Catering Policy

The Lost Gardens Catering Policy has been developed primarily from the Core Values Document and tries to adhere to the ethos of the place so that it enhances the overall integrity. These factors have been distilled into four key drivers that encapsulate our catering ambitions.

  1. The department has to become the Kitchen for the whole Estate.
  2. We will endeavour to serve seasonal and local foods.
  3. Everything should be Home-made.
  4. We have to celebrate food in its full diversity.

There is little new about these ambitions and they sound quite simple when first read but they will represent a significant change to the current operation and the implications need to be fully understood.

The department has to become the Kitchen for the whole Estate.

We have what is undoubtedly the finest Productive Garden in the country and a wider Estate that while managed primarily for conservation reasons has a useful production of different foods including a potential wild harvest. These are the elements that form the core of the visitor experience. There is an expectation from gardeners, conservation staff and visitors that the produce is used so we can all experience it. This is the challenge to the catering department. The garden is only designed to cater for approximately 30 people but there are ways that we can work together to enhance this. If my understanding is correct a lot of the prestige of the House came out of its ability to produce the unusual and rare items of food. This hasn’t really lost any of its relevance today; in an age of supermarket food the rare and usual can have just as much fascination today as it did 100 years ago.

We have our unique selling point.

So the Catering department needs to be inspired and informed by the Productive Garden and wider Estate in both atmosphere and menu. A further point to illustrate this is the wild food tours that are offered around the outer estate at various times of the year and these should be complimented by a matching food offer from the Kitchen. I can see wild mushrooms on toast.

The department should think of its self as the Kitchen in its broadest sense. It is our responsibility to make the best use of everything that is produced. So at times of over production we have to look at methods of preservation and these of course then turn into lines that we can sell. Fruits into jams or sauces to be bottled and sold. Why can’t we be as famous as Boddington’s down the road.

We will endeavour to serve seasonal and local foods

The heartbeat of the whole gardens could be described as being around the ever changing seasons. Country life is very much dictated by the weather and its impact. It affects the wild life, it affects the plants and it should effect what we eat. The department currently feels completely out of sync with this heartbeat and needs to fall back into line.

Why do visitors visit the Lost Gardens? What is the romance that is associated with the place? It must have something to do with the sense of adventure and re-discovery of something old and valued. So connecting the foods offered back into the pulse of the garden will help to make the department feel part of the experience.

The French have regional food product down to a fine art and when you visit a region or district you only experience the food that are produced from that area. In England as a whole we have been slow to wake up to this point, but there is a growing awareness. If I am visiting a region or county I want to experience the best and unique things that it has to offer. Cornwall is very blessedwith a fantastic larder of unique products and custom and it is only these that we should draw from. This I feel is to enhance the integrity of the whole experience.

So no more Tuna or Prawns or even jacket potatoes, salads all year round, tomatoes and cucumbers from Europe. We have to look very carefully at our complete supply chain so that we are comfortable with everything that we serve.

Everything should be home-made

Heligan was certainly ahead of its time when it set up the bakery all those years ago and again all that I am proposing is a further extension and enhancement of this policy. The brand needs to be developed and worked harder. Where food items are for sale for immediate consumption we need to make it very apparent and obvious without the need for signs that it has been made, here today for immediate consumption. If it is for retail then it needs clearly branding and labelling.

So half of this policy is about how we present all our food so that it is evident to all that it is made on the premises without the need for signage and then the branding for the items that are to go offsite.

The other half is about ensuring that everything that we sell is home-made as opposed to home-baked.

We celebrate food in its full diversity

How important is the diversity of food and food production. How valuable are Heritage seeds? Is a wild harvest important and a missing element in a modern diet. These are large and complex issues not all that will be addressed from the catering department, but in some areas it is important and there are obvious links and commercial advantages to be gained. How do we work closely with retail? How do we promote plants and seeds? How do we promote the unusual plants that we are serving in their raw form next to the cooked?

GE 7/10/11