No, it's not the start of a hilarious food themed joke. It's a pertinent question I was faced with on my arrival in the picture-perfect town of Bakewell in Derbyshire.
I had travelled north to spend the weekend at Y Not festival with my musical counterpart, Jen. As a way to ease us back to 'real' life on the Monday morning, we decided to take a detour en route home. A visit to the Peak District wouldn't be complete without stopping by Bakewell for a sweet treat. As you may realise, I find it nigh on impossible to pass up the promise of a product from a bakery. Factor in the local connection and the significance of a Bakewell from Bakewell, and my mission was clear.
We had driven through the extraordinarily green, rolling countryside crisscrossed with endless lines of grey stone walls that made me think I was in a painting of the countryside from the 1950s. Or that cartoon story of the sheepdog from 'Twinkle' magazine (if anyone can remember the name of that I would be very grateful as trying to recall it is driving me mad. And Google is not yet equipped for such vague descriptions). The scenery here is so quintessentially English countryside that it reminds you how stunningly beautiful our country is.
A fortuitous sat-nav detour took us through Chatsworth Estate. From afar we took in the grand sight of a very stately house set amongst some of the greenest hills in the land. My excitement was greater to see a herd of deer going about their business in a small valley, shaded by a few trees not far from the road. There had to have been at least twenty of them. A truly stately sight.
So, to the issue at hand. As we walked the streets of Bakewell, we surveyed the various bakeries offering a tantalising spread of goodies. We headed into one inviting establishment and stocked up. I opted for a Bakewell tart and a Bakewell pudding just to be on the safe side. We found a nice spot by the river to sit on the wall, sample our sweets and watch the world go by. Every other person who walked by seemed to be accompanied by a dog. All shapes and all sizes of dogs were lead by, trying to sniff out the crumbs dropped from our bakery paper bags. Good luck to them finding dropped crumbs from me. That pastry of my mini-tart was the crumbliest, butteriest that I've ever tasted. So clearly, every morsel went into my mouth. Good job Bakewell.
There was a street market in action on a cobbled area by the river. As we walked towards it, a tiny, elderly lady stopped us. She warned us to hold onto our bags carefully as we passed through the market. I thanked her for her forewarning but felt I had not much cause for concern. All that was left in my little strappy bag from the long weekend at a festival was a handful of Dolly Mixtures, hand sanitizer and a bunch of folded up loo roll 'in case of emergency'. I'm not entirely sure what sells well in the Derbyshire criminal underworld, but I was pretty sure my bag offered slim pickings.
In answer to my original question I invite you to skip forward with me a few days. The large Bakewell pudding I secured from a bakery in the famous town came home with me. This dessert of eggs, sugar and jam laid atop the case of flaky pastry served as afters for a family meal that week. Without the sponge of the tart, the pudding is most definitely a pudding, rather than the afternoon tea treat of the Bakewell tart. And boy is that pudding sweet. I like sweet, but even for me, it was verging on diabetes-inducing.
So apologies to the town of Bakewell, but I think I'll pledge my allegiance to the Bakewell tart, which apparently, the town of the same name has nothing to do with. Maybe they like things sweeter in the Peak District. But at least I know now. I know my limits. I'll stick with a cherry Bakewell. Good job Mr Kipling.
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