Three Somerset cheeses and two regional wines completed the meal demonstrating, said the Castle's proprietor Kit Chapman, that no-one had to move outside the region to find the finest food and drink. West Country Cooking is not only encouraging hotels and restaurants to serve regional food, but has published a guide to more than 200 of them compiled by former Good Food Guide editor Tom Jaine, and two cookery books by Michael Raffael. A flair for finding a way around, over or under problems posed by changing economic or political circumstances has enabled them to survive and prosper, even in the most challenging of conditions. The Milk Marketing Board, one of the most innovative schemes of the pre-war years, was originally set up in Somerset to iron out the inequalities being suffered by producers who faced greater transport costs the further their farms lay from the towns and cities which provided their markets. The MMB is no more, of course, and farmers are now having to come to terms with what they were told would be the benefits of a deregulated market.
Larger producers have, undoubtedly, come out of the deal well.
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