High Rollers win big cheese on 'flipping fantastic' Shrove Tuesday
After a hardened battle of the big cheeses new team Hill Valley High Rollers beat five time champions Made In Cheshire to lift the cup for the first time. Hill Valley High Rollers negotiated the obstacle course of farm-yard animals to roll their way into the record books, also launching the eighth Chester Food and Drink Festival, which will be held over the Easter weekend.
The team from The Macdonald Hill Valley Hotel Golf & Spa, near Whitchurch, defeated the Cheshire team, whose challenge crumbled after previously winning the event for five years on the run. The cheese rolling was this year followed by a new event, a traditional Pancake Race on Pancake Day, which created a ‘flipping fantastic’ day of activities. A team of pancake-tossers from the new Meze restaurant in Eastgate Row North, Chester won the Golden Pancake Trophy after narrowly beating a team from the West Cheshire Chamber of Commerce in the Final.
Captains of industry and leaders of the new Cheshire West and Chester Council rolled up for this year’s competition. A procession including children from Merton House School made their way on a circuit of the Roman Walls carrying a wheel of cheese from The Groves to Eastgate Street, where Angel Burton, of Merton House, carried the cheese through the city to The Cross to start the cheese rolling. Also, a team of four runners from Cheshire West and Chester Council did a lap of the walls and met the procession in Eastgate Street.
Hundreds of spectators lined Chester’s ancient Bridge Street Rows to gain a vantage point. Lord Mayor of Chester, Cllr Brian Bailey, started each cheese rolling race, which also involved teams from Snowdonia and a Cheshire Cheese Ladies Team.
Lady Mayoress Raewyn Bailey started the Pancake Racing, which saw teams from Amber Lounge, M&S, The Cheese Shop and Brasserie Chez Gerard also toss pancakes down a course on Bridge Street, Chester.
Stephen Wundke, Chairman of the Chester Food & Drink Festival, said:
“The cheese rolling event always launches the annual Chester Food and Drink Festival on a roll. This event was added to by the new pancake tossing this year, on Shrove Tuesday. It showed that our leaders from the new authority are united in their cause of working together for a better Chester and West Cheshire. This really signals food and drink as one of Cheshire’s most important products, in what is fast becoming one of the biggest food festivals in the country.”
Kate Halewood, of Vicars Cross, Chester, General Manager of The Macdonald Hill Valley Hotel Golf & Spa, added:
“We are delighted to have won the cheese rolling on our first attempt. This was a lot harder physically than we had thought it was going to be. The cheese rolling was a great launch event to the Chester Food and Drink Festival and we are so pleased we took part. We will be back next year to defend our title.”
Cheshire cheese is one of the region’s most famous exports and the Taste Festival, which runs from April 11 to 13 at Chester Racecourse as part of the Chester Food and Drink Festival, celebrating this in its launch event – the ‘infamous’ Cheese Rolling Championship.
As cheese rolling lands on Shrove Tuesday this year, the Festival organisers added the extra Pancake Race Day event to the programme, where businesses proved their pancake tossing skills while negotiating an obstacle course to win a coveted golden frying pan.
The Chester Food & Drink Festival is taking place from April 4 to April 18 and will include many activities and events such as the very popular Cocktail Competition at Cruise nightclub, St. John Street, Chester, where the city’s finest bartenders will reveal their latest creations.
Also helping to bring the tastes and smells of the Festival to the city centre, a series of theme nights, special family offers and accommodation promotions in city centre restaurants and hotels will all help to make Chester the focus of food and drink within the UK.
For more information about other events happening over the Chester Food & Drink Festival, please visit: www.chesterfoodanddrink.com.
Chester’s Food and Drink Festival is sponsored by Chester Racecourse and PR consultancy, Marketing Projects. More sponsors to be announced.
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CHEESE Notes:
The Competition is a celebration of the fact that Cheshire cheese, arguably one of the oldest cheeses in the world, has seen a huge revival in its popularity in recent years. Market share has climbed steadily over the past 12 months as punters realise that the pale, bland mass-produced cheese, which often carries the Cheshire name, bears very little resemblance to the genuine article.
Cheshire cheese dates back to Roman times and was originally said to be made in a mould shaped like a cat, later made famous as the smiling Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. When the Romans invaded Britain back in the 54 BC they found a hardy race for whom cheese was their chief diet. It is a recognised fact that the Romans built Chester due to the value they placed on the cheese produced on its salty plains (and to keep the Welsh at bay).
Mentioned in the Domesday Book, a favourite in the Elizabethan court and admired and written about by Charles Dickens, Cheshire Cheese continued to flourish and was considered the best in the country. While Romans are no more, the secret of the excellence of Cheshire Cheese remains, and, thanks to the award-winning efforts of producers such as HS Bourne and Joseph Heler, consumers are rediscovering the wonderful, true taste of Cheshire again.
The term ‘Big Cheese’ derives from a medieval term of envy for those who could afford to buy expensive whole wheels of cheese.
There are over 400 varieties of British cheese available. Approximately £1.5 billion of British cheese is bought annually. Cheshire Cheese is the UK’s largest selling crumbly cheese with sales of around 6,500 tonnes per year, this compares with Stilton’s sales of approximately 53,000 tonnes. Sales of cheese in the UK grew 1-2% during 2002 compared with 2001. However, compared to other EU countries, the UK is among the lowest consumers of cheese: consumption per head in the UK is roughly 55% of the average consumption in the other 14 member countries.
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