Wild Boar Week 27th Oct-4th Nov

Wild Boar Week – Join the feast!

 

Wild Boar Week is being hosted in Rye, the beautiful Medieval town being the perfect setting for this Medieval food festival.

Rye has many fabulous, ancient and atmospheric old buildings that have been serving the finest local foods since the 13th century so they know a thing or two about producing delightful dishes from the dark ages.

Choose between oak-beamed pubs with cosy open fireplaces or a variety of restaurants all showcasing local produce, many culinary delights will be served, from Rye Bay Plaice to Wild Boar! (well you can’t call it Wild Boar Week without having these tasty piggies on the menu!)

Go the whole hog

For those of you that wish to go the whole ‘hog’ (excuse the pun) during Wild Boar Week we recommend you stop off at The Ship Inn, built in 1592, this inn started life as a warehouse to store contraband seized from Rye’s smugglers. Now its a pub filled to the brim with character and serving the finest local produce.

To celebrate Rye’s Wild Boar Week The Ship’s specials this week will be based on the theme: The Whole Hog

Each day they will cook dishes using a different part of a pig – from more traditional ideas like slow roast pork belly, toad in the hole & home-made pork scratchings, to black pudding & fried duck eggs, pig’s ear & pea soup and stuffed trotters. But don’t panic – for the more faint-hearted / weak-stomached /non-meat-eaters, there will still be the usuals like local fresh fish, home-made pies, vegetarian options, and so on.

Pigs & apples have long had a very special relationship so to accompany The Whole Hog we’ll also be running a mini local cider festival featuring around 10 local ciders & Perrys throughout the week.

Hogtoberfest at the Ypres Castle

Next up on our wild boar week tour is The Ypres Castle Inn another of Rye’s characterful pubs, built in 1640 and is nestled under Rye Castle.

The Wild Boar Week menu at this old inn consists of Hock and Pea Soup, a trio of Wild Boar Sausages and Mash with Onion Gravy, Wild Boar Traditional Casserole, Wild Boar Chop, Bubble & Squeak and Black Pudding culminating in a medieval favourite of Loin of Wild Boar with usual Sunday Roast Trimmings.

I hope you are not boar-ed yet! (I can hear you sighing)

If the vast Medieval menus are too much for you then ‘trot’ over to the Old Borough Arms and rest your trotters (I can’t help myself) upstairs in the reception room (dating back to 1720) of the Old Borough Arms, a selection of Wild Boar Sausages with Old Dairy Brewery’s Wild Hop ale!

There will also be Wild Boar Sausages to buy so you can take your favourite boar bangers to your holiday cottage to barbecue!.

You will be stuffed as a pig after that lot, but, if you are finding all this a bit boar-ish (sorry) you will be pleased to know that the Medieval menus will also be offering all manner of game from partridge to pheasant and Rye Bay Plaice to Romney Marsh lamb.

I will be adding more details of the Wild Boar Week Inns, restaurants and their Medieval menus over the coming weeks, so keep your pigs ears open!

… and more than boar! Rye’s restaurants will be showcasing an array of treats from pheasant to guinea fowl, ale to mead. This year there will also be Wild Boar events including live music, quiz nights, art exhibitions and more!

Don’t forget, Wild Boar Week kicks off in Rye, East Sussex on Saturday 27th October 2012

So why not come and pig out at the Wild Boar Week Festival and eat like a King!

Want to make it a foodie break? then choose from our cottages here!

“And you can pook, and you can shove,
but a Sussex pig he wun’t be druv!”