FOOD ADVENTURE: A TOUR OF WALES' FINEST FOOD & DRINK

Food Adventure is the brainchild of Carol and Mark Adams, the people behind the popular blog Corpulent Capers. Through their shared love of food and supporting local businesses, they arrived at Food Adventure, which offers guided tours throughout the often forgotten parts of Wales. Carol described the concept of Food Adventure best, "What we've done is taken our years of experience of going out to restaurants and basically say to producers, we want to create a great day out where people can come and meet you, learn about your product find great places to eat, products to buy, and figure out where to buy them."

We began our tour in Cowbridge at Bar 44, who supplied us with plenty of tea and cake to get us going for the morning. We then headed by mini bus to our first stop, Marcross Farm, which is a dairy farm run by brother and sister team Hopkin and Louise Evans. We were given a tour of the farm by Hopkin and Louise, who talked us through the various stages on the dairy-farming process, and had the opportunity to see the happy, stress-free cows that provide the gallons of milk that Marcross produces.

The part of the tour that was the most eye-opening for me was the inevitable discussion of rose veal. Hopkin and Louise explained that bull calf slaughtering was an unavoidable by-product of dairy farming and that raising the calves for veal ensures that no life is wasted, and explained the differences in the colour of the meat, which reflects the treatment of the calves.

With the afternoon fast approaching, we returned to Bar 44 for a 3-course lunch, featuring the Marcross Farm veal, roasted hake and a vanilla bean cheesecake. We were then whisked off to our next destination, Llanerch Vineyard, which is the home of the Angela Gray cookery school.

 We were graciously welcomed to the vineyard with a glass of rose and Angela chatted to us a bit about the school and the importance of using as much local and Welsh produce as possible. Angela delighted with an array of anecdotes, and guided us through a fabulous menu of savoury Welsh cheesecake, spring fish salad with leeks, slow roasted Welsh lamb with grape jus and chocolate dipped strawberries with a shot of Penderyn whiskey.

The whole day was an excellent reflection of what Wales has to offer, not just for food lovers, but for anybody looking to explore and discover a different side to Wales.

This is one adventure you do not want to miss!

Food Adventure has a variety of classes available. For more information vist: foodadventure.co.uk   For more pictures from the day, visit my Instagram page.