There is more to us than Yorkshire Puddings you know -celebrating Yorkshire’s local food

Of course, everybody knows us Yorkshire folk for our puddings . My #yorkshire Twitter feed is probably thirty percent about Yorkshire puddings, ten percent about Yorkshire terriers and the rest jobs/tourist info. The Yorkshire Pudding conversations are particularly virulent on Sunday’s. Casting an eye over it today, some are obsessive, some are funny and some are downright crazy. Here’s a selection:

@ElloZeezy “yorkshire puddings are my everything”

@scott_mills (Yes, Radio 1 DJ) “Pancakes went wrong. No milk. We are now about to have aunt bessies Yorkshire puddings with ice cream and nutella”

@WeSaySummers”The horrible moment when you fall asleep on top of a Yorkshire pudding”.

Erm, quite.

But it’s not just about our puddings. Yorkshire is a popular destination for foodies. There are five Michelin-starred restaurants (more than in any other county), heaps of ‘gastro’ pubs serving up fine plates that celebrate the best of our local produce, and there is a burgeoning industry of artisan producers working with local ingredients. We also can claim a few famous foods as our own.Here are a few of our favourites:

York Ham. Dry-cured from Large White Pigs, York Ham is said to have been cured in the same way in the City since the Minster was built, but sadly the last curer inside the City Walls, Scotts closed a few years ago. Happily, the name lives on. Jamon de York is particularly prevalent across Spain – it always seems funny, but comfoting, to see it listed amongst the long list of Spanish cured meat delicacies.

Rhubarb. The rhubarb triangle in West Yorkshire is a tight-knit community of growers. The simple rhubarb has recently been awarded the Protected Designation of Origin status by the European Commission and every year is celebrated in February in the annual Wakefield Festival of Food, Drink and Rhubarb.

Wensleydale cheese. Another Protected Designation of Origin product, the history of the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales is an interesting one and should be on any foodies list of days out in Yorkshire.

Liquorice. Started in 1760 in Pontefract by Richard Dunhill, who added sugar to a liquorice recipe and Pontefract Cakes were born. A bit like marmite – you love liquorice or you hate it!

Yorkshire Chorizo. Featuring in the One Man and His Campervan programme for BBC2, home-made chorizo in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. You can buy it online here.

Curry. Of course, we can’t really claim curry as our own, but Yorkshire folk love their curry and there are plenty of places for curry lovers from markets to restaurants. My favourite is the Karachi in Bradford, I used to love going with my dad to eat their beautiful dishes on formica tables using only Chapatis to mop the juices up with. Mmmm.