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The nation has voted and the winner is Lincolnshire! Not just for the sausages, either … "People drive around us, not through us," says Rachel Green, a chef and farmer whose family has worked the Lincolnshire land for more than 400 years. Which means missing out on local delicacies including chine, plum bread and pigs fry. The county has just been voted the UK's favourite food spot (pipping Cornwall) in a public poll to mark the start of British Food Fortnight and while this may have had something to do with mobilising votes – there was some frenzied Twitter campaigning – there is no doubt Lincolnshire, often overlooked as a foodie destination, deserves a turn in the spotlight. "We're a remote county," says Mary Powell, tourism development manager. "It's very rural – farming and horticulture is the mainstay of the economy." With its coast, hills and valleys – and vast flatlands – it has the largest proportion of grade 1 (in other words: the best) agricultural land in the country, growing more fresh produce than any other county. A third of its population is employed in agriculture and food production. In recent years, says Green, "the council has been very good at championing food in Lincolnshire." She points to Tastes of Lincolnshire, a project that began in 2002 to encourage gastronomic tourism, and the Red Lion Quarter, a development that opened in Spalding earlier this year, providing a training restaurant and food court to showcase local food. Restaurants that can compete with the best around the country are still few, though. The Old Bakery in Lincoln, and Harry's Place in Great Gonerby (recently listed in the Good Food Guide's top 40 best restaurants) are worthy of note – and both place emphasis on local produce. "The heritage food in this county," says Green, "really is the pig – [there's the] famous Lincolnshire sausage, but also dishes like chine." It is, she says, an old English word that means "backbone", although the dish is made from the shoulder, stuffed with parsley and simmered. "It's a food I remember from my childhood," she adds, "and it is still widely eaten in Lincolnshire. We eat it with vinegar and a sprinkling of sugar. I live in the middle of nowhere and there are four shops within five miles where I can buy chine." She also mentions haslet (a pork meatloaf), and a pork, liver and kidney casserole called pigs fry "that some butchers sell as a mix". The lard from pork production traditionally went into making plum bread – a fruit loaf, another county delicacy. Many food producers in Lincolnshire are family businesses. The Dennett family, three generations of ice-cream makers based in Spilsby, has been in business since 1926. Alfred Enderby Ltd has been smoking fish since the 1930s (it is one of a handful of Grimsby traditional smokeries to have protected geographical status). The award-winning Lincolnshire Poacher cheese was created by Simon Jones in the 1990s, the fourth generation of his family to farm in the Lincolnshire Wolds. The Jackson family have been farming their land near Scunthorpe for 90 years. Is there something about Lincolnshire, its remoteness perhaps and relatively low population, that keeps families in the same business over the generations? "Definitely," says Sally Jackson, whose husband grew up on the farm. They now own the Pink Pig Farm, raising free-range breeds, and running a farm shop and cafe. "I'm a southerner by birth and when I moved up here I noticed a huge attachment to the land, and to family." In the past 10 years, she says, local food production has boomed "as farmers diversified, and where there is good food, it encourages more good food and it encourages retailers like us to stock it." Cote Hill cheese is one example – Michael and Mary Davenport ran a dairy farm for 30 years, but only started making their award-winning cheese in 2005. In 2004, Lincolnshire farmer Alex Albone set up Pipers handmade crisps; he started up by selling to local pubs, then at farmers' markets and food fairs and now oversees a business growing by 30% each year (while refusing to sell to supermarkets). "We do [food production] quietly and in a very measured way," says Green. "The people who produce don't take shortcuts. It's about becoming the best." Emine Saner
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