I am in Holt in Norfolk, East Anglia, a small town that does independent shops so well it should be held up as an example to all of England. It is one of the best places on Earth. But we venture a little out of town to the Morston Anchor where we have excellent fish and chips, and unfortunately eat so much of them I get the fish-and-chip sweats and have to go outside to deep breathe and be bitten by insects. A shame as dessert was going to be a deep-fried Curly Wurly. Another time.
The next day we go to one of my favourite shops: Bakers & Larners, a largely laterally sprawled department store which sells pretty much everything you’d ever need from terrariums to Clarins to screwdrivers to Roka rucksacks. It is fantastic and whenever I go to Holt, which I don’t do enough as it’s a bastard to get to unless you drive, I plan my whole visit around going to Bakers & Larners.
The food hall is stuffed full of crazy jams and pastas, colourful bottles of French lemonade, liquid herbs (I’d hitherto never heard of such a thing) chocolates, sweets and crisps the thickness of pennies.
Here, I bought some Doti Rhubarb in Chocolate, (£3.99, 100g) a combination I’d never seen before: small nuggets of candied rhubarb in 43% dark chocolate. Doti is a Polish company and they do other variations including chocolate-covered banana. B&L didn’t sell those, but they do sell chocolate-coated gooseberries, or the more traditional ginger, orange peel or figs. I really liked them, quite zingy; but one of my testers went quite properly crazy for the rhubarb saying it tasted really old-fashioned and almost ate the lot.
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