OPENING TIMES
Mon - Sat: 9:30am - 5:30pm | Sun: 11am - 5pm
Late night Thursday till 8pm
28-01-2009
Variety Show
02-07-2008
Doing More For Local Tourism
STORE FINDER
THE NORTHERN INGREDIENT FOOD HALL
- 01254 871025
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The Northern Ingredient is known as Oswaldtwistle Mills’ ‘Gourmet Visitor Experience.’ You could also say this is where you can buy ‘Proper Nosh’ – well, you are in Lancashire! Harking back to simpler times, three family-run enterprises enthusiastically provide locally sourced and specialist food and drink prepared with traditional methods and with the emphasis on taste and quality.
The Crumbly Cheese Deli, Ye Olde Sausage Shop and Rainhall Drinks Company have created a foodies’ haven: their counters, shelves and tasting tables a vibrant celebration of what’s been dubbed the ‘real food revival.’
The best-seller at The Crumbly Cheese Deli is, perhaps not surprisingly, Lancashire Crumbly and Creamy. But have you ever tried smoked Lancashire? Or the sought-after Blacksticks Blue, made at Butlers Farm in Preston. Maybe your favourite is Wensleydale with apricot, or with ginger and mango; or maybe it will be, after you’ve had a taste during your visit! The Deli has a superb range of olives, too; stuffed chilli peppers with feta, sweet African picante peppers and, let’s not forget their hand-raised pork pies, Mrs Bridges chutneys, locally produced honey (made by the bees of Bolton), the very special and versatile Lancashire Sauce (made by Entwistles of Ramsbottom) and a great range of cheese boards and cheese knives.
The proprietors of Ye Olde Sausage Shop have had a busy year. Recipients of eight gold awards at the BPEX (British Pig Executive in case you were wondering!), award finalists during British Sausage Week and renowned the country over for providing ‘Syn Free’ sausages, as classified by Slimming World, they continue to impress with their dual roles as both traditional butchers and innovators. Offering local lamb, pork and beef, mulled wine sausages and chippolatas for Christmas and year round fresh, quality meat with an added dash of good advice about cuts and cooking methods – one thing they won’t do is reveal their secret recipes!
Rainhall Drinks Company is a recent newcomer to the Mills, behind it, husband and wife team Alan and Penny. This award-winning duo whose off-licence recently beat major supermarkets to become ‘Best Beer Retailer’ are already making quite an impression. They are at the vanguard of a trend to treat beer like wine – matching beer to food and using specially shaped glasses to enhance the flavour. You’ll find 200 different types of bottled beers, lagers and cider on their shelves and that, says Alan, is just a starting point. Local favourites include Copper Dragon, from Skipton, beers from Bolton’s Bank Top Brewery and Lancashire’s own Bowland Brewery’s beers. All this before we’ve even mentioned the fabulous array of wines, presided over by Penny; the whiskies, ports and sherries and the rather special Gosset champagne, hard to find outside Harrods! Rainhall Drinks also create gift hampers to order, stock beer made by Trappist monks, Yorkshire crisps in tins...and, of course, run regular samplings!
Whilst we’re on the food theme, it can’t go unmentioned that the last port of call for many of our visitors, located near the exit, is Tasty Corner. Run by the Deli, this area is full of ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’. Here you’ll find Mrs Bridges jams and marmalades, Reedy’s jams, home-made right here in Oswaldtwistle (try the delicious Strawberry, Cointreau and Chocolate Mint Jam), Huntley’s ice-cream, parkin, plum bread, chocolate slab cake and, for what is cake without tea, traditional Lancashire tea. There is an excellent range of diabetic jams, biscuits and cakes – and gluten-free treats too.
The Northern Ingredient – real food and real Northern enthusiasm for food!
