Isle of Wight- The Garlic Farm

Here’s the deal: the MA is extremely time consuming. I’m having to read about 12 articles per seminar a week, which doesn’t sound like much but if you actually try to take everything in and make notes and all that jazz like I’ve been doing, it’s a long process. With PhD applications in and amongst everything else, I’m posting up two articles that I wrote last summer after I graduated. Those days were so warm and sunny, it’s nice to remember a bit of sunshine...

If Julie Andrews was forced to sing a song about my favourite things, I think she’d have a hard time. Garlic, cream and olive oil don’t rhyme very well. Plus they’re a cholesterol nightmare, but who cares? The magic properties of garlic are supposed to help with that.

My friend Lawrence lives on the Isle of Wight. With University finished and an expanse of a holiday before us, not to mention Lawrence dying of boredom on the Island, a road trip was in order. Cue a four-hour train journey to the sunniest depths of Warwickshire, where Roger and I drop in on Maddie and her equally mad family.  After meeting her lovely little stroke-riddled pooch, Buddy, Maddie then gave us a tour of her collection of grumpy horses before we finally met Grace, a big-eyed tubby sheep, blissfully remaining under the delusion that she’s a dog. After stopping to say hello, she followed us around the field, prompting us to continue scratching her big curly butt with a nudge using the full force of her big, warm sheepy body.

But we couldn’t stay at the Plantier ranch for long. The next day, after a long car journey and then a ferry, we made it to the Isle of Wight and met up with Lawrence, who was ignoring safety measures by excitedly leaning out of an upper storey window to greet us. Having sampled the delights of the pearl factory (don’t ask), gone for a paddle in the sea and tried a couple of walks (most notably Lawrence’s “easy” evening walk that ended up with us all falling over and down an enormous hill in the dark), our final day came, and we settled on the Island’s famous Garlic Farm for afternoon entertainment.

After an unnerving drive down a one-track road with no passing places, we pulled up outside the farm. Surrounded by lush meadows filled to bursting with wild grasses and blue cornflowers, it was a hay fever nightmare. And too hot. But in other words, the day was perfect (for normal people, who can stand a bit of sunshine without needing a lie down).  

The “farm” is comprised of numerous dinky buildings, definitely a yummy mummy’s dream. My dream too, what with that faint whiff of garlic in the air. After pausing to take our picture next to a giant bulb of garlic, we all hungrily ran into the shop to sniff around. Filled to the rafters with bulbs of all varieties, it’s a garlic lover’s paradise. Huge bulbs of “elephant garlic”, the size of a baby’s head; stacks of oak-smoked coffee-coloured beauties, varieties I’d never even heard of, all teased me with their stinky charms.

A little fridge was a treasure chest of garlic-infused cheeses and freshly harvested local wild mushrooms. A long line of handmade scotch eggs made my eyes widen and my stomach rumble. They have mad flavour combinations on that Island, I can tell you. The eggs ranged from apple and chutney to chocolate and chilli (hm, maybe not…). I stumbled away, trying to ignore their siren’s call. Homemade breads. Sugar coated doughnuts. Some serious money was about to be spent in that place, I felt my wallet shrinking.

We decided to hold off our purchases until we’d had a full look around the place. Cue a dash into the “tasting shed”, where we queued up to dunk crumbled crackers into various sauces and dips. The flavours were pretty good. While I thought that there was a touch too much vinegar in the homemade ketchup, the sweet and smoky barbeque sauce hit the right spot. Their mayonnaise tasted pretty good too. Heavy and thick, my favourite was their toasted garlic mayonnaise (even if it did taste just like the one I made for my best homemade chips). Maddie decided on a minty mayonnaise as a gift for her mamma, while Lawrence and Roger snaffled more crackers.

All of that tasting made us hungry, so we made another dash, this time for the farm’s adjoining restaurant. We sat outside and Maddie baked whilst Lawrence burned a little. I watched them in the sunshine, sneakily proud that I’d grabbed the only seat in the shade. Proud, but also a little ashamed that I was cruel and never offered my chair to them.

We ate some crunchy marinated garlic cloves while we waited. The boys were polite (and maybe a little disgusted by the idea) so Maddie and I shovelled in their share. The restaurant was busy on such a sunny day, so we had to wait a little while longer to be served but the mains came and they didn’t disappoint. I love the idea of serving food that you can buy later in a gift shop. So to have a potato salad smothered in the farm’s garlic mayonnaise, topped with crispy fried chicken wings smothered in fiery garlic chutney was just the ticket for me. Roger tucked into a huge steak, Lawrence a Caesar salad, while Maddie tried a risotto topped with roasted elephant garlic.

We managed to justify a dessert, explaining away our greed by reasoning that we were all on our holidays. Lawrence had the cheesecake, which made me jealous that he could handle something so huge and so rich without needing a nap. The lemon cake I chose was deliciously squidgy. Layered with a sharp curd and soft cream that complimented the sweet, yellow sponge, the top was a little crystallised, like it had been soaked in honey. A honey scent hung around the whole plate, so I’m guessing I was right. For a farewell lunch, it couldn’t have been better. Considering we were on a student budget, a lunch of around £18 didn’t really break the summer holiday bank, either.

After paying, we managed to waddle away in the sunshine to have a gander around the farm’s vegetable patch, overshadowed by the huge looming stems of purple garlic flowers. Trying to walk off our lunch, we decided to tour the fields, following a track down into the meadows. In full sun, and with full stomachs, it wasn’t the best plan we’d had all day. But we found a shady spot and sat down by a meadow to chat, accidentally leaving Roger behind, asleep in the long grasses when we left.

Having bought out half the shop, we squeezed back into the car and mournfully made our way back to the port to say our farewells. Lawrence caught a bus and we three needlessly stocked up on snacks in a supermarket before hopping aboard the ferry, back to normality. Back to essays and back to Northern weather. But I have that bottle of barbeque sauce in the fridge to remind me of the sunshine. And I’m pretty sure the memory of seeing both Roger and Lawrence fall down that hill in the dark will last forever.