Blog Forman and Field

We get asked to attend lots of shows and events. Rarely, however, are we invited by such luminaries of the fine food and drink community as the wine merchant Berry Brothers & Rudd. With 311 years under their belt they’ve been in business even longer than Forman’s.

We joined the Berry’s team and their customers to taste their wines alongside our trademark London Cured Smoked Salmon, served on buckwheat blinis with creme fraiche, capers and shallots. It’s our favourite way of serving smoked salmon for a party, we top the blinis for customers and let them add their own toppings. I’d certainly reccomend it to anyone entertaining over the Easter period, our kit makes it it a synch to prepare at home.

Smoked Salmon and Blini Kit and Kerboodle

This event got us thinking that there’s a lot food producers can learn from the wine industry. For years vineyards have opened their doors to customers, inviting them in to learn about production methods, to taste and to buy over the gate. It’s something that we’ve been slow to catch on to. Indeed an industrial food producer usually has every interest in hiding the process that goes into the food they churn out. Farm shops are all very well but often you find produce divorced from the producer there as much as you do in a supermarket.

At Forman’s Fish Island we’ll be doing everything we can to encourage customers to come and visit us. We’re proud of the fresh ingredients and traditional techniques that go into everything we make and we want to show off to our customers. Come and visit the smokehouse, enjoy a meal in our restaurant and close the gap between producer and your plate.

Boris Johnson paid us a visit today to declare our new premises officially more open that they have been for the last 16 months.

Boris deftly unveils plaque

Along with some of our clients, suppliers, friends and members of the press, he joined us for wild smoked Scottish salmon and Chapel Down champagne breakfast. It was a chance for us to put the battle royale of our relocation behind us and to celebrate the beginning of a new era for Forman’s with the opening of our restaurant and events venue, Formans Fish Island.

Boris and the Forman family

 

All photographs copywrite Jon Mclean: mclean.jon@gmail.com

You might have caught Gordon Ramsay’s ‘Cookalong live’ show last night. Gordon got wind of the news that our own super slicer, Darren Matson, recently too the world record for the fastest boned and sliced side of smoked salmon. 1 minute and 24 seconds for the budding Norris McWhirters amongst you.

Darren Matson - fastest smoked salmon in the East

Being a competitive sort, Ramsay threw down the gauntlet and challenged Forman’s hero to a smoked salmon slicing race at Borough Market, the winner taking the record. In front of a crowd of onlookers our man’s 25 years experience on the knives shone through. He gave Ramsay a sound beating for speed, even stopping to offer assistance to the lagging chef half way through. In any event Gordon unfortunately fell foul of the rules and produced one less slice than the minimum requirement of 40 so was disqualified.

An exhausted Matson said, “It was a game of two sides and at the end of the day, I’ve slice mine quickest. Ramsay’s done his best, but I suggest he comes and joins us in the slicing room for a year or two before he tries to take my title again.”