snacking cheese made from baked, aged Italian cheese and Snackalami Wild Fennel salami. I love the little bags of Roasted fava beans from Hodmedods too. All are stocked by Beautiful Beers.

Suffolk black bacon from Emmetts. Pure luxury for bacon lovers.

Dairy-Based

A copy of A Cheesemonger’s Tour de France and/or A Cheesemonger's Compendium of British & Irish Cheese by Ned Palmer.

Fen Farm Dairy’s raw or Bungay butter and deservedly famous Baron Bigod cheese, St. Jude by Julie Cheyney, or Suffolk Blue, Suffolk Blue Brie and Gold cheese from Suffolk Farmhouse Cheeses in Creeting St Mary. These are stocked by multiple stores but I particularly recommend a trip to The Cheesehole in Bury St Edmunds who also do gift vouchers, Fen Farm Dairy’s Mini Shop near Eye, Suffolk Food Hall or two lovely farm shops, Alder Carr and Hollow Tree.

Bread and Baking

Some books:

A copy of Vegan Pastry by Pierre Herme and Linda Vongdara for vegan bakers looking to expand their repertoire.

Crumbs by Ben Mims; an encyclopaedic volume of recipes for biscuit and cookie lovers.

Oats in the North, Wheat in the South by Regula Ysewijn. History, gorgeous writing, meticulous research.

Chetna’s Easy Baking by Chetna Makan. Spectacular flavours.

Woosters Mail-a-Malt, boxes of amaretti, loaves of cranberry and apricot sourdough or lebkuchen. Wooster’s Bread is not only far and away the best in Suffolk, it’s better than anything else I’ve bought in the UK and everyone I know who has tried it says the same. Woosters stock loads of East Anglian-made foods and their Christmas bread and pastry orders are now open. The croissants are the size of baby Jesus, they use Tosier chocolate in their pain au chocolat….and get that malt loaf. It’s stellar.

Photo by Woosters Bakery

Jin Chug, The Baking Jin is Cambridge-based. His Christmas yule log is based on his famous Japanese chocolate roll cake, taken to the next level with the addition of rich, salted miso caramel sauce. He also makes Christmas chestnut cakes, spiced pear mulled wine mousse cake, Christmas Orange Chiffon cake or a rose and lychee version.

Brownie and the Bean mail-order brownies are very good.

I love the Penny Bun Bakery selection boxes sold by Hodmedods containing x2 Hodmedod Sourdough, a blend of wholegrain and white flour, a porridge of naked barley flakes and toasted wholegrain quinoa, all slow fermented with the Penny Bun sourdough starter x1 North Sea Sourdough, Johnny's classic sourdough made with a blend of white and wholemeal wheat, spelt and rye flours. And x1 Holkham Malted Sourdough using strong flour milled from Crusoe wheat grown on the Holkham estate in North Norfolk and Hodmedods Malted Wheat Flakes.

I like the idea of making up a bakers’ hamper filled with flours milled by Marriage Brothers, Pakenham Mill, Woosters, Maple Farm Kelsale, a bag of stoneground wholemeal from Woodbridge Tide Mill and a selection of Hodmedods flours (so many unusual varieties i.e. yellow pea, chickpea, emmer, quinoa flour, wrinkled pea, Flanders wheat in season). If you don’t have time to ‘design’ your own, Hodmedods do a flour bundle including Christine McFadden's excellent book, Flour.

While we’re on the subject of Hodmedods, a selection of their pulses and grains plus a copy of

Catherine Phipps

latest pressure cooker cookbook make a fab gift for cooks who love pulses but begrudge the time it takes to cook them.

Booze:

A copy of the newly published book Who's Afraid of Romanée-Conti?: A Shortcut to Drinking Great Wines by Dan Keeling (of Noble Rot).

A voucher for Picnic in the Vines at Burnthouse Vineyard for when the weather improves.

Giffords Hall Vineyard does an Introduction to English Wine course.

Fishers Gin from Aldeburgh, a London dry gin using coastal herbs and botanicals from the salt marshes of the river Alde. They offer fireside lunch tours and tastings.

Edmunds pre-mixed cocktails are hand-blended, bottled and labelled in-house. Build a box of 6 for £27.96 or a themed Christmas box for the same price.

Suffolk wine from Ark Wines, Flint Vineyard near Bungay, or Hawkswood Vineyard and Winery in Thurston. We have many knowledgeable independent wine stores in Suffolk all of whom will happily advise you. Vino Gusto is my closest.

Suffolk rhubarb gin from Suffolk Distillery. I plan to pour it over ice cream.

English Smokey whisky from The English Distillery or a bottle of their Norfolk Nog, a malt whisky cream liqueur.

Alkemy sugar beet molasses spirit is sold at Nethergate wines or Beautiful Beers in Bury St Edmunds. The latter also have some great Christmas offers on their website and in-store including a 12 Days of Christmas mixed box of Belgians from £45, a bottle of Christmas edition Abbaye des Rocs Speciale Noel for £9.50, and a ruby Enghien Hiver Winter Ale for £4.25 right up to £495 for a bottle of Fullers Vintage Ale 1997 found in a customer’s attic and sold on their behalf.

Green Jack Breweries Trawler Boys Bitter is an award winner.

Little Earth Project Brewery have a Build Your Own Bundle with beers made with locally grown hops and hedgerow fruits, roots, flowers and leaves. Elderberry & Mulberry sour, Golden gooseberry, Sherbourne quince with fruit from Boxford, Tangential thoughts made with malted barley and wheat, hops and Ark wines Bacchus grape pomace. Such lovely, evocative names.

Extra-meaningful gifts and experiences

A hardback copy of

Caroline Eden

’s Cold Kitchen, a truly brilliant food/travel memoir by one of the UK’s best writers.

A collection of Christmas-themed food books. I have a guide here. Or a copy of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory (I adore the pecan nut-gathering scene.)

Two non-East Anglian brands that I can’t bear to leave out: Zaytoun extra virgin olive oil from Palestine and spun iron pans, cake tins and other cookware from Netherton Foundry.

Ali Hewson is Norfolk-based but her pottery is beautiful. I love the ceramic jugs.

Also in Norfolk, Brays Cottage pork pies. Order a personalised pie! Choose from plain, onion marmalade or fig and orange but be quick.

Learn how to break down a muntjac deer carcass with Lavenham Butchery.

A knife-making course with Twisted Horseshoe Knives in Stowmarket.

Take them out for a Christmas afternoon tea at Retreat East in Hemingstone, or Lavenham’s The Swan.

Mrs Portly’s Kitchen has a full programme of pre-bookable cooking courses. Choose from world bread, knives and knife skills with Sergio from Twisted Horseshoe Knives, Sourdough with Simon Wooster, Italian cookery, easy cheesemaking, floral cakes and biscuits and more. Keep an eye out for pressure cookery classes with Catherine Phipps too.

Private cookery classes with Lilian’s Kitchen. Learn how to cook SE Asian food.

Jesse’s Kitchen in Bury St Eds offers batch-cooked Afro-Caribbean and regional African meals for freezers and private catering. How amazing would it be to have your freezer filled as a gift? The store is a treasure chest of ingredients and drinks.

A classic Suffolk food hamper from Suffolk Food Hall.

A special sea fishing trip off the Suffolk coast.

Courses at Assington Mill include beekeeping, goat cheese making, foraging and cooking, fruit tree pruning, jams, jellies and cordials, and wild game butchery.

Suffolk Food Museum has a year’s membership including entry to its beer festival, curator tours and social events. On the 6th of December, they have a late-night shopping event, on the 12th Dec they have a Christmas fudge-making workshop, and the marmalade club starts on the 25th Jan.

Lunch or dinner at Lark in Bury St Eds, vouchers available via email or post. Pea Porridge, Suffolk’s only Michelin-starred restaurant offers vouchers. Tuddenham Mill is a beautiful food-orientated place to stay. The award-winning Unruly Pig offers meal vouchers and gorgeous Christmas menus, and Greig Young’s Christmas menus at the Bildeston Crown should not be missed.

The Sun Inn at Dedham has a special offer: Escape to Constable Country this December for one night plus offers running through January. Check their website. This is an extraordinarily historic and beautiful part of East Anglia.

Forage Kitchen on the Rougham Estate offers meal and/or experience gift vouchers.