richardbenson.com

THE BEST FOOD that Kevin and I have eaten on our travels has been the tea at the annual Farndale Suckler Sale in North Yorkshire.On the third Saturday of October every year, a group of weather beaten North York Moors hill farmers gather around a set of temporary stalls and show ring to in this beautiful dale. They bring the young cattle they have raised in the warm months, in order to sell them to their counterparts in the warmer lowlands, because the winter months are too cold for cattle on the moors. It is a salutary and humbling sight for outsiders, many of whom may believe that British agriculture is now only an intensive business carried out by people with little real bond with the land and their animals; here are men and women, old and young, for whom this has always been nothing less than a way of life. The food element also involves the sort of generosity and spirit - and cooking - that characterises communities such as this, and lies across across the road from the sale pens, in a small stone outbuilding. Local people make a spectacular array of cakes, pies and sandwiches that are laid out, sweet and savory together as per the Yorkshire tradition, and that still  include examples of traditional north-country girdle cakes and scones. We made a donation to a local charity, and then take a selection, washing it all down with tea served up by these beaming ladies from great brown teapots. Then we made another donation, and - well, you get the idea •