By Henry Sutton
What, you may ask, does a pickle so sweet and tangy with lots of crunchy chunks, have in common with a quiet, handsome, East Staffordshire village on the banks of the Trent and Mersey Canal? Not much if you are talking about content alone. However, Branston Pickle didn’t simply acquire its name because it happened to be first produced, in 1922, by Crosse and Blackwell in their Branston factory. The pickle is very much a product of place.
Travel the two miles or so along the A38 to Burton-On-Trent and it soon becomes apparent why. Burton is not just stuffed with exceptionally good pubs, it’s the major brewing town in the country. And nothing goes better with a pint of beer than a hunk of granary bread, a wedge of cheese and a large dollop of Branston Pickle. Except that old chestnut the ploughman’s lunch was not actually invented until the 1980s.
So perhaps it’s best to presume it was a quirk of fate after all and simply enjoy the beer on tap and the intriguing insights into the whole brewing process that are provided, notably, by the Coors Visitor Centre
and Brewery Museum (the UK’s largest) and Marston’s Brewery tours (www.marstonsdontcompromise.co.uk). But if beer is not your thing, pack a cheese and pickle sandwich and head for nearby Branston Water Park, where the 40 acre lake, surrounded by woodland, wetland and meadows has become one of the favourite places in the UK for family walks. The other great local attraction is the 13th century, half-timbered Sinai Park Farm (information about both at (www.enjoyeaststaffs.co.uk). It’s not so hard to imagine our ancestors pickling onions, carrots and rutabaga, though not perhaps dates, and then mixing them all up into that sickly, dark goo.
However, it’s certainly surprising to believe how these humble beginnings might have led to a national obsession, which sees 28 million jars of Branston pickle being consumed a year. Though technically Branston Pickle should now be called Bury St Edmonds Pickle, as following Premier Foods’ buy out of Crosse and Blackwell, that’s where it’s currently produced. But all is not lost. While there are nothing like as many pubs in the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmonds as Burton-On-Trent, you can go on an inspired tour of the Greene King Brewery which produces the wonderfully alcoholic Abbot Ale, before sauntering over to inspect the remains of the Norman abbey itself.